¶ … Nature of Death in Life
In the novels Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, death stands as a continuous presence, serving as a motivator, a metaphor, a threat, and a theme all at the same time. Death enters into each story as it takes one or more characters and so becomes something with which the remaining characters must cope, but even more than this, death stands as a constant presence in life, always threatening to end it, coloring the choices made by the main characters, and giving them reasons for making the choices they make.
In Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov explores both a vision of contemporary America and the internal psychology of the characters, looking both outward and inward at the same time. Indeed, the novelist links the two so that the liberal but plastic landscape of American life is both decried and emulated by Humbert. He sees through the plastic phoniness of much of American culture, but at the same time he relishes his ability to do so, his superiority in knowing more than those around him and in having a higher cultural sense, and the liberalism that permits him to behave as he does, indulging in his perversions while taking a high moral stance at the same time.
Part of that culture is a denial of death so strong that in some ways it can be seen as embracing death, as if that would enable one to control and overcome death. For Humbert, the plastic image of modern American culture is only a way to mask the underlying decay, while high culture in the American setting is represented by Edgar Allan Poe, a clear devotee of death, an explorer of its meaning, and a man who in some ways embraced death as something always existing within life. Humbert is a Poe scholar, and this is important because it evokes memories of Poe's...
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