In Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, Lolita, the narrator, Humbert Humbert, uses his possessive nature to prove himself as the “God” of all things including people, his fate, his desires, and language itself to disclose his pedophilic nature.
The entire novel is a memoir to a court jury that is following Humbert’s case of murder, harassment, and pedophilia. Starting the novel is the poetic line “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins” (Nabokov 9) already dragging the reader in as well as the jury. Calling her the light of his life almost makes the reader feel the strong emotion that Humbert feels for Lolita. The reader understands that he is deeply in love with this girl… (Mulready). Humbert even says that you can “count on a murder for a fancy prose style” (Nabokov), already suggesting that he’s aware in his way of voice and dialect… he is showing
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himself off as if he is “fancy” so he might appeal as so to his audience (Mulready). “Oh, my Lolita, I have only words to play with” (Nabokov 33). [Nabokov] uses poetry to describe Lolita on several occasions. “…heart was like snow under thin crimson skin” (Nabokov 58). He is manipulating his words to hide his improper reaction of Lolita eating an apple (Mulready). [Humbert’s] beauty in his words veils the harshness of pedophilia (Mulready). Humbert’s love for Lolita wasn’t much love, but more of an obsession with keeping her happy. After Humbert announced to Lolita that her mother was dead they made their way into a small village and Humbert purchased everything Lolita wanted (Nabokov). The presents were useless to her and she ended up sobbing into Humbert’s arms that night (Nabokov). Humbert begins to feel like a poor father and vows to protect her; “I want to protect you, dear, from all the horrors that happen to little girls in coal sheds and alley ways, [as you know very well, my sweet]…Through thick and thin I will be your guardian, and if you are good, I hope a court may legalize the guardianship [soon]” (Nabokov 158). Humbert has an obsession with control and that leads him to an awful life escalation (Bloom). “[He] is repeatedly a failure – as a lover, a husband, rival, father, and friend” (Bloom 83). He shows his obsession with possession and control at the beginning of the novel. He gets angry when he finds out that Valeria is cheating on him because, to him, that implies that she is independent, but he claims that she is him territory and no man should easily intrude (Gans). On the ride back to their home Humbert is contemplating whether he “should kill her, her lover, both, or neither” (Nabokov). Further into the novel Humbert is left with Lolita and he realizes that with her mother dead “she has absolutely nowhere else to go” (Nabokov 150) – and this makes Humbert extremely happy because he feels like he finally has full control over Lolita but as soon as she realizes the control she has over the situation she takes it. “’…this time we’ll go wherever I want, won’t we?’” (Nabokov 219). And because of his obsession with her, he is not fazed by this sudden request; “I nodded. My Lolita” (Nabokov 219). Oddly enough the confident and arrogant Humbert Humbert thoroughly justifies himself as to why he isn’t with someone older or around his age.
“Let me repeat this with quiet force: I was and still am, despite [my misfortunes], an exceptionally handsome male… I could obtain at the snap of my fingers any adult female I chose…” (Nabokov 26). He reminds us of this several times throughout the novel and he uses it to explain how he is able to beat any competition to seduce any woman he wants, he simply chooses to be attracted to “nymphets” (Gans).
Humbert Humbert only has two marriages throughout the novel if you ignore his obsessive one with Lolita. He marries Valeria for the unconventional reason that it would help him disclose his “desires” (Gans). In his second marriage, he marries Charlotte Haze, mother of Lolita, to get closer to Lolita. He has never had a true connection with either of these women. “[He slaps] his first wife, Valeria… and [wishes] she was dead” (Bloom 83), but he did not make a move to fulfill his wishes. “With his second wife, Charlotte Haze, he goes as far as planning her death by drowning” (Bloom
83). Humbert, at some small portions of the novel, wonders why he is the way he is. “Why does the way she walks – a child, mind you, a mere child! – excite me so abominably?” (Nabokov 43). Humbert knows he is a pedophile; “I, on my part, was as naïve as only a pervert can be” (Nabokov 27). “Suddenly her hand slipped into mine and without our chaperon’s seeing, I held, and stroked, and squeezed that little hot paw all the way to the store” (Nabokov 53). Humbert’s main skill is a performance that he uses to hide the unorthodox appreciation of young women, or Lolita in particular (Mulready). Humbert essentially hides the truth about his desires the entire novel, he even goes as far as to telling his psychiatrists that he has had dreams of men (Mulready). “…trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade; inventing for them elaborate dreams, pure classics in style…never allowing them to see the slightest glimpse of one’s real sexual predicament” (Nabokov 36). Humbert Humbert is sexist, murdering, controlling, overbearing pedophiliac who believed that sex and Lolita were the answers to every problem. He went his whole middle-aged life believing he was the “God” of all things when in a larger sense he was being controlled by everything around him; he was only a master as adjusting to the disasters.
In a restaurant, picture a young boy enjoying breakfast with his mother. Then suddenly, the child’s gesture expresses how his life was good until “a man started changing it all” (285). This passage reflects how writer, Dagoberto Gilb, in his short story, “Uncle Rock,” sets a tone of displeasure in Erick’s character as he writes a story about the emotions of a child while experiencing his mother’s attempt to find a suitable husband who can provide for her, and who can become a father to him. Erick’s quiet demeanor serves to emphasis how children may express their feelings of disapproval. By communicating through his silence or gestures, Erick shows his disapproval towards the men in a relationship with his mother as he experiences them.
Vogel’s writing exudes symbolism from the first word of the script to the last – from the rise of the curtain to its close. The glimpses into Li’l Bit’s past are sometimes explicitly and literally described, but Vogel also often uses extended metaphors to act as a detailed commentary on the action. Why, however, did the playwright choose symbolism to convey the effects of sexual abuse – as heavy as its subject matter may be – during the late twentieth century when seemingly nothing is censored in America? In order to answer this and better understand the way in which Vogel uses symbolism –in the smaller elements of the play and extended metaphors – the terms must first be defined.
In Aldous Huxley’s novel, “Brave New World,” published in 1932, two idiosyncratic, female characters, Lenina and Linda, are revealed. Both personalities, presented in a Freudian relationship (Linda being John’s mother and Lenina being his soon to be lover), depict one another in different stages of life and divulge ‘a character foil’. Lenina and Linda are both ‘Betas,’ who hold a strong relationship with the men in their lives, especially John. It can be stated that John may partially feel attracted towards Lenina, because she is a miniature version of Linda, in her youth. They both support the term of ‘conditioning,’ yet also question it in their own circumstances. Nonetheless, they both are still sexually overactive and criticized for such immoral decisions. Linda espouses it from her heart, while Lenina supports the process partially due to peer pressure and society’s expectations. Both female characters visit the Reservation with Alpha – Plus males, and both find a common feeling of revulsion towards it. Linda and Lenina are similar in many ways, yet they hold their diverse views on the different aspects of life.
The poem goes on to tell of the women, who "...haven't put aside desire/ but sit at ease and in pleasure,/ watching the young men" (Murray 837). This work obviously shows how the women lust after the attractive young men, and clearly are not in love; any one of these men could have been replaced with another attractive man and would have m...
Criticizing the cruelty of society, Baudelaire begins his book, Flowers of Evil, with a warning. To foreshadow the disturbing contents that his book focuses on, Baudelaire describes the unpleasant traits of men. Lured by the words of the Devil, people victimize others. Grotesque images of torture and swarming maggots exemplifies the horrors of our actions. Yes, our actions. Baudelaire puts shame to every human, including the reader, through the word “ours.” Humiliated, the reader dare not to allow himself to be guilty with the worst sin – boredom. Separated by dashes, the last sentence commands the reader to choose whether to fall to the worst or save himself a little bit of dignity. Accused and challenged, the reader is pressured to ponder
At the end of “Leopoldina’s Dream” by Silvina Ocampo, we find out that the story has been told, not by a human narrator as we may have assumed in our anthropomorphic self-satisfaction, but by a little dog who, along with his mistress, Leopoldina, has--Virgin Mary-like--been assumed into Heaven. We are left with the puzzle of where this story, this plot, this narrative enunciation, could have come from. Heaven? A dream of Heaven? The end crosses the means; the story undoes the plot. More, since the first part of the story concerns Leopoldina’s miraculous ability to bring back objects from her dreams, the tale, narrative itself here, resembles one of these objects, brought back, mysteriously, from some other place, dream world or Heaven. Leopoldina’s dream-objects, much to the frustration of the little girls she looks after, are poor things, stones, grass. The narrative, likewise, is a poor object, a mundane miracle, produced by the simple yet frustratingly seductive crossing of narrative options.
Not only does Huxley use sex and reproduction as symbols of stealing human rights early in life, but he uses it for their adolescent and adult lives. Strange and alien sexual control is showed at an early age in this society when children of a young age are told to be playing an erotic and sexual game. This continued push on sexual promiscuity, especially on women, is in stark contrast to our own soci...
The novel introduces HumbertHumbert, a man with charm and the dignity of being a teacher in Paris. Yet, we instantly find he is a sexually disturbed man, lusting for young, prepubescent girls. His perversions are obvious--we can tell from his journal--and the ideas are highly obsessive with the topic of young girls. His mind is always on his first true love, his young Annabel, who died a short time after his first sexual encounter with her. Humbert says, "I see Annabel in such general terms as: 'honey-colored skin,' 'thin arms,' 'brown bobbed hair,' 'long lashes,' 'big bright mouth' (11). This, in fact, becomes his outline for a nymphet, or a girl between the ages of 9 and 14. One who meets his strict criteria is to become a gem in his eyes, yet treated with the same objectivity as a whore. He considers them all sexual objects for his enjoyment because he is a man who wishes to dominate these girls at such a young age.
In his "On a Book Entitled Lolita", Vladimir Nabokov recalls that he felt the "first little throb of Lolita" run through him as he read a newspaper article about an ape who, "after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage." The image of a confinement so complete that it dominates and shapes artistic expression (however limited that expression may be) is a moving and powerful one, and it does, indeed, reflect in the text of Lolita. Humbert Humbert, the novel's eloquent poet-narrator, observes the world through the bars of his obsession, his "nympholepsy", and this confinement deeply affects the quality of his narration. In particular, his powerful sexual desires prevent him from understanding Lolita in any significant way, so that throughout the text what he describes is not the real Lolita, but an abstract creature, without depth or substance beyond the complex set of symbols and allusions that he associates with her. When in his rare moments of exhaustion Humbert seems to lift this literary veil, he reveals for a moment the violent contrast between his intricately manipulated narration and the stark ugliness of a very different truth.
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.
Humbert reminds the reader of his effectiveness at both seduction and therefore dominance early in the novel: “I was, and still am, despite [my misfortunate], an exceptionally handsome man.” (25) Even after all that he has went through, as this is written in his prison cell, he still claims to be as powerful as he ever was. And with such a disposition, he boasts of his ability to dominate the opposition by seducing any female, (even though he does so sometimes with exceptional motives.) He exemplifies it by wedding ...
Literary critic and the novel’s annotator Alfred Appel Jr. claims “what is extraordinary about Lolita is the way in which Nabokov enlists us, against our will, on Humbert’s side… Humbert has figuratively made the reader his accomplice in both statutory rape and murder” (Durantaye, Style Is Matter: the Moral Art of Vladimir Nabokov 8). Nabokov employs various literary devices such as direct second reader address, metaphor, and allusions through Humbert Humbert as a means to conjure up feelings of empathy. The reader comes to find that . It is clear that Humbert Humbert uses second person address as a way to control how the reader perceives him. Through the use of this narrative mode, he aims to convince the reader that his sexual violence is artistically justifiable and that the art he creates is a remedy for mortality. I will argue is that art is not a remedy for mortality because in Humbert Humbert’s creation of Lolita, t...
Aldous Huxley’s, “Brave New World,” explores the roles of people in society, morals concerning sexual activity, and other controversies in our reality. One of the principal characters in the novel is ‘John the Savage.’ John is a unique character in the story because unlike the other characters in the book, his emotions and morals were similar to those of the majority of our society. He felt emotions in a way others did not, and his morals can be regarded as ethically right (for example, he did not consider sex to be meaningless; in fact, he considered it an intimate act. Unfortunately, by the end of the story, John develops into a corrupt and barbaric man- the novel even finishes with the image of John whipping both himself and others, eliminating our prior perception of John’s character. This paper will analyse the themes and importance of the final moments of “Brave New World,” and explore how a person’s sexual experience is heavily experienced by their environment.
Clarice Lispector, a Brazilian female writer of Jewish descent, tied her writing with her very life, for her writing reflects her viewpoint on many aspects of her life. She was well-known for her existentialist writing involving themes revolving around women’s roles. Through the characters and their interactions in her works, Lispector explores the societal status of women. The male subjugation of women influences many of the themes found in her works and a better understanding of women’s social status ultimately leads to a better understanding of the relationship between the characters in her works and actions by those characters. Thus, the evaluation of women in the society contemporary to the era Lispector lived in influences the overall existentialist ideas and the motif of women’s roles in her work.
This essay will analyze and critique Michel Foucault’s (1984) essay The Use of Pleasure in order to reveal certain internal weaknesses it contains and propose modifications that would strengthen his reading of sexuality as a domain of moral self-formation. In order to do so, it will present a threefold critique of his work. Firstly, it will argue that that his focus on solely the metric of pleasure divorced from its political manifestations underemphasizes state power as a structuring principle of sexuality. Secondly, it will posit that his attention to classical morality privileges written works by male elites and fails to account for the subtexts that would demonstrate other forms of morality. Finally, it will argue that the nature of actors’ resistance to moral codes, explicated through Butler’s concept of iterability and signification, is an important factor that should also be considered. As a result of this critique, this essay