Introduction
Arguably the most controversial novel published in the 20th century, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is described as “a shocking book” by TIME Inc. (1958). After nearly sixty years, society’s views on the fiction do not seem to have changed a lot. Given the fiction’s sensitive topic, Nabokov encountered numerous obstacles in getting Lolita published in America (Boyd, 1991); its publication in China is even more complex. Part of the reason for this lies in the Chinese moral values and the nation’s conservative attitudes toward social taboos including sex and incest. Along with this, the complication is tightly related to the nature of translation.
André Lefevere (1992) proposes that translation is a rewriting of the source text, in which the relationship among various shareholders certainly influence the production of the target text. This is especially prominent in translating Lolita, which allows multiple interpretations; for instance, whether the tie between Lolita and Humbert Humbert is passionate love or destructive
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Some papers demonstrate crude analyses without limiting the research focus (Yam, 2011; Yan, 2009), whereas others employ a specific translation notion (Liu, 2013; Zhou, 2007; Chen, 2014; Ren, 2010). Besides, a few essays examine translations of the adapted movie (Zhan, 2010; Wu & Zhang, 2011), or Russian version of the fiction (Cechanovičius & Krūminienė, 2012). Despite the fact that there are existing academic researches on Lolita’s translations, they are rarely emphasized on how ideology in the social and culture setting interact with a patron’s ideology to impact a translator in creating Lolita’s translation. Hence, this paper will fill this gap by exploring the asymmetrical power relations between the publisher and the
“Se Habla Español,” is written by a Latin author, Tanya Barrientos; and Amy Tan, a Chinese author, wrote “Mother Tongue”. In both literate narratives the authors write about their experiences with language and how it impacted their lives. In This essay we will be discussing the similarities as well as the differences in the stories and the authors of “Se Habla Español” and “Mother Tongue”. We will discuss how both authors use a play on words in their titles, how language has impacted their lives, how struggling with language has made them feel emotionally, and how both authors dealt with these issues.
Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” is a short science fiction story that explores the principals of linguistic relativity through in interesting relationship between aliens and humans that develops when aliens, known as Heptapods, appear on Earth. In the story Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist hired by the government to learn the Heptapods language, tells her unborn daughter what she has learned from the Heptapods as a result of learning their language. M. NourbeSe Philip’s poem “Discourse on the Logic of Language” also explores the topic of language and translations, as she refers to different languages as her “mother tongue” or “father tongue.” Although these two pieces of literature may not seem to have much in common both explore the topics of language and translation and connect those ideas to power and control.
Lowe, Peter J. Texas Studies in Literature & Language; Spring2007, Vol. 49 Issue 1, p21-44, 24p Academic Search Complete Ebesco. Web. 23 July 2011
Translation is a linguistic science, but it occurs within a theological and moral framework. The issue is a sensitive one, as theology involves an obligation to the text and morality involves an obligation to the
On Translation and García Márquez – A speech delivered by Edith Grossman at the 2003 PEN Tribute to García Márquez.
You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. So says Humbert Humbert at the start of Lolita in his account to the "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury" (9). He refers to himself as a murderer (he is, after all, "guilty of killing Quilty"), not as a rapist, the far more serious offense Lolita levels at him. That I, and everyone else who reads the book, call Dolores Haze by the name "Lolita" demonstrates the efficacy of Humbert's fancy prose style - under the spell of his aesthetic mastery, we, the jury, must bend to his subjective vision through memory, and thus we see the twelve-year-old nymphet as Lolita, as she is in Humbert's arms. It is difficult to castigate Humbert when we see the world through his European eyes.
Vladimir Nabokov, the author of Lolita, a tale of a man and his superficial love for an adolescent girl. Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1899 but died on July 2, 1977 in Switzerland after writing a surplus of various novels, one of them being Lolita. He studied at Trinity College in Cambridge then moved to the United States where he received great recognition for his work as a novelist. Nabokov wrote Lolita because he thought it was an interesting thing to do and he liked to create riddles with “elegant solutions.” Nabokov’s tale was originally written in Russian as a prototype with few changes to the course of Lolita.
The interpretation of Lolita still consisted on the ideas of sex and the book as well as the character became a scandal. Nabokov has rebuffed sex themes since the beginning of the book’s publishing. In his famous interview with Playboy, Nabokov rejects the interviewer bringing up America’s sexual mores with “Sex as an institution, sex as a general notion, sex as a problem, sex as a platitude—all this is something I find too tedious for words. Let us skip sex.” (Toffler). His refusal to even talk sex proved how little his tolerance was when it came to humoring the audience about sex themes and sex related questions. In an interview with CBC during the early 1960s, Nabokov is quoted agreeing with an interviewer that believes “sex has become such a cliche, so that people can’t recognize anything else.” (...) which further shows how 1960’s mentalities could see nothing else outside of the realm of sex. In the same CBC interview, Nabokov disputes sex themes more openly and admits that his writing of the book has more to do with Humbert’s artistic nature and how that alienates him and creates unattainable love (...). While Nabokov wrongly uses a young girl’s abuse as a tool of illustrating a man’s “misfortunes” of being an artist, the novel is more than what the 1960’s audience perceived it to be. Nabokov did not intend to write a book about a fetish, nor did he, according to Playboy, wish to satirize American culture. The text included more substinance than what people perceived it to be and as did the character Lolita herself, who was more than a teen temptress. His writing of the book has nothing to do about sex, although his initial theme is flawed and an important example of men’s inability to write books featuring authentic female characters, unless they are being used as tools or over sexualized. And much like Humbert Humbert, no matter how hard Nabokov tried to manipulate the text, feelings of empathy still is evoked
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...
In Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, the overruling drive of the narrator, Humbert Humbert, is his want to attest himself master of all, whether man or woman, his prime cravings, all-powerful destiny, or even something as broad as language. Through the novel the reader begins to see Humbert’s most extreme engagements and feelings, from his marriage to his imprisonment, not as a consequence of his sensual, raw desires but rather his mental want to triumph, to own, and to control. To Humbert, human interaction becomes, or is, very unassuming for him: his reality is that females are to be possessed, and men ought to contest for the ownership of them. They, the women, become the very definition of superiority and dominance. But it isn’t so barbaric of Humbert, for he designates his sexuality as of exceptionally polished taste, a penchant loftier than the typical man’s. His relationship with Valerie and Charlotte; his infatuation with Lolita; and his murdering of Quilty are all definite examples of his yearning for power. It is so that throughout the novel, and especially by its conclusion, the reader sees that Humbert’s desire for superiority subjugates the odd particularities of his wants and is the actual reason of his anguish.
Vladimir Nobakov’s novel, Lolita, is the narration of pedophilic murderer Humbert, and his documentation of his “love story” with prepubescent Dolores. Writing from prison, Humbert frames this entire story to describe events from his point of view. Often, criminal offenders will give reason for why they act the way they do in order to appease society to dismiss their actions. Humbert is a prime example of this. Because the novel is written strictly in his point of view, this gives him power to relay the course of events to the readers in any way he chooses, adding or detracting details to make his “case.” There are many instances in the novel in which Humbert not only seduces young Dolores, but also seduces the reader as well to believing that
...rom Fiction." Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication. Comp. Susan D. Blum. New York, NY [etc.: Oxford UP, 2013. 443-58.
In human society, translation plays a significant role, which helps realize effective communication among people. Benjamin (as cited in Venuti, 2000) indicates translation is the mode, which plays a function of transmitting information; hence translatability determines whether the information could be effectively and appropriately delivered and is regarded as the “essential quality of certain works”. Throughout history, many scholars have developed translation theories, which provide various effective translation strategies and methods, to explore the translatability. Equivalence theory points out that all languages always share some similarities; hence the languages could be exchanged (Nida, as cited in Venuti, 2000). The skopos theory emphasizes
What is a word? How the translator deals with this gap? What influences his choices? These are few of the question we will try to explain in this paper. We will pay a particular attention to the cultural differences and the translational gaps raised from it. In my opinion the non-equivalence in translation is due above all by the cultural barriers that influence our lifes.
In the late 1970s, the focus of translation studies shifted to the process of translation as well as the receivers. Hans Vermeer is the founder of Skopos theory. As the Greek word skopos indicates, this theory stresses that translati...