Should the Reader Forgive Humbert? Essay

Forgiveness has a different context depending on where the person is from or what he believes. Religion places a great emphasis on the view of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not just practiced by saints and not only benefits its recipients but have strong connection with person’s physical, mental and spiritual health. It plays a great role in the health of families, communities and nations. Forgiveness provides common ground for love, acceptance, harmony and true happiness Most spiritual and religious leaders of the world will agree that forgiveness of oneself and others is one way to clear the mind, heart and soul and may result in a feeling of increased peace and happiness.

After looking past its controversial sexual nature, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita can be read as a criticism of the capitalist system. Nabokov uses the relationship between the novel's narrator, Humbert Humbert, and the novel's namesake, Lolita, as an extended metaphor to showcase the system's inherent exploitive nature in a way that shocks the reader out of their false consciousness, by making the former a man in the position of power - a repulsive, manipulative pedophile — and the latter a young female victim — as well as a spoiled, vapid, unruly child. Each is to the other nothing more than a commodity — Lolita being the perfect consumer and Humbert Humbert being a man of privilege who views others

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.

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

At first glance, one might find it difficult to draw comparisons between the two protagonists: James Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, and Humbert Humbert, from Lolita. Gatsby’s is the tragic story of a self-made man who built himself an empire for a woman who would never love him. Humbert Humbert, on the other hand, is a manipulative and witty pervert who lusts after the vulgar nymphet, Lolita. Both men are extremely similar in one key aspect, however. Both Gatsby and Humbert have idealized an encounter from their youth and that idealization has become a driving obsession in each of their lives.

In chapter 13 of the novel Humbert exploits and dehumanizes Lolita in an exchange where he discretely rubs against her until he climaxes. He justifies this objectification of Lolita stating that, “What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another, fanciful Lolita- perhaps more real than Lolita; overlapping encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will no consciousness- indeed, no life of her own” (62). He believes that he has not harmed Lolita in this objectification because she has no knowledge of the sexual exploitation that just occurred. However, Lolita’s perspective of the event is not voiced and therefore, we do not know whether she knew of his pleasures or not. In this instance, Humbert’s greedy desire for personal pleasure overpowers him.

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,

As one grows from infant to adult an even elderly age, we experience many events in life. One only grows from mistakes that are inevitable to happen. Like the Yin Yang theory, for instance, shadow cannot exist without light. Therefor forgiveness comes into play, it is defined as the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven. In The Sunflower, by Simon Wiesenthal: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness. It discusses the moral ethics of the matter of forgiveness. Questions are asked by Wiesenthal, what would you do? If a dying Nazi soldier asks for your forgiveness? Forgiveness can often be influenced by religious belief, psychological, and political point of view, one is always capable of asking for forgiveness or granting forgiveness to another, granted or not, one makes a choice and lives with that decision.

Firstly, Humbert’s views of Lolita, as shown in the quotation, reveal how self-serving and manipulative he is in regards to his relationship with “nymphets”. His writing’s tone and diction imply that he is a good person, or a least better than others attracted to young people. The phrase “so-called ‘sex’” carries a tone of condensation. He implies that most hebephiles pursue young girls for the sake of sleeping with them,

Humbert’s fantasy takes away her adolescence not allowing her to live her life properly. She doesn’t have a say in the novel shown by the fact that she has no dialogue in the novel. Another example, when Humbert's describes Lolita when they play tennis. “She was once an innocent but sexually experienced 12-year-old.” Lolita had been sexually active with a boy at camp. Humbert has interfered with Lolita’s development. She lacks complete self-awareness throughout the novel. Humbert steals Lolita’s sense of self.

Nabokov admire words and believed that the proper language could elevate any material to the level of art. In Lolita, language effectively triumphs over shocking content and gives it shades of beauty that perhaps it does not deserve. Lolita is filled with black subjects, including rape, murder, pedophilia, and incest. However, Humbert, in telling his story, uses puns, literary allusions, and repeating linguistic patterns to render this dark tale in an enchanting form. In this way, Humbert seduces his readers as fully and slyly as he seduces Lolita herself.

Through Humbert’s hypnotic yet problematic prose style, the readers are denied the comfortability of interpreting Humbert’s moral actions and thoughts as they become complicit in Humbert’s own sins and must enter his mind and ‘partake’ in his actions. This poses an interesting challenge for the readers who must then concertedly read against dominant storylines and exclude themselves from the mind of Humbert in order to observe the threats and violations of the basic human rights of Lolita. The duty of the reader is to thus observe the moral wrongs of Humbert and be able to relate it back to a broader social context.

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.

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