Imorality Of Immortality In Lolita

The Immorality of Immortality in Lolita

All art is immoral.

- Oscar Wilde

With his 1955 novel Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov invents a narrator by the name of Humbert Humbert who is both an exquisite wordsmith and an obsessive pedophile. The novel serves as the canvas upon which Humbert Humbert will paint a story of love, lust, and death for the reader. His confession is beautiful and worthy of artistic appreciation, so the fact that it centers on the subject of pedophilia leaves the reader conflicted by the close of the novel. Humbert Humbert frequently identifies himself as an artist and with his confession he hopes “to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets” (Nabokov, Lolita 134). Immortalizing the fleeting beauty and enchanting qualities of these preteen girls is Humbert Humbert’s artistic mission

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...

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... is hard to believe that he was not in control and just “followed nature”. Furthermore, he claims that he was not even the first person to have intercourse with Dolores which minimizes his act of rape because he did not “deprive her of her flower” meaning she was already tainted so there is no crime in his having sex with her. Essentially there is no crime committed here because Dolores is not a victim according to Humbert Humbert.

[II] It is through Art, and through Art only, that we can realise our perfection;

[III] Immortality: “through Art, and through Art only, that we can shield ourselves from the sordid perils of actual existence”

-the refuge of art: his diary, the car, the hotels, his confession, and finally the novel.

-motels as refuge for sexual pleasure – sordid

-immortality that we may share my Lolita

[IV] All art is immoral. (“Critic as Artist” 57)