The Many Personalities of Lolita and Humbert in Nabokov’s Lolita Although they are intimately involved, the title character of Nabokov's Lolita never fully reveals her true self to Humbert. Likewise, Humbert pours his physical love into Lolita, but he never reveals to his stepdaughter a self that is separate from his obsession with her. These two characters mask large parts of their personalities from each other and the rest of the world, creating different images and personas in regard to different people and situations. One assumption of post-structuralism holds that “persons are culturally and discursively structured, created in interaction as situated, symbolic beings.” In accordance with this idea that people are created by their culture and in their interactions, both Lolita and Humbert have different personalities in different situations and circumstances. However, they ultimately show a more continuous and profound self-existence than just as faces created in their various interactions. Post-structuralism is a theory containing a wide array of ideas concerning meaning, reality, and identity. Post-structuralism believes that the mind receives “impressions from without which it sifts and organizes into a knowledge of the world” which is expressed in language, or symbols (Selden, Widdowson 128). The “subject,” or person, “grasps the object and puts it into words”(128). Knowledge is formed from various types of communication which “pre-exist the subject’s experiences,” the subject existing as a being that is “not an autonomous or unified identity, but is always ‘in process’”(129). There are many assumptions of post-structuralism, but only one will be focused on here, in terms of Lolita and Humbert. This assumpti... ... middle of paper ... ...s of Lolita and Humbert to show the isolation and loneliness they feel, and to show just how different and immoral the situation is. By stressing the dissonance between one persona to the next, he portrays a view of his characters that is sad and shocking, for the public seen is also the reader; the unaware, innocent, “moral” group. By letting us into the different faces of Lolita and Humbert, Nabokov reveals the tragedy in the novel, and allows the reader to vividly feel what is morally right and wrong with Humbert, Lolita, and ourselves. Works Cited Lye, John. Some Post-Structural Assumptions. 1997. 5-2001. http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/poststruct.html. Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. New York: Random, 1997. Selden, Raman, and Peter Widdowson. A Reader’s Guide To Contemporary Literary Theory. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1993.
Throughout the short story, “The Lady with the Lapdog”, Chekhov’s strays away from the classical love story expectations by realistically portraying Anna's and Gurov's relationship. Chekhov follows the structure for a romantic tale to a bare minimum, but, ultimately, diverts from the commonly known aspects of a love story, as described by author Leigh Michaels’ “The Essential Elements of Writing a Romance Novel”. Chekok’s alteration from a classical love story thwarts the reader’s expectations by demonstrating realism and uncertainty found in human nature. Chekhov’s technique of applying a realistic lens on this couple raises more questions than answers, leaving much ambiguity for the reader’s own interpretation. By exploring the nuances in human nature, Chekhov illustrates a forbidden love that juxtaposes the universal rubric for what a love story should contain.
Finally, even though, for a long time, the roles of woman in a relationship have been established to be what I already explained, we see that these two protagonists broke that conception and established new ways of behaving in them. One did it by having an affair with another man and expressing freely her sexuality and the other by breaking free from the prison her marriage represented and discovering her true self. The idea that unites the both is that, in their own way, they defied many beliefs and started a new way of thinking and a new perception of life, love and relationships.
Many people believe the efficient market hypothesis is inefficient and Bloomfield presents an alternative to this hypothesis. Bloomfield posits the meaning of costly statistics is not fully revealed in the market. Some investors put more importance on some statistics rather than others which indicates that some statistics are less exposed in market prices. IRH essentially extends EMH by identifying extraction costs of statistics from publicly available data.
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reeseman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
In conclusion, by incorporating such rich detail and full imagery through scholarly grammar and vocabulary, Humbert Humbert participates in the act of manipulating his audience through his clever use of wordplay, confrontation, and delusions in order to escape fault for his immoral acts against an innocent girl. Although he is writing a memoir, Humbert does not hold back when it comes to his choice of words. Through his beautiful writing and poetic prose, H.H. is successful in influencing the horror of the true events in Lolita – concluding that through art, beauty can be found even in the most tragic occurrences.
Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.
The setting of these two stories emphasize, on visually showing us how the main characters are based around trying to find freedom despite the physical, mental and emotional effects of living in confinement. While on the other hand, dealing with Psychology’s ugly present day behavior showing dystopia of societies views of women during the time period they lived.
The 1920s were a time of change for the people of America, and they began with a boom. This boom was initially caused by the combination of America’s inherent rich natural resources and the First World War, and was further propelled by the lack of regulation on business as promoted by the Republican government and by new, different, improved methods of operation in business and industry. Though the boom would never have occurred without the initial causes, the boom would never have had such a profound impact on all aspects of economics and society as it did if it had not been for the revolution in industry and its effect on the state of mind of the American population. The main reason for the boom in the 1920s was the confidence and new attitudes of the population, which both caused and were caused by the boom, and which thereby sustained the boom.
Klages, M. (2006). Literary Theory: A guide for the perplexed . London: Continum International Publishing Group.
Harmon, William, and C. Hugh Holman. A Handbook to Literature. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1996.
There was an incident following Lolita’s success that had taken place during the 1960s that seemed to appropriately illustrate people's reception to the newly deemed classic. In his biography Vladimir Nabokov : The American Years, Brian Boyd recounts Nabokov remembering a disturbing event one halloween when a young girl came to his door with her parents dressed up as Lolita (Boyd).Whether her outfit replicated the popularized Lolita in Kubrick's 1962 movie adaptation, winged eyeliner and all, or her outfit encompassed the text Lolita’s “boy shirts” (Nabokov 46) and generally “rough tomboy clothes” (Nabokov 48), the child was parading an outfit of a young girl who had been raped and manipulated, exploiting a character with no knowledge or empathy
Both of the characters obsessions started in their early years of their lives. Young Humbert met Annabel when he was only thirteen, “[they] were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly,…, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by other’s soul and flesh; but there [they] were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do” (Nabokov 12). When Annabel and Humbert finally had the opportunity to “show” their love to each other, they were encountered by two bather...
Through two instances of the diamond image-- from Clarissa’s first reflective moment with Sally to the present moment, we can notice how Clarissa has shifted her identity from being a purely individual one to a more socially constructed one. After her youngster years when Clarissa spent more time in the domestic space and was not as affected by the outer world, she is supposed to enter the “symbolic order” which, according to Lacan, is the world of social interaction where a person further develops an autonomous identity through language, knowledge of ideological conventions, and acceptance of laws and dictates. However, as Clarissa enters the social order, she appears to be dissuaded to further develop a wholly autonomous sense of self. The
Because all individuals possess different sets of experiences and perspectives, their individual realities, or their interactions with and responses to their surroundings, differ accordingly. While the outside reality that exists independently from human interaction remains consistently unaffected by individuals’ perceptions, one’s individual reality can change and shift as a result of changes in perception that can be triggered by events, relationships, and interactions with others. Leslie Bell’s “Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Oliver Sacks’s “The Mind’s Eye,” and Martha Stout’s “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday” collectively address this idea that the realization of individual realities
Nowadays, by using computers, students can release pressure from heavy studying and complicated social relationships because we live in the digital age. However, if students lose control of the time that they spend on computers, the advantage of the Internet may change into the disadvantage. In the article “Surfing’s up and Grades Are Down,” Rene Sanchez states that those students who are internet addicts will probably get low grades or even drop out of school. Letting computers occupy students’ lives, having difficulty establishing social relationships, and even being dropped out of school are the three most prominent effects which result from Internet addiction.