STATEMENT OF INTENT: this year I studied a mixture of written and visual texts. I read many novels, short stories, magazine articles and I was further interested by some really powerful movies. All of these texts made a strong and long lasting impression on me, so I decided to submit one of my personal responses towards my writing portfolio for A.S 2.4. I selected complex texts among the top 10 masterpieces of the last 100 years. I believe my response will depict my analytical opinion on Lolita written by Vladimir Nabokov. The text also gave me an insight on the desires that we create ourselves. Willing slaves to ourselves, it is all a fantasy written by our own hands, whatever we shall choose to contrive. What a twisted and convoluted path those of pure heart must walk through this world. But this text also left me with more questions than answers that were addressed in the text.
First page of chapter one, I was deeply engaged in the text. Lolita has a powerful introduction that pulls you to read more and more. “Lo, Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta:” who is this Lolita I question, what makes her so unequalled to any other human being? Lolita is only a 14 year old girl. Humbert sees otherwise, he cannot resist her and yet is purely wrong. It is truly up to the reader to judge Humbert for his actions. In this text, you are the jury that must decide on the ethics that are presented to us. For this masterpiece of literature has a range of significant themes portrayed by the protagonist Humbert. Some of which include; the power and beauty of language, Obsessive desires and being a reader as jury. The significance of theme to us all serve the same purpose, to educate and help us understand other ...
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...owing common good before he/she realizes they won’t be punished if they do not follow laws. If Lolita was set in place like this. Humbert would not be standing before the reader/jury explaining his actions. The significance of this text that in life nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Incest, paedophilia and rape are a part of nature. The idea is the same but animals and humans view them differently.
This is important to note because if we were persuaded into living in a world with no common good, we would simply put of self’s at risk of becoming barbarians. While Lolita has a clear theme of realism, and the events in book do occur in our world. As intelligent species we must continue to follow a sense of common good because a simple act of persuasion like the text Lolita could influence someone to believe something obscure like ‘loving a child is ok’
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...
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.
After looking past its controversial sexual nature, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita can be read as a criticism of the capitalist system. Nabokov uses the relationship between the novel's narrator, Humbert Humbert, and the novel's namesake, Lolita, as an extended metaphor to showcase the system's inherent exploitive nature in a way that shocks the reader out of their false consciousness, by making the former a man in the position of power - a repulsive, manipulative pedophile — and the latter a young female victim — as well as a spoiled, vapid, unruly child. Each is to the other nothing more than a commodity — Lolita being the perfect consumer and Humbert Humbert being a man of privilege who views others only as objects to be used, or consumed.
Collins, Emily. “Nabokov’s Lolita and Anderson’s The Little Mermaid.” Nabokov Studies 9 (2005): 77-100. 10 Oct. 2006. http://muse.jhu.edu.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/journals/nabokov_studies/toc/nab9.1.html
What world are you living in? Over the past hundreds of years psychologists have been studying the functions of the human mind. It is a task that seems to prolong as information and new methods arrive. What makes us dream or imagine things? The fact that we have dreams and ambitions in life strives us to believe through imagining and dreaming that we will eventually get a break in life. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, is a novel that characterizes these types of situations. It implies similarity in plot and theme between Lolita and certain fairy tales. Furthermore, Nabokov implies the folk characterization in Lolita to show the paradoxical relationship of art and reality thus showing how real life people live out the lives of fictional fairy tales. It is also evident that because of the folkloristic material portrayed in Lolita, it is seen that man lives between two worlds, the imagined one and the true one. The image of Lolita had such effect on society in the way that pre pubescent children wanted to be like her, they wanted to be as pretty as her and wear those heart shaped sunglasses like her thus living in a world of fantasy. Even today's society still has, more then ever that Lolita syndrome thus causing a lot of pre pubescent kids to live in a fantasy world instead of the real one.
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.
...s of Lolita and Humbert to show the isolation and loneliness they feel, and to show just how different and immoral the situation is. By stressing the dissonance between one persona to the next, he portrays a view of his characters that is sad and shocking, for the public seen is also the reader; the unaware, innocent, “moral” group. By letting us into the different faces of Lolita and Humbert, Nabokov reveals the tragedy in the novel, and allows the reader to vividly feel what is morally right and wrong with Humbert, Lolita, and ourselves.
...e wide grey world, merely in order to have my way with her child (Lo, Lola, Lolita)” (Nabokov 70). While these were only his ideas he actually married a women, he even disgusted thinking about having any kind of erotic relationship. He even says humorously that anything sexual could only happen “under torture” (Nabokov 70). He was even thinking of killing Charlotte, but he could not do it, until Charlotte was accidently killed by a car and he got Lolita all for himself until Quilty took her from his claws.
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.
...has been proven and documented that Humbert is known to alter the truth and flat out lie when he is put into a tense situation in order to get himself out of trouble. Since a trial is usually used to decide whether a person is found guilty of his or her crimes it is only reasonable to believe that Humbert would lie in his narrative about his travels with Lolita in order to save and protect himself, thus cementing the fact that he cannot be trusted as a reliable narrator.
Therefore, it only seems fair to entertain the idea that Lolita might not be as much of a victim as believed. Throughout the story on many occasions Lolitas perceived innocence can be called into question. Firstly the fact that Lolita has had sex prior to her relations with Humbert speaks to her lack of innocence. This little twelve-year old girl tell Humbert that “I am thrifty and I am absolutely filthy in thought, word and deed”(114) which is something that no normal twelve-year old world tell man. She is also experienced in ways that even HUmbert himself did not expect. This shows a lot of maturity on the part of Lolita that world not otherwise be their if she was as innocent as she is perceived to be. In addition to her sexual maturity with Humbert she also has many other partners throughout their cross country road trip. Lolita confesses to Humbert that “I’m so sorry I cheated so much, but that's the way things are”(279). Considering she is still only twelve she seems to know a lot about how “things are” in life. Lolita does have a strong understanding of how Humbert works though. While she was with him she started using what he wanted against him. Lolita started charging Humbert in order for her to perform sexual acts for him. She world then keep that money hidden from Humbert and
Those of us who are readers and critics, she said, can be complicit in pigeonholing such writers with our expectations. We want them to write—in Shafak's case—of, or as, a Turkish woman. Her argument, however, is that this expectation is unfair both to the writer and the reader. Fiction is fiction—it is stories, imagination. It is, Shafak says, the chance for a "transcendental journey into other lives and other possibilities."
When a story is read there are many things the reader can take from the ending or the contents in the story. This is a powerful story that can be taken in by different angels and analyzed with different outcomes. Examples through the story can show signs of feminism and independent during a time where the main character of the story should be mourning she celebrated her freedom with guilt on her mind and happiness in her heart. The main character of the story shows complexity and different type’s emotions when faced with what most would think of horrible situation from one minute to the next. Symbolism is also shown in the story through the window that the character sits in front of showing that is a new and different view she will have. The story itself has a powerful meaning from beginning where she learns the death of her husband to end where she ends up passing away taking a sudden turn of events.
My relationship with writing has been an adventure having both its highs and lows—it has been complex. Yet through it all, I have been excited to learn, expand my vocabulary, learn new styles, and contribute to the ever-growing collection of literary work so that someone one day would benefit from my writing.
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.