Analysis of Vladimir Nabokov`s Lolita PDF

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What is the effect of Lolita`s narration on the reader`s perception of the story?

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Abstract Vladimir Nabokov`s masterpiece Lolita, which evolves around middle-aged professor Humbert Humbert`s romantic and physically intimate relationship with his teenage stepdaughter Lolita, is a complex and challenging work of modern literature that provokes intriguing questions about the significance of the narratives of perspectives and their impact on our perception of moral questions evoked in works of literature. This essay will attempt to answer one of these questions: “What is the effect of Lolita`s narration on the reader`s perception of the story?” In real life, our experience of the world appears inseparable from the narratives we construct of them; yet in critically inspecting controversial pieces of writing such as Lolita, we may be able to distance ourselves from their narratives in order to gain a broader perspective on how the events are being described and what impression their description creates in us. This essay investigates the effect of Lolita`s narration on the reader`s perception of the story. In order to do so it will first explore the protagonist`s narrative. It will then go on to examine the way the characters are portrayed through different tools of characterisation in more detail. In doing so, it will not only, but primarily, focus on the way the description of Lolita changes throughout the novel according to the changes in her relationship with Humbert. The scope of the investigation is not limited to Nabokov`s novel as it will refer to secondary sources which are meant to aid our understanding of

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the novel. These materials include different websites and books as well as scholarly journals and research papers. Through the combination of these secondary sources and the in-depth analysis of relevant sections of Lolita, the essay will derive the conclusion that the novel`s narrative plays an essential part in our perception of the story.

Word count: 282

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Table of contents

Introduction 4 Humbert Humbert`s narrative 6-8 Language of defence 9 Language of nymphet 11-13 Language of the Other 13-14 Nymphet becoming the Other? 14-15 Conclusion 16 Bibliography 17-18

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Introduction Most of the novels written by Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), such as Pale Fire, Look at the Harlequins! and Bend Sinister do not have the intention of reflecting the real world as it is; on the contrary, they create their own reality by fostering the reader`s imagination in order to make them establish their own truth. Nabokov was a Russian-born writer and his first nine novels were written in Russian, “Lolita”, is his first novel written in english. In answering the question “What is the effect of Lolita`s narration on the reader`s perception of the story?“ this essay will analyse his deliberate play with points of view, language and perspectives which affect the reader`s perception of the events being described in the two parts of which the novel is composed. The two parts of which the novel is composed correspond through the literary devices such as repetition, duplication and inversion. The use of these stylistic devices characterises Humbert`s narrative and are among many other aspects, including plays on words, coined words and phrases as well as direct addresses to the readers, evidence for the skilful way in which he expresses himself in order to persuade his readers to understand what drove him to murdering Clare Quilty and raping Lolita. The narration can therefore be said to give him the opportunity to ask his audience for understanding and forgiveness. The first part comprises thirty-three chapters. These chapters again contain roughly three subparts: ten chapters proceeding from the protagonist Humbert Humbert`s experiences with his first love Annabel, to Dolores Haze (“Lolita”); twelve chapters discussing the move from Lolita`s mother and Humbert`s wife, Charlotte Haze, to Lolita; and the final eleven chapters in which Humbert describes his first sexual encounters with Lolita. Two events seem to stand out in the first part: the Annabel episode which takes place in the summer of 1923 and Humbert’s encounter with Lolita 25 years later, in the spring of 1947.

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The introduction of these female characters lead the unfolding of events as we more and more understand that Lolita is the metaphorical rebirth of Annabel. Time is either shortened or expanded; when Lolita is present, the narrative becomes more detailed and, as far as we can tell, more accurate. Days become as long as weeks in terms of the length of the corresponding bits of text. While the first 24 chapters cover 24 years of Humbert`s life, the description of his first and second sexual encounters with Lolita fill the final nine chapters (from Chapter 25 to Chapter 33).

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Humbert Humbert`s narrative The first point I would like to make is that Humbert Humbert`s narrative is characterised by its subjectiveness. With the exception of John Ray, Jr.'s prologue to the memoir, the novel offers only one point of view by solely reflecting Humbert Humbert`s (subjective) perception of the events described. Consequently, the way he experiences situations is always different from the way the other characters experience the exact same situation. The story is told as a memoir, almost an autobiography. Therefore it is important to realise that Humbert filters all of the information he takes in before he presents them to his “audience“ or the “ladies and gentlemen of the jury”, as he addresses his readers. This way of addressing his readers makes them feel more involved in the story, as if they are expected to fell a judgement about Humbert`s actions. However, there are also times when he talks about himself in third person - for instance when he refers to himself as “the widower” instead of I: “The widower, a man of exceptional self-control, neither wept nor raved. He staggered a bit, that he did; but he opened his mouth only to impart such information or issue such directions as were strictly necessary in connection with the identification, examination and disposal of a dead woman, the top of her head a porridge of bone, brains, bronze hair and blood.”

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This type of focalisation gives him the opportunity to seem more objective, pretending to depict the situation as it is. In this example which is his account of Charlotte's death, the third person narration enables him to prevent his audience from seeing his feelings, the impression we get of him is stoic, unattached from his emotions. The use of the third person narration thus emphasises his lack of feelings towards her. Another aspect which indicates that he is not 1 Nabokov ,p.98 LOLITA

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in love with his wife is that he refers to her as “a dead woman” rather than as his wife or by her name and describes her using the words "a porridge of bone, brains, bronze hair and blood." 2 This description shows that he does not look at her through the eyes of love, but with disgust. The alliteration in bone, brains, bronze hair and blood further contributes to the impression that he does not only feel contempt for the way she looks but that he also feels intellectually superior to her as he uses a stylistic device to make fun of her. In many places his narrative also seems to be a first draft. This is indicated by Humbert`s constant use of brackets, square brackets, exclamation points, hyphens and the way he presents his memories in a form resembling the form of a diary: “Saturday. For some days already I had been leaving . . . “3 “Sunday. Changeful, bad-tempered, cheerful, awkward, graceful . . . Monday. Rainy morning. . . 4 This kind of style makes it seem like it has been written in haste and has not been revised and altered yet which might be intended to makes us believe that Humbert is expressing his unfiltered thoughts. This is not only because he appears to be a self-conscious narrator, ("to retrieve the thread of this explanation”5), but also because it seems like he is writing in a stream of consciousness; both Humbert and John Ray often comment on their own thoughts and ideas: ”('Do the Senses make sense?')" 6.

2 Nabokov ,p.98 3 Nabokov ,p.48 4 Nabokov ,p.49 5 Nabokovp.124 6 Nabokov ,p.3 LOLITA

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“John Ray tells in advance what has happened to the characters within the novel. Consequently, this introduction is a prolepsis with respect to the following text, as it tells the reader in advance what has happened to those people who appear in the novel.”7 And since Humbert is writing after the events have happened, he sometimes mentions events which will occur later. Consequently, there are, according to Genette, several prolepses in his narrative.8 9 Therefore, on some occasions he foreshadows by directly commenting on events that will happen later in the novel: “Lo, leaving the dog as she would leave me some day, rose from her haunches.”10 “(…)to Louise and the poplars (whom and which she —Lolita— was never to see again)”11 Most of the foreshadowing however is less obvious, like the hint he drops on page fifty-three when he expresses his desire for a disaster to occur: ”I long for some terrific disaster. Earthquake. Spectacular explosion. Her mother is messily but instantly and permanently eliminated”12 This kind of foreshadowing created suspense his readers cannot flinch from.

Language of defence From these examples of Humbert`s narrative we can also deduce what is the already suggested in the character`s name; that there are two Humber Humberts; the Humbert who lives in the presence, experiencing the events as they occur and who consequently does not 7 ht t p: / / www. mi s cel aneaj our nal . net / i mages/ s t or i es / ar t i c ul os/ v ol 16/ bar r er as16. pdf( acc ess ed onMay29t h) 8 Gér ar dGenet t e,Fi gur esI I IPar i s:Seui l ,1972)24345. 9 ht t p: / / www. mi s cel aneaj our nal . net / i mages / st or i es / ar t i c ul os / v ol 16/ bar r er as 16. pdf( acc es sed onMay29t h) 10 Nabokov ,p.118 11 Nabokov ,p.66 12 Nabokov ,p.53

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know what is going to happen next and the Humbert who tells his story in retrospect, reflecting on past events in a seemingly more objective manner. Because there are two Humbert Humberts, there are also two realities; Humbert's and the one created by the way in which he narrates and reflects on his experiences. That way, we learn about a character who is also the narrator of the story. It is therefore only one of the Humberts who understands what he should, or rather should not have done when he and Lolita first arrived at The Enchanted Hunters hotel. “And my only regret today is that I did not quietly deposit key '342' at the office, and leave the town, the country, the continent, the hemisphere— indeed, the globe —that very same night.“13 Despite of being in the grip of strong emotions as he recognises his guilt, the way he expresses his thoughts in retrospect is meant to persuade the reader into thinking that he is reflecting on his actions in a more objective manner, with the benefit of hindsight so to speak. He identifies his mistakes; he should not have taken the keys, entered the room and made Lolita his lover. He expresses his thoughts in a seemingly logical, yet hyperbolic way as he makes a deduction, stating that he should not have existed on the globe in the first place. In this way he convinces the reader of the sincerity of his regret and desperation, a hyperbolic way of writing he continues using after having sex with Lolita, for example when he comments on her tennis skills, saying that she would have become a champion at Wimbledon “had not something within her been broken by me - not that I realised it then!”14

13 Nabokov ,p.123 14 Nabokov, p. 232 LOLITA

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It had become gradually clear to my conventional Lolita during our singular and bestial cohabitation that even the most miserable of family lives was better than the parody of incest, which, in the long run, was the best I could offer the waif.15

Language of nymphet In addition to the language of defence reggae is the issue of language of nymphet. Nabokov coined the phrase “nymphet” to describe Humbert`s first love, Annabel Leigh, who he starts idealising and looking for in every girl he sees after she dies an early death due to an incurable disease. “There might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain girl-child.” It is beyond reasonable doubt that the Nabokov`s creation of the character 15 Nabokov ,p.287 LOLITA

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of Annabel Leigh is an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe`s Annabel Lee poem, in which he describes his child love Annabel Lee and emphasises “the youth (…) of Annabel Lee, and celebrates child-like emotions in a way consistent with the ideals of the Romantic era”16 as many Romantics understood adulthood as “a corruption of the purer instincts of childhood”17 - an aspect that is of particular relevancy to the concept of nymphets in Lolita as well. However, according to Humbert, youth is not the only criterion girls have to fulfil in order to be considered nymphets. They have to have a special quality to them which struggles to put in words and are ought to be ethereal, otherworldly beings who are selective about who they reveal their true nature to. Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travellers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic.18 The way he refers to himself as “bewitched” further contributes to the impression that he is nothing but a passive, spellbind victim; not only of his desire for the nymphets but also of the nymphets themselves, as they cast inescapable spells on him. It is however, not until Lolita and Humbert have had sex that he claims that she was the one who enticed him into sexual activity: “I had thought that months, perhaps years, would elapse before I dared to reveal myself to Dolores Haze; but by 6 she was wide awake, and by 6.15 we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me.“19 Another remarkable aspect of his definition of nymphets is the fact that by describing their true nature as “not human, but nymphic” he suggests that they are detached from human conscience and thus incapable of corruption.

16 CANI, p. 1 17 CANI, p. 1 18 Nabokov, p. 16 19 Nabokov, p. 132 LOLITA

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While the most pubescent teenagers go through a phase where they are struggling with blemishes due to hormonal changes, nymphets are beyond wasting thoughts on their flawless complexions: “Sundaes cause acne. The excess of the oily substance called sebum which nourishes the hair follicles of the skin creates, when too profuse, an irritation that opens the way to infection. But nymphets do not have acne although they gorge themselves on rich food,” (43). Because Humbert projects the nymphet paradigm on Lolita and because we only know about her what we know from Humbert`s filtered and biased observations as there are no direct quotations from Lolita herself, it is only through Humbert that she exists - there is no way for her to exist on her own, which again makes her an object; the object of Humbert`s projection for that matter. However, he does not seem to be aware that he actively creates the nymphet in his head and he only understands at the end of the story that Lolita is not a nymphet but a young woman. He then remembers her as the illusory creature that used to occur in his dreams so often: “I saw her constantly and obsessively in my conscious mind during my daymares and insominas”20 Here he uses his coinage daymares (as opposed to nightmares) to refer to his many intense daydreams in which Lolita appears in disguise of his ex-wife Charlotte.

Language of the Other Another aspect that is relevant to the language of nymphet in Lolita is the language of their counterparts, adult women, who they are often contrasted with. Adult women are thus, among other characters, what makes up the Other in Lolita. The Other is a concept in literature,

20 Nabokov, p. 254 LOLITA

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commonly used to describe characters that are “perceived (…) as not belonging, as being different in some fundamental way”21. By defining other, older women the Other, Humbert perceives them as inferior to his nymphets; stiff and boring, somewhat less lively. Most importantly, he does not perceive them as persons with their own sexuality, which becomes clear when he addresses his adult female readers as “frigid gentlewomen of the jury”22 Another character who could be identified as “the Other” is Clare Quilty. Humbert thinks that the man whom he and Lolita meet shortly before they have sex for the first time has not only robbed him of Lolita; he is convinced that it was Quilty who made him Lolita`s lover that very night. However, it becomes clear that Quilty is not a separate autonomous character but rather a part of Humbert when Humbert confronts him and the men blend into each other as they struggle with each other. Humbert, describing their fight, says, “We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We rolled over us.”23 The way he mixes up his and Quilty`s pronouns suggests that they are one and the same person. It is thus murders when he murders Quilty that he punishes him for acts he has carried out himself. Some might also want to argue that throughout the novel, the character of Lolita becomes the Other. Although she is a person, her personhood is sometimes lost in the narrative. Therefore it is necessary to analyse the way how the image of nymphet changes into the image of the Other.

21The Other http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/other.html 22 Nabokov, p. 132 23 Nabokov, p. 299 LOLITA

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Nymphet becoming the Other? Part of the concept of nymphets is that they are not human and thus incorruptible. However, it seems the more Lolita knows, the more corrupt she becomes and the more corrupt she becomes, the more she turns from being described as the precious unearthly being into being described as an object, as the Other. In Humbert`s eyes she has already lost some of her innocence trough her prior sexual experiences which he finds out about on page 132. He drugs her with a sleeping agent, just like he has drugged her mother, because in his eyes some of her purity still remains as long as she does not know. The idea that the gaining of knowledge equals the loss of innocence creates a dichotomy between Lolita`s purity and her corruption. The extent to what Humbert is subject to this idea however only becomes clear after his sexual encounters with Lolita as the way he describes her changes. By permitting Lolita to study in Beardsley, he feels that he has „suffered her to cultivate deceit”24 as he thinks that her drama classes first and foremost teach her to betray him. Lolita`s shift from a person to an object can be linked to specifics events in the novel, from which onwards Humbert starts using language in a way that reduces Lolita more and more to an object.

24 Nabokov, p. 229 LOLITA

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Conclusion In response to my research question “What is the effect of Lolita`s narration on the reader`s perception of the story?“ I conclude that Humbert Humbert uses language not only to create an image of the scene in his readers heads and to portray the shift in his relationship with Lolita, but also to make his readers identify with him, and to deceive and manipulate them into taking his side. His narrative gives him the opportunity to ask his audience for understanding of his actions so that they might emphasise with him and so that he may eventually be forgiven. It also allows him to demonstrate the “purity” of his motives: “To be convicted Humbert needs only to recall facts, to be pardoned...