To What Extent Does Vladimir Nabokov Use Humbert In Lolita?

Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita and Bret Easton Ellis’s novel American Psycho both show the stories of seemingly regular men based off of how they interact with people in their lives while in public view. The main characters from each novel are not normal functioning men of society. Humbert Humbert from Nabokov’s Lolita is a middle aged man who has an obsession with young girls around the age of twelve. Patrick Bateman from Ellis’s American Psycho is an incredibly narcissistic, egotistic, man who is an investment banker by day and serial killer by night. Both men have had a privileged upbringing.

Furthermore, Humbert further provides a dishonest narrative through his creation of a ‘grotesque theatrical character’ (Courtier 1996), in order to disassociate himself from the monster he truly is. This is aided by how Nabokov uses a diary-like structure to allow Humbert to experiment with his own format, for example ‘Main character: Humbert the Hummer. Time: Sunday morning in June. Place: sunlit living room.’ (Nabokov 1955) which resembles a script that Humbert himself has created when in reality he is reciting yet another lust-filled encounter with Lolita. Throughout this passage, and the novel, Nabokov switches from third person to first person narrative which further illustrates Humbert’s confusion over his desires, and how he

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

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

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.

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,

One aspect of ‘Lolita’ that may deem it unacceptable as being part of the literary canon or having any canonical value is its subject matter; a middle-aged man’s obsession with a twelve-year old girl. On the surface, this seems disgusting and creates a feeling of repulsion within the reader. But under the surface, there are connotations of deep, sincere love from both Humbert and Lolita. “…and I looked and looked at her and knew clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imagined on earth, or hoped for anywhere else.” Nabokov’s poetic elegance turn Humbert’s mentions of love into sweeping statements of an emotion that seems to be deeper than love. In a way, even after Lolita has left him at the end of the novel, Humbert writes his memoirs as if to ensure that

Through the use of gender roles, Marxist criticism, and new criticism, the reader learns that the character of Jake is persistent and insistent, as well as financially unstable. Dagoberto Gilb uses

The two passages, written by Humbert Humbert, describes two of his ‘nymphet’ loves. In the passage, both Annabelle and Lolita gets introduced. Read the passages carefully. Then, write an essay that compares H.H.’s perspective of the two characters to show his feelings on both of them.

There are several points where I disagree with Mr. Prescott about Lolita, but that was expected since this review was written in 1958. One point that Mr. Prescott makes is that the novel is disgusting and that, “to describe such a perversion with the pervert's enthusiasm without being disgusting is impossible.” He also states that Mr. Nabokov failed at doing so in Lolita, but I disagree. I actually believe that Nabokov succeeds in confusing the reader and makes the narrative of a pervert not as disturbing as most would think it to be. All of the french words and phrases used as well as the numerous uses of figurative language in the text distract the user from the disgust they feel about his perversion. One place where this occurs is in a small

Eric Goldman argues that while Humbert attempt to make Lolita into a sexual deviant that corrupted him, Nabokov instead, suggest that she is a normal female that is experimenting with her sexuality. He starts with explaining Humbert attempting to make Lolita in a sexual deviant, then he states that after its publication “many of the critics Humbert Humbert’s misogynistic interpretation of Lolita” (Goldman 87). Goldman believe that Lolita “sexual development is warped by a maniacal, myth-making pedophile” (88). Humbert makes Lolita into a deviant to justify his behavior towards her.

Exploring the experiences of individuals in extreme and in the case of ‘Room’, unconceivable aspects of life, the theme of manipulation is central to the progression of both Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’ and Emma Donoghue’s ‘Room’. Contrary to Donoghue, Plath stands as an autobiographical writer, drawing upon her own life surrounded with ambiguous identities and manipulation as the main motivation for her writing, such as the uncovering of her father’s hidden identity as a Nazi sympathiser. By contrast, while it has been bluntly concluded Donoghue’s work was spurred solely by the notorious Fritzl case, following one of the world’s most heinous

Author Vladimir Nabokov was born in Russia on April 22, 1899 during a time when socially acceptable rules were very different than what we practice in today’s society. During the 19th century in Europe, it was common for a man to marry a young girl of only 10 years of age. We can only speculate, that Nabokov writes about the sexual relationship between father and daughter as acceptable through the eyes of Humbert, since this may have been behavior that was familiar to him through friends and family in Russia and his travels throughout Europe. In this story, we can apply the postcolonial theory to the Western born Humbert to the colonization of Dolores Haze. The Europeans invaded America and wanted them to convert to their culture. They also help power over the new land and carried themselves with an air

From the first, he juxtaposes the ordinary with the sexual in his descriptive odes to love as well as simple statement reflecting her youth. The juxtaposition of youth and sexual desire is the driving force behind the novel and the controversy. The wording, however, is a mixture of romantic lyricism and obscene allusion. The tension is derived through the sensuous beauty of the words rather than the image of the young girl, just “four feet ten”. “The tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps” refers to Humbert’s tongue and the palate he wishes to “tap at three on the teeth” is Lolita’s. Evidently, Humbert’s clever choice of words masks the interdict aspect of his sexual desires for Lolita. Poetic lines such as “light of my life, fire of my loins” become fundamental in understanding the contextual allusion from immorality in Humbert’s deviant sexual desires and behavior.

effort to pick apart sentences in order to understand the story. Dahl used literary devices to create