Should this novel be blacklisted?
L O L I T A
Understanding the enchanting brilliance of Lolita is a skill that is essential towards the discovery of human nature, denying it would be a selfish pleasure. Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, thoroughly captivates the audience through the use of language, teaches a lesson of maturity, and the confinements of intricate mindsets through the story of Humbert Humbert and his Lolita. This being said, Lolita should not be blacklisted as it comprehensively expresses the viewpoint of a charged paedophile with the combination of poetic prose and elaborate poems to express his story and persuades the audience to fall in love with Nabokov’s sadistic yet glorious work of art.
Lolita manipulates the use
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Lolita, a figure of maturity is an example of how a toxic relationship could change a child’s early experience. The relationship of Humbert Humbert and Lolita established in the beginning of her childhood also destroyed the essence of her childhood. Using Lolita as an example, this displays the importance of self-identity for an immaculate childhood, whereas without it, almost impossible for children to begin their lesson of self-exploration and maturity. Furthermore, Humbert gained self-awareness throughout his childhood which had succeeded in allowing him to grow up the way he did. In contrast to this, Lolita was exposed to a toxic relationship, which took an emotional and physical toll on her. As this novel demonstrates why childhood is a necessary factor, it can be used as an example in this era where adolescent and teenage girls push to grow up, to thrill seek in their adult lives, whilst forgetting to explore their childhood years and take value where it is needed. As this novel had not considered Lolita’s insight, it is evident that the childhood that she had not discovered was tainted by Humbert’s presence of his willingness to keep Lolita with him. “I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze / I cannot get out, said the starling.” Therefore, this novel holds a figure of great importance, Lolita, of why childhood is
In Knox County, Tennessee the tenth grade English class challenged the book in 2012. Parents of the tenth grade class wanted the book removed from the reading list. People think the book is pornographic, and fifteen year olds should not be able to read the book. “We ran with it to the TV room, closed the blinds, locked the door, and watched the movie...It opened with a women standing on a bridge with her legs spread while a guy knelt in front of her, giving her oral sex” (Green 87). The board of educat...
Of Mice and Men should be banned because of its profanity. An example of this is on page 11 say “you crazy son of a bitch” (Steinbeck). We wouldn’t want our students or children saying that in school to other students or at home. Another example of profanity is on page 71 saying “This is ...
well as claiming that it was "explicitly pornographic" and "immoral." After months of controversy, the board ruled that the novel could be read
Many people think this book should be banned because of profanity and adult content. I can somewhat see where these adults are coming from because they don’t want their kids seeing this. There isn’t very much vulgar
To ban a book means to prohibit educational facilities from accessing or selling the book due to the inappropriate context or misleading moral values. A book can be banned or challenged by including explicit scenes, words, or context. People tend to ban books based off of their perception of what “dangerous thoughts” may occur within the work. (Brown) For example, the famous nursery rhyme, Mother Goose, has been banned in multiple locations because she “lives in a shoe with her brood.” (Brown) Flowers for Algernon was banned in Emporium, PA; Oberlin, OH; Glen Rose, AR; Glenrock, WY; and Plant City, FL due to sexually explicit passages and language. I do not agree that the novel should be banned or challenged based on these allegations.
Although they are intimately involved, the title character of Nabokov's Lolita never fully reveals her true self to Humbert. Likewise, Humbert pours his physical love into Lolita, but he never reveals to his stepdaughter a self that is separate from his obsession with her. These two characters mask large parts of their personalities from each other and the rest of the world, creating different images and personas in regard to different people and situations. One assumption of post-structuralism holds that “persons are culturally and discursively structured, created in interaction as situated, symbolic beings.” In accordance with this idea that people are created by their culture and in their interactions, both Lolita and Humbert have different personalities in different situations and circumstances. However, they ultimately show a more continuous and profound self-existence than just as faces created in their various interactions.
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
Banning Books “It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written, the books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers” (Blume 1999). Judy Blume can not explain the problem of book censorship any clearer.
The novel, The Catcher In the Rye, should not be banned from inclusion in the literature courses taught at the high school level. Banning this novel contradicts an individual's inalienable rights as an United States citizen. It limits freedom of speech and as well as other forms of expression. Although controversial, profanity is not a reason to limit an individual's rights. America is founded on principles that are not fueled by exceptions. Profanity is not an exception to freedom of speech. The Catcher in the Rye should not be excluded from curriculums at the high school level.
Often when children are spoiled, they develop a sense of superiority to those around them. However, after leaving the closed environment of a household, the need for authority and supremacy can create unintended consequences imbedded with sorrow. The fallout from this misfortune is seen in “Why I Live at the P.O.” in the family quarrel that ensues due to the return of Stella-Rondo. Throughout the narration, the author asserts that because, the world is apathetic to one’s dilemmas, a shielded and pampered upbringing can only hamper personal development. Through the denial of truth that the family exhibits in attempts to improve relations and through the jealousy that Sister experiences as inferior to Stella-Rondo, the source of hindered maturity is exemplified.
Retrieved December 2, 2002 from Lexis-Nexis/Academic database. This article addresses some of the reasons that censors attempt to remove books from the curriculum: Many censors feel that works are not age appropriate for students. Staff, Wire Reports. (2002 October 3). Book banning spans the globe.
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...
...e. ""And Tango Makes Three" Tops List of Banned Books." Care2. N.p., 28 Sept. 2011. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.
Childhood can be a fragile thing. It is commonly believed that children see the world through different eyes. Everything seems fresh and interesting to them, where we become saturated with the details of our everyday lives. The eyes of Vittorio Innocente act as a safeguard, seemingly protecting him from truth and danger that he cannot see. Since the incident with the snake, Vittorio had noticed that his mother had been keeping to herself, working in the garden. However, he could not understand what was wrong with her, and could not figure out why the household seemed so empty. ‘…A veil seemed to have fallen between us, and for a while I had nursed this estrangement like a precious wound I could somehow turn to advantage; but the passing days brought only a growing awkwardness, as if my mother and I had suddenly become strangers, with no words now to bridge the silence between us’ (74). Vittorio’s ‘safety-goggles’ also help him when the gang of boys inv...
The elements at play in the novel and film are quite remarkable for their traditionally universal appeal.3 The fates of two adolescents, one jailed the other unwilling jailer, intersect and are soon bound together in a struggle for survival at the hands of unsuspecting enemies. The filmmaker's aim was to adopt a child's unadulterated point of view in referential opposition to the surrounding adult world. Given the suspenseful plot and the exploration of the young protagonists' fears at coping with a habitat they must disavow, such an aim and narrative scheme were expected to gather much attention.4 The pre-teens Michele, the novel's principal hero, and Filippo the kidnapped child are ultimately elevated from a pit of dirt and fear, the antechamber of death, chiefly by their own heroic praxis. Yet the problematic lack of any meaningful degree of depth in the novel and film seems to lie precisely with its overly schematic construction, tailored to safely weather the otherwise unpredictable market.