Is Lolita A Love Story Essay

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Is Lolita a love story?
Three answers
1. No. Lolita cannot be considered a love story because Lolita is too young to know what love is beyond what she sees in the media or any inklings of sexual urges she may experience, and for Humbert, this cannot be considered love because he is trying to find a way to replace Annabelle, and because he chooses, as an object of love, someone who is incapable of adult feelings. Additionally, Lolita is completely unable to say no to Humbert because of the power dynamic between them.
2. Somewhat. Lolita, in many ways, compares to something like “Romeo and Juliet”, in the sense that there is a forbidden love that leads to everyone dying. But, despite this allusion, it is not necessarily a love story. After Humbert …show more content…

No, Lolita is not a love story. Lolita is, in fact, mocking the stereotypical love story in how despite how everything seems to play out in just the right way that Lolita and Humbert are forced together, they are unable to find happiness together. Additionally, Humbert seems to be mocking the trope of “standing outside the window in the rain.”

Quotes
1. “I knew, of course, it was but an innocent game on her part, a bit of backfisch foolery in imitation of some simulacrum of fake romance, and since (as the psychotherapist, as well as the rapist, will tell you) the limits and rules of such girlish games are fluid, or at least too childishly subtle for the senior partner to grasp— I was dreadfully afraid I might go too far and cause her to start back in revulsion and terror.”
2. “I knew that I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not forever be Lolita”
3. ‘Lolita,’ I said, ‘this may be neither here nor there but I have to say it. Life is very short. From here to that old car you know so well there is a stretch of twenty, twenty-five paces. It is a very short walk. Make those twenty-five steps. Now. Right now. Come just as you are. And we shall live happily ever …show more content…

Are we to think of it as “The Princess Bride”? Where the two long lost lovers are reunited through what is essentially farcical chance, and ride off into the sunset to live happily ever after? Are we to understand love story as Romeo and Juliet? A love forbidden by the society in which they live in, and thus impossible, and results in the downfall of both characters? Lolita is certainly not a whimsical adventure of comedy and romance like “The Princess Bride,” but nor is it completely comparable to “Romeo and Juliet” because Lolita, at the beginning of her relationship with Humbert, is unable to love anyone in a romantic way, and as she does come of age, she does not seem to show any affection towards him

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