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, even when she is "passed her prime" at 17. He says to himself, "[a]nd I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imaged on earth, or hoped for anywhere else" (Nabokov 279). Humbert is capable of real love, or as real as it can be for him, at least, while Quilty seems to be an incarnation of the devil, an evil presence in both Humbert and Lolita's lives.
This evil is illustrated by his address, "Grimm Drive," and the nonchalant way he treats Humbert, even after he threatens to kill him. They become one at the end of the novel, indicating that without Lolita, neither of them are whole or complete, and so they have to meld together with their similarities to even survive. Nabokov writes, "He was naked and goatish under his robe, and I felt suffocated as he rolled over me. I rolled over him. We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We rolled over us" (Nabokov 301). The two characters become indistinguishable,...
Lolita An Analysis of the Repulsive in Nabokov's Lolita This paper will show why Vladimir Nabokov chose to illustrate a theme that is considered by many to be repulsive: it was a theme through which he could hold the mirror up to society and reflect what he saw happening in the world around him. When Nabokov's Lolita debuted first in Paris and then in America in the 1950s, it provoked one of
Lolita in Light of Sontag's "Morality" My experience reading Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was a pleasant one, an aesthetic experience that, as Susan Sontag states, appealed to my consciousness. Sontag suggests that art is better understood as something that "enliven[s] our sensibility and consciousness" rather than as a blanket statement of moral code. In other words, genuine works of art operate within the aesthetic sphere of experience and do not aim
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
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
Nabokov's "Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" is perhaps one of the most famous novels of the Twentieth Century. For not only did Nabokov dare to explore the forbidden subject of an older man's obsessive love and lustful desire for a young girl, he did so with sheer poetry and language mastery. Joyce Carol Oates once said that "Lolita is one of our finest American novels, a triumph of style and vision" (Oates Pp).
Vladimir Nobokov's book titled Lolita, is a story of a pedophilic romance between a girl and an older man. Famous for its eroticism and exploration of a taboo part of human sexuality, it delves into what makes a girl appealing to a man like Humbert and the consequences behind their affair. The novel discusses through a series of events, the sexuality of the 12- to 16-year-old Lolita and Humbert, a
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