Nabokov's Use Of Language In Lolita

Furthermore, as Lolita can be considered an open text and this paper is concerned with bringing female perspectives to the forefront of the novel, it is reasonable to apply traditional feminist theory to the text to examine Humbert’s marginalisation of women. In particular, this reading will be formulated through applying the work of second-wave feminist Kate Millett, which focuses on exposing the reprehensibility of patriarchal oppression. To begin, Nabokov consistently constructs Humbert to display misogynistic views. To illustrate this, in the scene where Humbert recalls his sexual excitement when Dolores laid across his lap, he fantasizes about being ‘a radiant and robust Turk…enjoying the youngest and frailest of his slaves.’ Due to the reader’s knowledge of Humbert’s affinity for ‘nymphets,’ whom he defines as girls between the age of nine and fourteen, it can be deduced that these ‘slaves’ are female. The word ‘frail’ holds connotations of debility, fragility and vulnerability. Through these negative associations, Nabokov has positioned readers to understand that Humbert views women as inferior to men. This holds relevance to Millett’s theory of female inferiority, through which she explains that ‘the female’s inferior status’ is ‘ascribed to her physical weakness or intellectual inferiority.’ Millett published her work in 1969 during the second wave feminist movement, whereby women demanded equality and challenged patriarchal ideologies regarding sexuality,

7. According to one of the characters in Azar Nafisi’s contemporary memoir, Reading Lolita in

This results in the narrative perspective of the novel demonstrating how Humbert attempts to conceal his true nature through, in his own mind, clever ‘adjustments’ to how the story is presented and references to historical figures who shared the same desires as him- ‘Oh Lolita, you are my girl, as Vee was Poe’s and Bea Dante’s’ (Nabokov 1955), yet often reverts to a disposition in which he laments about his monstrous desires. Not only this, but the comparison to famous literary greats suggests that Humbert considers himself to be of their status and thus possesses an idolized version of himself, a self which can easily transform language into ploys to conceal his true nature.

She takes in every word he says and joylessly laughs and smiles over every remark. The author uses gustatory imagery when saying she “drinks” in his words with “eager lips” as if she can taste every word. Red is the color of passion and lust, which is exactly the color she “paints her mouth”. The reader not only gets an image of a couple all dressed up with nowhere to go, but the author’s metaphor compares her to an actual painting. Like art the value of the woman has been based off objective beauty and not substance. Both her and her lover know their parts. He, like an actor to an audience “rehearse his loves to her” She in turn, pretends to be amused. She has fooled him into thinking that her take on life is light hearted, joyful, and not at all morbid. She knows that simulating happiness is much more appealing. She wishes that she could articulate her “staring eyes of nights,” but her and this man are not close enough for that. The man shares imagery of “fresh adventures” while she must conceal her inner thoughts. She envy’s his ability to travel alone. She longs to share these experiences rather than hear about them second hand. Possibly to stimulate arousal, he tells tales of other lovers along his travels. Her fake reaction of approval pleases him. She mustn’t say how it hurts to be compared to them. She meets the standard of a good girl- always

Too often Lolita is read from only one perspective, the perspective of monstrosity. “Nabokov the pornographer threatened to expose and corrupt others, particularly children, through the publication of a novel about unnatural desire” (Whiting 835). The tendency is for the average reader to become entangled in a moral debate, to take opposition to the seemingly criminal and amoral acts of the narrator, to condemn him for his blatant and grotesque sin. This surface analysis of the text was prevalent at the time of publication, delaying the release of the novel in the United States by three years. “Most reviews of the novel [Lolita] dealt with the narrow issue of its alleged obscenity. The novel was published three years earlier in France because Nabokov could not find an American publisher ready to risk publishing it” (Tamir-Ghez 65). Critical theory since this time has uncovered multiple layers of interpretation that offer much more meaningful analysis of the novel

195). He further describes it as "...a defense in which the internalized mother is split into accepting and rejecting aspects by which the person gains quasi-independence from her by identifying with her" (112). This idea is clearly illustrated in Humbert's relationship with Charlotte Haze. He clearly despises Charlotte as seen when he first meets and describes her: "The poor lady was in her middle thirties, she had a shiny forehead, plucked eyebrows and quite simple..." (Nabokov, pg. 37). He also describes her as Lolita's "Phocine mamma" (42). This is a zoological reference to seal-like animals.

Vladimir Nabokov’s provocative novel, Lolita, chronicles literature professor Humbert Humbert’s spiral into madness following his perverse infatuation with his landlady’s daughter. This novel was published in 1955 during the post-war period in America, whereby women were forced out of professional roles in order to undertake domestic duties. Nabokov was likely influenced to explore the male-dominant attitudes of this time through his construction of Humbert’s misogynistic perspective. On trial for murder, Humbert narrates this novel from his jail cell. As Humbert becomes the guardian of twelve-year-old Dolores Haze following her mother’s death, he takes this as an opportunity to fulfil his lustful desires and sexually exploit her.

In the book Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, to psychoanalyze the main character, Humbert Humbert, would take far too long. His craving for the “nymphets” stems from the loss of his very own childhood love, Annabel. At the age of 12, he fell in love with Annabel. However, before the two young children were ever able to become intimate, Annabel died. Humbert alleges that their failure to consummate their relationship is what impelled Humbert to subconsciously have these sexual wants for nymphets. In psychoanalysis, Freud explains that issues that develop during the time of adulthood are stemmed from instances that occurred during childhood. The inability to have sex with Annabel has become a subconscious turmoil for Humbert and as an adult, he is subconsciously trying to fulfill that void. Conferring

Although Lolita is not a romantic novel, many Americans view it as one or present it as if it is

Lolita, the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, tells the story of Humbert Humbert, who is a perfect example of a pedophile. Although the character Humbert Humbert describes his feelings toward the twelve year old Lolita as love, in actuality, it is obsessive lust. Nabokov does an excellent job displaying the characteristics of pedophilia through this character. Reading Lolita makes us conscious of the need to be more aware that pedophilia is alive and well in our society today. In developing this point, I will examine pedophilia and its clinical characteristics as they relate to Humbert Humbert and our society.

So far, so good. Having had intercourse with Lolita earlier that morning Humbert, not surprisingly, sees her as his victim, sees both her childlike innocence and the signs of his own brutal assault on that innocence. But at the end of the passage, Humbert's understanding of Lolita and her "lost innocence" changes radically as he proclaims her to

Beginning with Lolita, American society works greatly in Humbert’s favor for a few portions of the novel. He is an ambiguous European writer in the United States staying with a widow and her young daughter. Using that to his advantage, he is able to inadvertently charm Mrs. Haze and intentionally seduce Lolita or rather the nymphet that is Lolita. Even when Mrs. Haze discovers Humbert’s journal which details his true feelings toward her as well as her daughter, he isn’t as concerned as one would think he’d be, “you are crazy Charlotte. The notes you found were fragments of a novel.

It not only threatens, but also breaks through. Betrayed by love once in her life, she nevertheless seeks it in the effort to fill the lonely void; thus, her promiscuity. But to adhere to her tradition and her sense of herself as a lady, she cannot face this sensual part of herself. She associates it with the animalism of Stanley's lovemaking and terms it “brutal desire”. She feels guilt and a sense of sin when she does surrender to it, and yet she does, out of intense loneliness. By viewing sensuality as brutal desire she is able to disassociate it from what she feels is her true self, but only at the price of an intense inner conflict. Since she cannot integrate these conflicting elements of desire and gentility, she tries to reject the one, desire, and live solely by the other. Desperately seeking a haven she looks increasingly to fantasy. Taking refuge in tinsel, fine clothes, and rhinestones, and the illusion that a beau is available whenever she wants him, she seeks tenderness and beauty in a world of her own making.

The relationship between Annabel and Humbert is one marked with sexual restraint. Humbert describes an important sexual encounter, when they escaped to a mimosa grove while their chaperones play bridge, in great depth and it is this encounter that haunts Humbert for the rest of his life. Shortly after this moment, Annabel is called away by her mother and Humbert never gets to reach his sexual climax. He also never sees Annabel again because she dies of typhus four months later. Because of her death, Annabel is kept sacred and perfect in Humbert’s memory. The unsuccessful first tryst plagues the rest of Humbert’s relationships with women. Ellen Pifer reiterates this in her book, Demon and Doll, saying that “It is Humbert’s longing for the unattainable, for ideal perfection – what he calls the ‘rosegray never-to-be-had’ – that fires his imagination and fuels his desire for nymphet beauty” (68). This unattainable perfection which Pifer speaks of appears to be the ever-young Annabel.

Vladimir Nabokov, one of the 20th century’s greatest writers, is a highly aesthetic writer. Most of his work shows an amazing interest in and talent for language. He deceptively uses language in Lolita to mask and make the forbidden divine. Contextually, Lolita may be viewed as a novel about explicit sexual desire. However, it is the illicit desire of a stepfather for his 12-year old stepdaughter. The novel’s subject inevitably conjures up expectations of pornography, but there in not a single obscene term in Lolita. Nabokov portrays erotic scenes and sensual images with a poetic sensibility that belies the underlying meaning of the words. The beautiful manipulation of language coerces one to understand Humbert’s interdict act of