Humbert
In Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov creates the character of a clear anti-hero in Humbert, a man who has is guilty of pedophilia, possibly rape and murder. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to Humbert's narration of his affair with his stepdaughter, a "nymphet" named Dolores Haze or, in Humbert's mind, Lolita. For Humbert, the various forms of love he feels for the young girl are inextricably linked with his lust and sexual desires.
This paper examines the running theme of Humbert's sexuality and lust in Nabokov's Lolita. For Humbert, love can only be seen in the context of his powerful desire to sexually possess the object of his attention. Thus, he is unable to express any love for the teenage Lolita -- filial or romantic -- without turning her into an object of his lust.
The first part of this paper looks at how Humbert treated the other women in his life, from Annabel Leigh, Valeria, Charlotte Haze and the insane Rita. This section discusses how, for Humbert, the level of sexual attraction determines whether or not a woman would be treated with love.
The next part of the paper then contrasts Humbert's relations with these other women with his defining relationship with the nymphet Lolita.
This paper evaluates arguments that Humbert's Humbert's attentions were akin to pedophilia or rape or that his lust was brought on by its forbidden nature, versus other theories that state how Humbert's sexual desire is also an expression of his love for the adolescent Lolita. This paper argues that Humbert's willingness to commit murder on her behalf is proof that he not only lusted but also loved the nymphet Lolita. However, due to his tendency to maintain control in his relationships, particularly with Dolores and Annabel Leigh, Humbert's first-person narrative accounts should also be read with skepticism as to his interpretations of the motives and decisions of the young girls.
Other women
Lolita is by no means the only girl or woman in Humbert's life. In the novel, he details at four other females, all of whom shed light on his fascination with Lolita.
His responses to Annabel Leigh, Valeria, Charlotte Haze and finally to Rita also shows how his responses to nymphets are also necessarily creative, psychologically unbalanced and very sensual.
Annabel Leigh harsh critic of psycholanalytic theory, Nabokov has always discounted theories that Humbert's lust for his Lolita was bought on in large part by his unrequited love for Annabel Leigh, the girl he has longed for since he was 13 years old. However, a closer reading of Humbert's narration and an examination of her very name would show otherwise.
Humbert describes Annabel as "a lovely child" (12), an outright admission that the preadolescent girl is not a woman. However, neither is Humbert a man during this time. Despite their efforts, however, their affair is never consummated, a reality which "drove our healthy bodies to such as state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water...could bring relief" (12).
Annabel dies only months later of typhus, the first of many sudden deaths in this novel, after the long-ago death of Humbert's mother. This loss of Annabel precludes any chance of Humbert ever "possessing (his) darling" (13).
This unrequited adolescent love affair essentially halts Humbert's sexual maturity, and could have laid the foundation for his lifelong obsession with the preadolescent girls whom he would later term as "nymphets."
Annabel represents Humbert's first love. If his confession is accurate, then Annabel would be the only other female that Humbert truly loved, aside from his Lolita. One reason for this inference is the way Humbert tries to "possess" Annabel, both on the deserted French beach and later, even after her death. Critic Stephen Jay Parker attributes Humbert's "rift" to his inability to satisfy his sexual desires with Annabel Leigh (Parker 72).
Instead of a simple psychological motivation, however, critic Daniel Thomieres observes that a careful reader could see how Humbert can easily interpret these events as he wishes, to make himself sympathetic before launching into the details of his adult relationship with Lolita. As proof, Thomieres rightly points out that Humbert could not even recall Annabel's physical traits. Humbert has lost her photograph and admits that the way he sees Annabel in his mind is also "the way I see Lolita" (11). Through the first person narration, Thomieres also discerns that Humbert does not let Annabel speak for herself. In a sense, Annabel provides "(her) bod (y) and den(ies) her mind so as to incarnate that fantasy for Humbert" (Thomieres 168). Humbert states...
It is very clear that he can be much more dark and scheming than he seems to be. That is illustrated by just how far he will go to possess Lolita - marrying her mother and then literally abducting her after her mother dies. In addition, they both are tragic figures who never get what they really want. Humbert discovers he is capable of love, and that he loves Lolita,
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
Female Lolita Nabokov's famous novel, Lolita, would have some important and essential differences had it been written by a woman. A female writer would have created a more complex and sympathetic characterization for Lolita, expanding on Nabokov's treatment of Lolita as simply a vulgar personification of the qualities of the nymphet. The impact of Humbert's obsession with Lolita and their sexual affair would have been explored more thoroughly by a female
The novel vividly illustrates this event, stated as follows: The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That's when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver. The trigger
pervasive philosophies behind many postmodern forms of art and literature is the idea that human identities are defined more by their social circumstances than by any universal truths. The human is not a self-sufficient entity, but is built through social conventions. This notion reveals itself in the transitional postmodern works by Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov -- specifically, in Lolita and Waiting for Godot. Humbert is continually attempting to
fool's love in Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki Naomi (1924) by the 20th century Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki has often been anachronistically called the Japanese Lolita in that it relates the obsession of a middle-aged man for a much younger woman. (Nabokov's novel was published in the 1950s). Tanizaki's male protagonist Joji is somewhat younger than Nabokov's Humbert and the female heroine Joji is somewhat older (although still a teenager) than
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now