The Go-Between and Lolita are two novels that challenged childhood innocence and sexual experience. Childhood innocence is tested by child life experiences. Innocence can be depicted as the quality of ignorance. In this case, childhood innocence is portrayed through the ignorance of sex and maturation. Sexual Relationships between adolescents and adults are taboo and immoral. These relations usually have undesirable consequences for both parties. This paper will focus on the similarities and differences of two novels, in exploring sexual relations, childhood innocence and the significances of these relations. In Valdimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Dolores Haze, also known as Lolita, is an innocent, but sexually experienced twelve-year-old girl, …show more content…
In both these novels, the childhood innocence and experience were targets of the relationships and eventually lead to the consequences of the character’s lives.
The sexual relationships between the characters is one of the main themes that place in both Lolita and The Go-Between. In The Go-Between, Leo Colston is a sensitive introverted character. As we know, his crush on Marian was the primary influence on the choice of becoming a go-between. Marian’s main target was Leo’s emotional state. Leo was emotionally attached to adults. He does not fit in anywhere, he is an innocent boy who does not want to viewed as an innocent child. Marian knowing of Leo’s innocence as well as his crush on her, she used this to her advantage, even though it was wrong. Her being too blinded by love, she did not realize how greatly traumatizing Leo’s future would turn out to be. Later, you can see the effects of Leo being stuck in between a forbidden love. Causing the emotional and mental state of Leo to deteriorate, as seen here: “Ted’s outburst had almost obliterated Marians: it had finished off the demolition of my temporary emotional structure” (Hartley 212). Following this, he became paranoid and scared, getting into his head, that Marian would tell everyone about how childish he is and a shylock.
In contrast, Dolores Haze, has a different kind of relationship with the adult character, Humbert. They have a physical sexual relationship. Humbert is a mentally
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,
In chapter 3, he explains there are two different ways of remember people. There's recreating an image in your head while awake and there's recreating in your head with the great memories rushing through your head. Humbert uses parenthesis to explain the differences. He says, "and then I see Annabelle.)" when explaining [the open eye way.] He goes on and says," (and this is how I see Lolita)" after explaining the in depth way. He uses the parenthesis [to make you stop and think of how he thinks of both of them]. From the context, you [can pick out he liked] Lolita [a lot more than] Annabelle; although this [may be] the case, he uses Annabelle as an excuse for his love for Lolita. H.H. writes," All I want to stress is that my discovery of her was a fatal consequence of that 'princedom by the sea' in my tortured past." He writes this because he wants to make you think about [who it could be]. He uses "" around princedom by the sea [to make you] consider [who he could be talking about.] He's saying losing Annabelle "by the sea" [was what] caused him to love little
Sexual Revolution and Changing Adolescence The short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” by Joyce Carol Oates can be viewed as both a metaphor of the sexual revolution and its consequences on youth in the 20th century and a thematic image of the struggle to understand sexuality and vanity as an adolescent in modern society ruled by sexualized media. Oates published this short story in the 1960s, in a climate of post-war celebration and sexual revolution with the rise of birth control and the decline of sexual abstinence due to a less uber-religious America. This world context gives insight to the extended metaphor that is this story and also shows how this seemingly horrific story of a pedophile attacking a young woman is not what it appears.
The men who show their obsessions in Fear and Lolita do so in a more aggressive manner. Humbert, who has always had in interest in young girls, is instantly taken with Dolores, the 12 year old daughter of his landlady - “It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.” She is the whole reason for his decision to stay at the house, as he is initially put off by her mother, the domineering Charlotte. Humbert takes extreme measures by marrying Charlotte for the sole purpose of staying close to Dolores. After Charlotte’s death, Humbert takes Dolores on the road for an indefinite road trip. He is so attached to her that he becomes easily panicked when he is faced with the possibility of her leaving him. This causes him to be incredibly possessive over her, limiting her interaction with friends her own age to prevent
To do so, Levy turns to the experiences of several young women whom she interviews. From her interpretations of these experiences, Levy reaches the conclusion that these women’s sexual nature revolves around their need
Humbert Humbert’s Obsession of Dolores Haze Lolita is one of the Vladimir Nabokov’s most well-known novels. Nabokov is a Russian-American author, whose works have impacted popular culture. Lolita is one of the greatest novels in twenty-first century. It contains one of the most controversial characters in history.
Nabokov admired words and was a true believe in the fact that the proper use of language can heighten any piece of writing to represent a true masterpiece. In Lolita, Nabokov’s use of language in Lolita seems to over power the actual content and story being told, giving the story more beauty and praised than it should have based on what is being written about. Lolita covers many taboo’s written in beautiful pros such as rape, murder, pedophilia, and incest, but yet the novel is still considered to be a work of art because of the way the story is presented. “Humbert Humbert, in telling his story, uses puns, literary allusions, and repeating linguistic patterns to render this dark tale in an enchanting form.” Humbert successfully seduces his
The novel Lolita exposes the pedophilia and perversion in the text; however, the child pornography invoked is very similar to the abrasive ads, commercials, and images viewed in America. It seems sanctimonious that such a controversial novel because of the pedophilia, does not take into account objectifying young girls. Integrity is not the concern in Lolita; a novel that represents the exploitation towards the young girls is. While Humbert is a perverse and gruesome man that has pedophiliac desires, Lolita’s use of language, form, and contextual writing sends a message towards the extortion of young girls. To be more specific, in the article, Lolita speaks: ‘Sexting,’ teenage girls and the law mentions how Karaian considers Lolita to symbolize
In their work, author Vladimir Nabokov and director Jonathon Demme convey the assertion of male dominance in their respective texts, emphasising the idea of feminine inferiority. Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita looks at the story of paedophile Humbert Humbert who’s forbidden love for his step daughter causes him to take extreme measure into pursuing his love. Jonathan Demme’s thriller The Silence of the Lambs looks into Clarisse, a female FBI trainee pursuing her career in a male dominated field. Both texts analyse and identify the assertion of male dominance under the ideas of manipulation and objectification.
Lolita becomes ill, and is forced to go to the hospital. Humbert comes into the hospital one morning only to find that she has been checked out of by another man.
The use of language in literature can affect the way in which the reader interprets something. Language allows authors to manipulate the specific meaning he or she chooses to create. In the novel Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator, Humbert Humbert, employs language in a specific manner meant to stimulate emotion in the reader. Rather than exposing him as a pedophile, the narrator’s altering speech is intended to accentuate the artistic nature for his inappropriate relationship with a young nymphette. This suggests that even the most alarming obsessions can be temporarily disguised by the splendor of his skills.
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
Over the course of the first section, Nafisi introduces us to the seven pupils in the group, recreating their discussions about two predominant texts: Nabokov’s “Invitation to a Beheading” and “Lolita.” In doing so, she makes candid connections between the novels read in class and the lives of the women reading them, and by extension, explores the links between literature and reality in general. The women’s covert discussions occurred weekly in Nafisi’s apartment. The women responded to their readings by discussing world politics, religion, and human rights in the context of their own country’s current state. During their meetings they discussed various books, all the while relating them to their own
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
During this time, the young female leans between two polarized state: maturity and innocence. She experiences biological changes, inducing the maturation of her body with notably the swelling of hips and breast. This inevitable natural episode induces girls to prevailing female representation as she enters the stage of ‘to-be-looked-at-ness’. On the other hand, despite their womanly body, for their young age, the girls remain childlike minded which promises the men dominancy to remain unchallenged (American Girl 1999, Lolita). However, this liminality, innocence and experience, endangers the stability of the established patriarchal structure. This figure simultaneously intrigues and derange: her newly acquired sexual power represents a threat for the society as she can use her body for disobedient purposes. This anxiety around teenage girls has been greatly expressed in American teen-girl narratives (Lolita, American Girl).