English 10
16 November 2015 Word Count: [ 1437 ] Lolita
The protagonist is a fifty-four year old man named Humbert Humbert, who is telling the story of his younger self at age thirty-seven and his fixation on girls much younger than himself. I found the story to have two antagonists. The first antagonist is actually Dolores Haze, “Lolita”. Humbert has a goal to maintain power over Lolita and who would want the control over her mind and body more than herself; making her Humbert’s antagonist as she is getting in the way of his one focus. I think the other antagonist is actually Humbert’s mind, which leads him to having an unhealthy fascination with the twelve-year-old, “nymphet,” Lolita. “Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as ‘nymphets’.” Humbert is always thinking about this obsession in his head. In the story Clare Quilty is a foil for Humbert. Humbert likes to think that above Quilty or that Quilty is a worse person than he is, but they actually have more in common than he would like them to. Quilty shares Humbert’s love of words and desire for Lolita. Quilty is a playwright and despite the deep resentment Humbert has for him, Quilty is the only one whose intelligence he even remotely respects. In addition to being a playwright Quilty is also a child pornographer, which is ultimately why he is interested in Lolita.

In Lolita, Humbert is from Europe, but the events occur in North America in the time span of five years, from 1947and 1952. The Haze’s live in a town named Ramsdale in New England, which doesn’t even compare to Europe. Their home is described as being “a white-frame horror…looking dingy and old.” Throughout the novel, they go traveling throughout North America twice with many stops at tourist sites and cheap hotels. During their two trips around the U.S. Lolita and Humbert become very familiar with “Sunset Motels, U-Beam Cottages, and many different Courts,” all of which provide a setting for their very taboo relationship. Since so much of what is described by Humbert is from his mind and filled with his imagination, the setting of the events is in Humbert’s head. Being told as a memoir of him, Humbert can tell the information in whatever light he chooses; mainly in a dark, yet romantic way. An example would be the “sub”-setting of The Enchanted Hunters hotel, which Humbert presents to the reader in a way that makes the place worth mentioning: “The Park was as black as the sins it concealed—but soon after falling under the smooth spell of a nicely graded curve, the travelers became aware of a diamond glow through the mist, then a gleam of lake-water appeared—and there it was, marvelously and inexorably, under spectral trees, at the top of a graveled drive—the pale palace of the Enchanted Hunters.” This is the setting where Lolita and Humbert first sleep together. As a young man, Humbert finds love in a girl named Annabel and they spent their time on the Riviera together. Their teenage summer love affair was cut short due to her parents, but still he takes a while to get over the death of his beloved Annabel before starting university in Paris. Years later, now at age thirty-seven, Humbert’s obsession with Lolita starts when he begins to live with her and her widowed mother, Charlotte Haze in America. Charlotte and Humbert marry soon after, and two months later Charlotte is hit and killed by a car, leaving Lolita in the custody of her new step-father, Humbert. Humbert and Lolita spend two years on a road trip across the country where they become intimate along the way. Throughout the course of the trip they are trailed by a man named Quilty, who left behind little clues only Humbert would understand leaving him to become very paranoid. Suddenly Lolita seems to have been kidnapped by Quilty, when in actuality she was the one who planned the whole thing. Humbert wasn’t aware of this and believed she was abducted, so he was prevented from seeing his step-daughter/lover for about three years. During those three years, Humbert practically drives himself mad with his continuous thoughts of Lolita. In 1952, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita and meets with her. Lolita is now married to Richard F. Schiller and pregnant, but Humbert still loves her and lives in the past with the memories of her “nymphet” days still in mind. After finding Lolita again Humbert also finds Clare Quilty and kills him, then gets arrested for driving on the wrong side of the road; while in jail he dies a few days before his trial began.
The theme of the book is appearance vs. reality; on the surface Humbert appears to be an artist, but the reality is that he is a pedophile. This is supported by: “The majority of sex offenders that hanker for some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily coital, relation with a girl child, are innocuous, inadequate, passive, timid strangers who merely ask the community to allow them to pursue their practically harmless, so-called aberrant behavior, their little hot wet private acts of sexual deviation without the police and society cracking down upon them. We are not sex fiends. We are unhappy gentlemen, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control our urges in the presence of adults, but ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet. Emphatically, no killers are we. Poets never kill.” In this quote Humbert calls himself a sufficiently integrated gentleman able to control his urges and ends with “poets never kill.” Referring to himself as an artist allows Humbert to justify his sick behaviors in his head. The reality of who Humbert is, isn’t really an artist, but in fact a pedophile. As you can see with wording like “throbbing,” “sweet-moaning” and “nymphet” he is clearly a disturbed person. What complicates the situation further is that Lolita is his step-daughter making what he is doing even more taboo.
Humbert Humbert is a man of many character traits, therefore making him a round character; he is a pervert, a madman, conceited, temperamental, jealous, vulgar, and violent. As a child Humbert’s first love was Annabel Leigh and since loving her he has shown a longing for young girls he labels as “nymphets.” He starts lusting after Dolores the first time he sees her and starts calling her Lolita as a term of endearment. Throughout the novel, he quite often blames Lolita for seducing him and pleads sympathy; however, it is clear that as an adult, he is the one with power. When Humbert kills Quilty he believes he is avenging the loss of Lolita’s innocence, but he doesn’t realize that it was he who had taken her childhood away from her. It isn’t until near the end of the novel when sitting in a jail cell Humbert admits his wrongdoing. Dolores (Lolita) Haze is quite a complex character as well. After first meeting Humbert, Lolita had become infatuated with him. She acted in a very flirtatious manner even competing with her mother for his affection. Lolita, in fact was the one who “seduced” Humbert into a sexual relationship. While Humbert tries to teach her to be more sophisticated; she never acknowledges the fact that Humbert took away her childhood because she has no self-awareness. Lolita ends up running away with Clare Quilty believing she was in love with him, but is thrown out when she refused to do child porn for him.
I don’t think Lolita is intended for a certain audience I think it depends on your maturity level and your basic knowledge/understanding as to what the novel is about. With that being said I definitely do not think this book is appropriate for children as it is quite clearly about pedophilia. I would mostly recommend this book for older teenagers up to adults because there is a certain level of maturity you should have when reading such a controversial piece. Also, it is filled with words that most people wouldn’t know or understand I’ve personally had to read it twice to even come close to understanding the novel. If you’re interested in reading this book I’d most definitely say go for it and don’t be discouraged if it’s tricky at first because in my opinion it’s a brilliant book.