The Haunting of Clarence

    

   After finally finishing Lolita, I questioned why Clarence was so important over the span of the book. Clarence was mentioned multiple times by Humbert in either subtle or obvious ways. I wondered why he constantly kept referring to Clarence while telling his story of his love for Lolita. Then I finally decided that I knew why; it was because Humbert went mad after killing Clarence. Nabokov purposely made Humbert write his story this way to manipulate the audience. Humbert began writing this story about Lolita after all of the events that took place in to book happened. He constantly refers to Clarence by either speaking directly to him or telling the audience about him.

      After I had learned that Humbert had killed Clarence, it made more sense to me. Humbert was desperately in love with Lolita. The fact that Lolita did not love Humbert the same, but instead loved Clarence, killed him inside. His love in turn led him to murder Clarence. After killing Clarence, Humbert realized how wrong he had been all along. He realized that he took away a young girls innocence and hi love for her led him to kill another man similar to himself. Humbert could not live with this fact; it drove him mad. The idea of killing Clarence haunted him and he could not escape the thought of Clarence. Through this, Humbert constantly referred to Clarence in the book because he could not stop thinking about how his love for Lolita led him to kill.

Evolutional Peak

The ending of Lolita was thrilling. The conclusion of Lolita truly shows the evolution that Hummbet Humbert goes through. He understands that he is a terrible person when he calls himself a “pentapod  monster”. He understands that he had stolen/ruined Lolita’s childhood. He harvested Lolita’s childhood (nymphensy) for his own disgusting needs. However, he realizes that he can no longer continuing his merriment with Lolita; furthermore he needs to take responsibility for Lolita as an adult. The fact that he goes after Quilty is ambiguous to me because I am not sure what Humbert Humbert’s intentions really are. In one hand there is the idea that the reason he wants to kill Quilty and succeeds is because he wants to make sure that Quilty pays for kidnapping Lolita and harassing her which means that he is doing  it for Lolita. The other reason he wants to kill Quilty is because he took her away from him causing him to lose out on Lolita’s nymph stage which would be a selfish act.

Something To Wrap Your Head Around

After reading Lolita I am conflicted on who and what to believe. It seems that the fact that I am reading a pedophile/murder’s point  of view escapes me from time to time and I catch myself actually feeling some sympathy towards humbert humbert . I am not sure if what Humbert Humbert says can be so reliable, granted the gruesome details he goes into and the fact that he is in jail would lead one to believe that he has no reason to lie. But how does one even know if he is not exaggerating or twisting the truth for he could possibly just be insane. Also the idea that Humbert Humbert is a VERY pretentious person makes me wonder what lengths he’s willing to go to demonstrate how intelligent he really is. I keep playing with the possibility that Humbert Humbert story is a huge lie just to prove that he can make the reader believe he actually did the things he said he did. Since he conned have the characters in  the story what stops him from conning us.

A Father's Love

Note: I think James may have posted a relatively similar thing.

                In thinking about what to write for my final essay, it occurred to me that Humber has the same initials, H. H., as Lolita’s late father Harold Haze. Lolita has also lost her younger brother to illness. It was never mentioned how old Lolita was when her father passed away, and as far as I can recall there was no real mention of her father at all aside from when his death was spoken of. Lolita’s brother died when Lolita was a young child. Her father’s death could have occurred at any time from between the brother’s conception (though this seems unlikely) to just before Humbert appears (again, unlikely). Being that she never speaks of him one may assume that Lolita cannot remember her father and would only know him through stories and photographs if at all. There was also no mention of what sort of man Harold Haze was, which meant Lolita could have seen her father in nearly any man.

                That being said, when Humbert Humbert, another H. H., arrives at the Haze household, Lolita might never have wanted a sexual relationship but one of the father-daughter kind. All of the things which could be interpreted sexually change: Lolita grabbing Humbert’s hand in the car as she is yelled at by her mother is no longer a sexual advance but is now a child reaching out to whom she hopes could be like a gentle father for protection from her mother. When she runs upstairs and hugs him before leaving for camp, it was an example of a child’s unconditional love for their parent. Even when Lolita is older and realizes she is being the victim of abuse, she remains with him. And in the end she appears to harbor no hatred toward him.

                My thesis would have been something like “Due to her naivety and innocent nature as a child, Lolita had not realized Humbert’s intentions and looked to him not for a sexual relationship, but for a fatherly one in which she could trust him, feel protected by him and have the father-figure whom was absent throughout her childhood past.”

Final Response

Here guys you can post in the comments section you response to the following question. It should be about 2-3 paragraphs in length.

Explain, using support from the text, why Lolita is the greatest love story of our time.

Lolita's Electra complex

Certainly the love triangle that existed between Charlotte, Humbert, and Lolita is perverted. Charlotte loves Humbert, her husband, and Humbert loves Lolita, her child. Although I do not believe that the love between Lolita and Humbert is incest, I do believe that Lolita has an Electra complex. An Electra complex is not necessarily a sexual desire for one's father, but rather a desire for the man one's mother gives her affection to. Lolita and Humbert's mutual love does not exist until after Charlotte's death. This being said, according to Freud, with an Electra complex,  the girl begins to identify with and emulate her mother out of fear of losing her love.  Perhaps Lolita's sexual desire for Humbert started as a way of mourning her mother. 

This could be why Lolita moves on with her life. When one is mourning a dead loved one, it eventually passes; the void is filled. If Lolita had an Electra complex that emerged from the death of her mother, it can be argued that the timeline of Lolita's dying love for Humbert is directly correlated with the growing acceptance of her mother's death.

Humbert Humbert is Unrealistically Using Lolita to Fill a Void

Humbert Humbert and Lolita’s relationship failed due to their unstable foundation; Humbert Humbert did not court Lolita for the right reasons. As oppose to pursuing a relationship as a result of love, Humbert Humbert used Lolita as a replacement. Humbert Humbert’s relationship with Lolita was to fill the void in his life from the traumatizing mishap of Annabel’s unexpected death. Being that Annabel died when they were young, Humbert Humbert could not escape that time period; therefore, he had relations as a grown man with young children of Annabel’s age. Humbert Humbert fantasies Lolita being one in the same with Annabel and he will rekindle the love he once had. Inhibited by his fantasies, Humbert Humbert is unable to come to the realization Lolita and Annabel are two opposite females; thus, leaving Humbert Humbert and Lolita to have no foundation in their relationship other than sexual activities. Humbert Humbert mourns the loss of Annabel through his incest relations with Lolita until Humbert Humbert discovers the dissimilarities between the two and yearns for common interests. Humbert Humbert and Lolita become unamused by one another as their relationship ages. Humbert Humbert attempts to seek talents of Lolita that expand beyond those in the bedroom; he is unsuccessful in his findings. Lolita proves herself to be athletically challenged as she is defeated by tennis. Nor does she withhold the intelligence Humbert Humbert wishes as proven through her disinterest in the subject matters spoken about by Humbert Humbert regarding intellectual works of literature. Once again, Humbert Humbert's unequivocal unrealistic fantasies of the maturity in Lolita are overridden when he learns she has no athletic skill or when it is discovered Lolita does not express appreciation for the arts. Humbert Humbert yearns for a relationship that expands upon affection as he searches for a common interest and hopes Lolita shares the intellect he has on such matters. Humbert Humbert is forced to realize Lolita is yet a child. He expects to find a deep connection while he must come to the realization of Lolita's ripe mentality being that she is still yet a child. Humbert Humbert never lives his dream relationship of that he had as a minor with Annabel. After Lolita, Humbert Humbert courts other females such as Rita; however, this relationship is not long term much like that of his previous relationships. Perhaps this is due to the unrealistic expectations he has in fancying "nymphets" due to his previous heartbreak.

Humbert the Child

Humbert Humbert is nothing but a child. I think there is rarely a time throughout the book that we see Humbert step up and be a man. Everything about him is childlike.

First off, he is completely stuck in the past. He cannot get over a childhood love. So, he continues to prey on little girls in some demented way to regain the innocent love he had. However, it is not so innocent anymore seeing as to now he is in his 30s. It is not longer appropriate to date 12 year olds. Also, Humbert can't even step up in this relationship. Lolita has to be the grown-up. He sits back, watches and waits for things to happen. Like a kid. Lolita is the one to be--in some twisted way--the mature one and make the first move.

Secondly, what job does Humbert Humbert have? None that we know of. Especially since he went touring America with Lolita there was obviously no job holding him back. We know that he went to college, but I feel he spent most of college still chasing after his precious nymphs, like Monique. 

Thirdly, although this may not be the way children handle things, he kills Clare Quilty. He has no other mature way to handle the situation. He just goes out and kills him. I feel like he puts no thought into consequences just as a child would not.

Another point would be the way he handled Charlotte Haze's obsession. Haze quite obviously had a huge crush on HH and he ignored her. He ignored her just as a 12 year old boy would when an annoying girl swoons over him. If Humbert were an adult, he would have acted more appropriately. He could have confronted her and said he doesn’t like her. (Obviously this would make the book a lot less interesting and he would never become Lolita’s creepy Step-father, but hey maybe this whole creepy book could have been avoided.) An adult would have played the situation better.

The Validity of Incest

I feel like I’m definitely going to have some people verbally attacking me for this one, but the topic of incest has been bothering me since Charlotte died. I understand that Humbert Humbert committed numerous illegal and sickening crimes and I am most definitely not attempting to defend him in any way, but I can’t agree with the constant accusations of incest. Just to make sure, I looked up the legal definition of the word.

According to legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com, incest is: sexual intercourse between close blood relatives, including brothers and sisters, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, or aunts or uncles with nephews or nieces.

Although Humbert Humbert is viewed as a father figure by his friends, his acquaintances and Lolita, he is not her father by blood. Humbert became Lolita’s step father because he wanted to remain near her. He never desired to be her father and even if he did, it would still not be enough to categorize their relationship as incest. I can understand how characters in the book could assume that it is incest because Humbert convinced them that he was Lolita’s true father, but I think that the readers and Lolita should know better. Even Lolita refers to her relations with Humbert as “incest” towards the beginning of their relationship. I personally do not understand why she would accuse Humbert and herself of something even more vulgar than they are already doing. Once again, I feel the need to stress that I am not justifying pedophilia in any way. I’m just attempting to correct a common misinterpretation.

The Least Convincing Love Story of the Century

I understand that the assignment for the weekend is to argue why Lolita is the only convincing love story of the century, but I don’t feel that it is. I’m still going to write the response agreeing with the quote, but I do want to express my true viewpoints as well. 

Many argue that Humbert Humbert shows his true love for Lolita towards the end of the novel when he offers her money regardless of whether she goes back to him. I find it sweet and all, but I can’t see Humberts affections as anything more than an obsession. I just don’t understand how anyone could fall in love with Dolores. In my opinion, she is rude and intolerable. Humbert never spoke of Lolita without seeming lustful. There were never any intellectual conversations, never any common interests except for maybe having sex in the beginning of the novel. His main concern throughout the story was always making sure that he has Lolita with him so he can have his way with her. If he truly loved her, he would have allowed her to leave without her having to run away. Yes, he let her go when she was 17, pregnant and married to another man. But that was because he didn’t really have any other choice. For the majority of their time together, Humbert and Lolita’s “love” was a one way streak. Humbert obsessed over his little nymphet because of a disturbing fetish and Lolita stayed with him because she had nowhere else to go. Love is more than a physical attraction. No matter how physically attracted Humbert was to Lolita, he showed no signs of any other type of attraction. Love is more than sex.

What's with the doubles?

In reading Lolita and going over it in class, the idea of a doppelganger came up very often (Humbert Humbert, 1919, Vannessa Van Ness, etc.). I wondered why Nabokov even bothered putting all of these seemingly irrelevant and insignificant doubles in. It did not move the story forward, offer any insight into the mind of Humbert Humbert (except for maybe his pretention), or really have any impact on the story whatsoever.

However, after researching why he would use doppelgangers, I found out the context of the allusion. In German folklore, doppelgangers are usually meant to represent evil, danger, illness, and death.

What does this mean in context of Lolita? What is it saying about Humbert Humbert if his own name is meant to portray evil? I think that Nabokov, although he wrote a story in which the reader is supposed to sympathize with the pedophile, is subtly putting his own opinions into the story. In the beginning of the book, we said in class that it’s hard to believe that Nabokov is not Humbert Humbert, but maybe with the use of doppelgangers we can see that Nabokov is against everything that Humbert is doing, and we are supposed to think of him as an evil human being, rather than a misunderstood man in love.

Old Europe v Young America

While reading the novel I never really thought about the Europe versus American theme that Mr. V had mentioned at the beginning. Now, thinking about it, I do see how these ideas can come up.
Humbert Humbert, Europe, is a sophisticated, cultured man. He wants to expose Lolita to deeper, more artistic things but she cannot be bothered with it. His passion is wasted on her; She is vulgar and uncultured. But what she offers excites him while she is completely bored with him. While he travels across America with Lolita, he experiences freedom. He sees the freedom that America, and Lolita, have to offer and he longs for it.
On the other hand, there are negatives that HH sees in Charlotte Haze. Humbert Humbert is not interested in Haze. She is just a domestic woman who longs for the sophistication and beauty that is Humbert and Europe. Haze sees his high class and intellect and strives to impress him because she believes he can change her into a better person. She is desperate for attention despite her dry personality and low self-esteem. She casually drops the names of famous actors as if she knows them or horribly butchers french sayings. He mocks the superficiality and low-class of American culture that is exemplified through Haze. She is the epitome of the boring, uncultured America.
Although I have probably only made a minor dent in the ideas in this, it is an interesting topic. I;d really be interested in finding out more about this topic.

Humbert and Lolita: The Perfect Couple

Besides the whole creepy pedophile factor, I believe that Lolita and Humbert are good together. They both gave each other what they wanted.  It seemed as though Humbert was always admiring young girls from afar, like watching them play while he sat on a park bench. At most he might have had a fling with a nymphet before the girl came to her senses.  These instances lacked the romance and passion he felt when he was in love with Annabel Lee so he was never truly satisfied. When Lolita came along it was different. Lolita seemed as though she wanted Humbert as much as he wanted her, if not more. She initiated the romance by flirting and showing her interest in him. Humbert was not use to this so he did not react immediately and was instinctively uncomfortable.

     It seems Lolita benefited from this relationship as well. She obviously wanted Humbert’s attention (she wasn’t discreet with her advances) and he eventually gave her plenty. Lolita and her mother had a tumultuous relationship; therefore, she did not have a supportive family background prior to meeting Humbert. Humbert was not only Lolita’s lover he was her step-father. He sent her to school, gave her swimming, tennis and piano lessons. Although the relationship has numerous downfalls and dangerous qualities at least both parties got what they yearned for.  

The Real Villain

Now that I’ve read the whole book of Lolita I can tell you that I still do not feel anything for Humbert Humbert. Mr. V feels bad for HH and so does Charlotte but I still do not see it. He is a pedophile. I do not see the love that HH speaks about. Yes, he still thinks about Lolita often but after she was kidnapped he quickly gave up the search and began to prey on Rita. If Lolita did not contact HH I’m sure that he would have forgotten about her. I do not feel bad for HH. He set himself up for disaster since the beginning. I cannot feel bad for a man who takes advantage of an innocent woman in order to get to her daughter. I cannot feel bad for a man who assaults his step-daughter. Call me heartless but whatever happens to HH is what he deserves. I cannot fathom how to justify a person who assaults children.

The Voice of Humbert Humbert

Unlike the other novels that we have read, Lolita is written in first- person narration. Normally I would see this as nothing but another style of writing, but for Lolita it allows the most despicable character to be one to feel sorry for. Humbert Humbert is a disgusting man that has a desire to sleep with young children. From hearing the plot alone, I hated Humbert Humbert. As the novel went on the hate for this terrible man grew more and more. When the novel game to an end I still blamed him for all this misfortune in both his and Lolita’s life. However there are moments in the novel where Humbert Humbert is able to explain his actions or situation to the reader all because it is written in first –person narrative. A first-person narration allows the reader to see what the main character sees, thinks, and feels. We do not read the thoughts of any other character.  Due to the fact that it is written in first-person Humbert Humbert can set the tone for the situation and make it appear as if he were the victim, by saying that Lolita started everything. Whether he is speaking the truth or not, Humbert Humbert can show the situation how he saw it and make the reader feel bad for him. One moment where I felt the most sorrow for this man was when he said that he would give her money whether Lolita loved him or not, and that he had and always will love her. Humber Humbert showed the sorrow he felt and the love he expressed towards Lolita. First- person narration allows the character to change a situation and make the reader feel a certain emotion towards them, just as Humbert Humbert did in Lolita.

Lost In Childhood Love

Young children – between the ages of 9 and 14 – are at a fragile age where they learn to develop themselves emotionally, sexually and mentally. Any disturbance in their transition to adult hood could result in drastic problems, such as homicidal actions and corrupt adulthoods. In Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, the main character struggles with his monstrous desires for young nymphets.  This unwanted attraction began after his childhood lover drastically died, leaving the young Humbert lost in his dissatisfaction and loneliness. Due to his demented childhood, tormented with unsatisfied adult and vulgar fantasies, Humbert Humbert was never able to grow away from his desires for young girls into his adult life. 

Nymphs: A Dramatic Cover-Up

Early on, Humbert Humbert tells the readers that girls from the ages of 9-14 are not human beings. He says they are other worldly creature called a nymphs. To HH this mean the girls are much more mature and very aware of their sexuality. He believes that this is also a great reason to prey on little girls and try to have sex with them. It is his excuse. But I do not believe in this excuse for a second. For me, this actually makes me dislike HH. I feel the fact that he is trying to make up such extensive reasons and excuses is truly disgusting. I do like HH as a person most of the story, but I am appalled by his cover-story. He already admits that he is a repulsive human being for going after little girls, so he should at east step up to the full facts. In this respect he switches his stance a bit. One minute he admits to his vulgarity then the next he tries to plead to the read and say the girls are barely even human. He is preying on little girls, not nymphs, not other worldy creatures.

How should Lolita be portrayed?

     Before reading the novel, I first saw the 1962 film version of "Lolita." I found it highly amusing, and I especially loved Sue Lyon's portrayel of Lolita. She was suave, classy, sophisticated, sexy, and bratty all at the same time. Although I hated the actor playing Humbert, I thought that Lyon did an amazing job playing the little seductress. Then I viewed the 1997 remake, and I hated Dominique Swan as Lolita. She was awkward, over-dramatic, and made the character very unlikable. I found it amusing that 16 or seventeen year old girls were playing the 12 year old Lolita, but I guess that was only appropriate regarding what the character does in the story.

       Then I read the novel. After finishing the book, I went out and rented the remake again. I changed my mind. I actually liked the new Lolita this time around. Dominique Swan played this character almost identical to how I pictured Lolita while reading the novel. Her portrayel followed the novel much more closely than Lyon's portrayel. Lolita was an awkward adolescent, she was an over-dramatic teenager, and she was a very unlikable character. I thoroughly loved the 1997 film and thought it was an adequate adaptation  of Nobokov's novel. Although the 1962 film is less risque and it does not follow the book as closely as the remake, I still love the original film. The original is a funnier and lighter side of the story, and I love the performances of the actors playing Lolita, Charlotte, and especially Clarence Quilty.