Vladimir Nabokov‘s Lolita was published in 1958. A classic, Lolita has always been surrounded by controversy for its purported eroticism and lewdness. Humbert begins the book confessing his crimes. He describes his youth in Europe where he found his first love Annabel who later dies. He suggests his first bumbling sexual experience on the beach with Annabel, which is the precursor for all his later obsessions with nymphets, girls between 9 and 14. He sits in parks pretending to read a book while he eyes nymphets playing. He marries an adult, but childish Valeria to cover his predilection for girls. No surprise, the marriage is a failure. Humbert suffers a nervous breakdown and ends up in a psychiatric ward. From the psychiatric ward, Humbert goes on an expedition into Canada.
When he returns to civilization, he claims to experience more insanity leading to another stay in a hospital, which he quite enjoys. He “trifles” with the doctors, playing them much like Nabokov plays the reader. Later Humbert, a literary scholar, moves to New England town Ramsdale to pursue his literary efforts. The family who he is supposed to board with tells Humbert that he can’t stay as their house has burned, but maybe he can stay with Mrs. Haze. When Humbert meets the boring Mrs. Haze, he immediately decides he will not board with her until he sees her 12-year-old daughter, his “Lo-lee-ta,” “Lo,” “Li,” “Ta,” his “Lo.” He spends all his time plotting how to be alone with her, and she encourages his attention.
When he returns to civilization, he claims to experience more insanity leading to another stay in a hospital, which he quite enjoys. He “trifles” with the doctors, playing them much like Nabokov plays the reader. Later Humbert, a literary scholar, moves to New England town Ramsdale to pursue his literary efforts. The family who he is supposed to board with tells Humbert that he can’t stay as their house has burned, but maybe he can stay with Mrs. Haze. When Humbert meets the boring Mrs. Haze, he immediately decides he will not board with her until he sees her 12-year-old daughter, his “Lo-lee-ta,” “Lo,” “Li,” “Ta,” his “Lo.” He spends all his time plotting how to be alone with her, and she encourages his attention.
But for all of Humbert’s talk about nymphets and “fire in his loins” (9), the book is not explicitly sexual. In the first eleven chapters, Humbert kisses Lolita’s eye and brushes her legs — not exactly Henry Miller. Also, Humbert is an extremely unreliable narrator, and he or more specifically Nabokov seems to be not only playing doctors and Mrs. Haze, but all of us. Nabokov uses elaborate wordplay, puns, and allusions, so the text often seems like looking into a funhouse mirror.
Discussion Questions
- How does Nabokov manipulate the reader into feeling sympathy for Humbert?
- How is the allusion to Poe and Annabel Lee used to reinforce the character of Humbert?
- Whose behavior seems more shocking — Lolita’s or Humbert’s?
—Ryan Steed
Nabokov makes the reader feel sympathy for Humbert by portraying him as poetic and almost victimized. Lolita and the other "nymphets" are described with great romance and poetry, while his negative and less than lyrical descriptions of adult women causes the reader to sympathize with his bias. Humbert is also described as attractive, dark, and brooding, and his first wife's affair and departure also puts Humbert in the position of the victim.
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