Freud in Lolita
The narrator of Vladimir Nabakov's novel Lolita, Professor Humbert, begins his story by recounting his childhood and the early stages of his sexual life, and particularly his experiences with his first love (or at least, his first obsession), a young girl named Annabel Leigh. Humbert recalls their sexual (mis)adventures together in some detail, and his description of this childhood romance closely echoes Sigmund Freud's formulation of the "infantile sexuality" in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. However, Humbert and Annabel are thwarted each time they attempt a coupling, and Annabel dies soon afterwards. This creates a rift in the young Humbert such that he is unable to appreciate girls or women until he meets Lolita, further echoing another of Freud's theories, this time of the oppositional instincts elucidated in The Ego and the Id. By analyzing Humbert's experiences with Annabel and the effects of her subsequent death in light of Freud's theories, it will be possible to see how Humbert's thwarted sexual desires coupled with Annabel's death instigates the character development that will ultimately lead to his obsession with Lolita.
Before addressing the text of Lolita, it will be useful to explicate the relevant portions of Freud's theories as a means of better understanding the details of the novel. The first concept to address is Freud's notion of the infantile sexuality that arises during "the infantile period of latency or deferment," which is the period of a child's development in which his or her sexual urges are sublimated upon being introduced into society at large (most often in the form of attending school for the first time) (Freud 45). This sexuality is described as infantile (even though it may extend up until puberty) because it represents the "fragmentary manifestation of...
She does not accept a world in which their native land has fallen and they have no emotional reaction to leaving it. So she negotiates an identity which has lost something. When her husband cannot accept this identity, and then apparently abandons her at the train station, she negotiates the idea of an identity that is strong enough to survive and find love and gratification and recognition without him.
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