Romance In Lolita

736 Words2 Pages

Savannah Fraser
Lumsden
ENG4U60
May 22, 2014
ISU Comparative Essay
“Lust is temporary… Without love, lust and romance will always be short-lived” (Steel). In Lolita written by Vladimir Nabokov, the protagonist and middle-aged professor, Humbert Humbert, becomes sexually involved with 12 year old and step-daughter, Dolores Haze, also known as Lolita. In Terry McMillan’s novel Waiting to Exhale, four middle-aged women are viewed at various points in their lives that all share one aspiration: finding romance. Impermanent sexual desires are exemplified in both irreconcilable novels. The protagonists are subjected to a misconception of true love through sexual obsession and the pains of a new society in the 20th century.
The male characters in the novels quest for romance through the use of dominance. In Lolita, the protagonist Humbert Humbert, believes that marriage will “...help [him], if not to purge [himself] of [his] degrading and dangerous desires, at least to keep [his women] under pacific control” (Nabokov 24). This shows that Humbert uses marriage as a mechanism not only to keep himself from pursuing nymphets but to control the women he has sexual relations with. In Waiting to Exhale, after eleven years of marriage, the protagonist, Bernadine, referred to her husband as a “selfish egomaniac” because he never allowed her to pursue anything of interest to her, which, also shows his controlling nature (McMillan 226). In Lolita Humbert becomes angry because his wife cheats on him. The cause of his anger is that a man could so easily take what he controlled and possessed for his own “comfort and fate” (Nabokov 28). Humbert felt like his territory was being violated and this exudes ignorance. This is also exemplified when Bernadin...

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...ist, Savannah, moves from Denver to Phoenix and experiences the social struggle of being a “successful black [woman]” (McMillan 28) in a white-dominated area
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan thoroughly demonstrate that the fallacy of romance is enhanced by dominant possession, sexual obsession, and societal standards of the previous century. What one can learn from the themes of Lolita is to increase the protection of children under the care of parents or social workers to prevent pedophilia, because whether or not Humbert was in love with Lolita or not, it was still morally wrong. Generally, a lesson can be taken from both novels to be careful in all aspects when it comes to acting upon feelings for a significant other because it can result negatively as it did for the some of the main characters in the second novel discussed.

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