Motifs
Hello everyone, and welcome back to my undoubtedly much-awaited third blog post about Lolita, starring the infamous Humbert Humbert and his nymphet. In this sickening yet still weirdly fascinating section of reading, Humbert committed some more completely atrocious deeds (when you think it can't get any worse, it does) and further attempts to convince his readers of his actions being justified and normal for him. Throughout this blog post, I'm going to talk about some of the recurring motifs in the book that have had plenty of time to develop throughout the three-quarters of the book that I have read so far.
As always, I'll start off with some plot summary. Humbert and Lolita travel around in their usual fashion, but Lolita is getting bold with flirting with other men/boys and Humbert really doesn't like it. The interesting thing about that is that he claims that Lolita hurts him by doing this, but the only reason that he really cares about her happiness in return if he's being honest with himself is when she's giving him something he wants (chiefly sex) and seems content enough while doing it. After all, even though Lolita cries through the night and he is fully aware of it, he doesn't stop what he's doing. Lolita and Humbert have several close calls of getting caught, so he decides to settle down with her and teach at Beardsley while she attends school. Lolita's schools values of socializing & dancing do not sit well with Humbert, who prefers Lolita all to himself, but he ends up having to reluctantly put up with it. As would be expected with someone who commits as many repulsive crimes as Humbert, he is extremely paranoid about their affair being discovered. Humbert really reluctantly allows Lolita to take part in her school play, a play he disapproves of but eventually allows her to take part in nonetheless. After a while, a blow-up occurs where Humbert discovers Lolita has been missing her piano lessons and they both fight vehemently about the life they both lead. Lolita demands to leave Beardsley and their home, and Humbert agrees. With that, they continue to lead a similar life to that of the one they led before: traveling all over and staying in hotels. Humbert becomes more and more paranoid that they're being followed, and he's hyper-sensitive to Lolita talking to men or any other people in general, particularly the ones that remind him of people he knows (for example, his uncle, Gustave Trapp). He discovers a weird parallel between "Clare something," the author of the play Lolita was rehearsing, and the play the two of them see at a theater, but he can't really put a finger on what's so weird about it (I get the feeling that this is going to be important, so I'm excited to see what happens). It gets to the point where Lolita and Humbert are definitely being followed by someone and Humbert starts carrying around a gun. Humbert sees the man following them several more times before Lolita gets really sick and has to go to the hospital. After a few days, when Humbert goes to retrieve Lolita from the hospital, he discovers Lolita has been picked up already by her "uncle" and absolutely flips out. He basically decides that since he has his gun, he is going to kill whoever took Lolita away from him. Cliff hanger, right?
One of the central motifs in Lolita is love. Humbert declares himself in love with Lolita many times, but when you think about it, the traditional and arguably "normal" idea of love does not involve any of the things that Humbert forces Lolita into. On page 186, Humbert tells the reader all about the very restrictive rules that he forces Lolita to follow (mainly concerning dating and socializing). He says, "She might visit a candy bar with her girl friends, and there giggle-chat with occasional young males, while I waited in the car at a discreet difference...". While most people's idea of love involves learning and growing with the other person, allowing them the freedom to live their own life in the manner they choose, Humbert does the exact opposite and makes sure to restrict Lolita from being a kid (I'll repeat: a kid, not a woman) as much has he possibly can. On top of that, the only perspective that we get the whole time is Humbert's, which makes him really difficult to trust, and particularly since his whole goal is to try and convince the reader and the "ladies and gentlemen of the jury" that his actions were justified. Also, the fact that Humbert fell in love with Annabel when they were young allowed him to form his ideas of love around the emotions he experienced when he was only twelve. All in all, the motif of love, which is a recurring idea in Lolita as Humbert and Lolita's relationship grows more and more complex, is pretty cool to explore in this book because this is an extremely different perspective than what most other books portray. Another recurring motif in Lolita is age. Humbert is sexually attracted to nymphets between the ages of eight and thirteen because his sexual attractions basically "froze in time" at the age of twelve. On one of my previous blog posts, Mrs. LaClair advised I look up the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. Doing this allowed me to draw a parallel between the Annabel in the poem and in Lolita. The age aspect here is that in both pieces of literature the narrator was very young when he fell in love with Annabel, but even as they aged, they both still thought of her and recognized that she had had a huge impact on them in spite of being so young. Finally, a third motif reflected in Lolita is the power of language. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Humbert is really good at utilizing his beautiful words and phrases to manipulate the reader and borderline brainwash them into sympathizing with his side of the story. Language not only resurfaces several times like the other motifs, but it is prevalent throughout the entire book.
Thanks for reading my third blog post! I'm really enjoying reading Lolita, and I can't wait to finish the book and tell you all about what I learn. See you next time!
As always, I'll start off with some plot summary. Humbert and Lolita travel around in their usual fashion, but Lolita is getting bold with flirting with other men/boys and Humbert really doesn't like it. The interesting thing about that is that he claims that Lolita hurts him by doing this, but the only reason that he really cares about her happiness in return if he's being honest with himself is when she's giving him something he wants (chiefly sex) and seems content enough while doing it. After all, even though Lolita cries through the night and he is fully aware of it, he doesn't stop what he's doing. Lolita and Humbert have several close calls of getting caught, so he decides to settle down with her and teach at Beardsley while she attends school. Lolita's schools values of socializing & dancing do not sit well with Humbert, who prefers Lolita all to himself, but he ends up having to reluctantly put up with it. As would be expected with someone who commits as many repulsive crimes as Humbert, he is extremely paranoid about their affair being discovered. Humbert really reluctantly allows Lolita to take part in her school play, a play he disapproves of but eventually allows her to take part in nonetheless. After a while, a blow-up occurs where Humbert discovers Lolita has been missing her piano lessons and they both fight vehemently about the life they both lead. Lolita demands to leave Beardsley and their home, and Humbert agrees. With that, they continue to lead a similar life to that of the one they led before: traveling all over and staying in hotels. Humbert becomes more and more paranoid that they're being followed, and he's hyper-sensitive to Lolita talking to men or any other people in general, particularly the ones that remind him of people he knows (for example, his uncle, Gustave Trapp). He discovers a weird parallel between "Clare something," the author of the play Lolita was rehearsing, and the play the two of them see at a theater, but he can't really put a finger on what's so weird about it (I get the feeling that this is going to be important, so I'm excited to see what happens). It gets to the point where Lolita and Humbert are definitely being followed by someone and Humbert starts carrying around a gun. Humbert sees the man following them several more times before Lolita gets really sick and has to go to the hospital. After a few days, when Humbert goes to retrieve Lolita from the hospital, he discovers Lolita has been picked up already by her "uncle" and absolutely flips out. He basically decides that since he has his gun, he is going to kill whoever took Lolita away from him. Cliff hanger, right?
One of the central motifs in Lolita is love. Humbert declares himself in love with Lolita many times, but when you think about it, the traditional and arguably "normal" idea of love does not involve any of the things that Humbert forces Lolita into. On page 186, Humbert tells the reader all about the very restrictive rules that he forces Lolita to follow (mainly concerning dating and socializing). He says, "She might visit a candy bar with her girl friends, and there giggle-chat with occasional young males, while I waited in the car at a discreet difference...". While most people's idea of love involves learning and growing with the other person, allowing them the freedom to live their own life in the manner they choose, Humbert does the exact opposite and makes sure to restrict Lolita from being a kid (I'll repeat: a kid, not a woman) as much has he possibly can. On top of that, the only perspective that we get the whole time is Humbert's, which makes him really difficult to trust, and particularly since his whole goal is to try and convince the reader and the "ladies and gentlemen of the jury" that his actions were justified. Also, the fact that Humbert fell in love with Annabel when they were young allowed him to form his ideas of love around the emotions he experienced when he was only twelve. All in all, the motif of love, which is a recurring idea in Lolita as Humbert and Lolita's relationship grows more and more complex, is pretty cool to explore in this book because this is an extremely different perspective than what most other books portray. Another recurring motif in Lolita is age. Humbert is sexually attracted to nymphets between the ages of eight and thirteen because his sexual attractions basically "froze in time" at the age of twelve. On one of my previous blog posts, Mrs. LaClair advised I look up the poem Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe. Doing this allowed me to draw a parallel between the Annabel in the poem and in Lolita. The age aspect here is that in both pieces of literature the narrator was very young when he fell in love with Annabel, but even as they aged, they both still thought of her and recognized that she had had a huge impact on them in spite of being so young. Finally, a third motif reflected in Lolita is the power of language. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Humbert is really good at utilizing his beautiful words and phrases to manipulate the reader and borderline brainwash them into sympathizing with his side of the story. Language not only resurfaces several times like the other motifs, but it is prevalent throughout the entire book.Thanks for reading my third blog post! I'm really enjoying reading Lolita, and I can't wait to finish the book and tell you all about what I learn. See you next time!
Grace, I like your inclusion of images in your post, and appreciate the discussion of the motifs you've seen so far. I might suggest breaking some of them up into different paragraphs so it's easier to see the various ideas you're developing. Certainly, the idea of love we get is a warped one. Do you see love as a thematic idea or more of a motif? Are there any repeated ideas or images you've seen tied to love in the novel? Sort of like how we saw flying as tied to ideas about freedom in Song of Solomon.
ReplyDeleteGrace,
ReplyDeleteI really liked your post! I particularly liked your discussion of how love in this book becomes warped. I find it utterly disturbing that Humbert truly believes that he is in love with Lolita. It seems as though he is in love with the idea of Lolita, not the girl herself. Often the traits that actually make Lolita who she is, like her stubbornness and rebelliousness he despises, which makes me question whether he actually loves her or just having a little girl who will have sex with him.
Additionally, I don't think that you can love someone if you feel the need to be controlling or distrustful of them (and especially not if you're forcing them to have sex with you through manipulation). This kind of reminds me of the ideas about love that Song of Solomon developed and I find it very interesting what this book develops about it.
I'm still unsure what Nabokov's personal perspective on love is. I find that interpreting Humbert and Lolita's emotions is relatively feasible but I often am unsure as to what Nabokov intends as a purpose. I often wonder whether Nabokov is showing how screwed up Humbert is and showing how this is not a good example of love, or whether he's trying to get sympathy for people like Humbert. Could he possibly be doing both?
Let me know what you think, I look forward to reading the rest of your blog!
Hi Bekah!
DeleteI think it's tricky to find out Nabokov's perspective on love at this point too. I think he might be writing this story in the first place because he heard the true story which this is based on and thought this might be an interesting take on love and desire to write from. He probably does, but at this point, I can't tell if he has an actual lesson that he wants readers to take from this other than the obvious "lusting after 12-year-old girls is gross." I think this is just a completely new and different perspective for him to write from (after all, when this book came out it was EXTREMELY controversial and different from anything that had been published before).
If something else surfaces, I'd love to talk about it with you!!
Grace
I don't know why I'm surprised about how messed up this book sounds every time I read one of your guys' posts about it. You would think I would come to expect it.
DeleteAnyway, your discussion of age is super interesting. People always call the 20th-Century "Freud's Century," and this book seems to affirm that idea. The connection between age and development as well as the effect of childhood trauma seem very central, and taken to an extreme. The idea that Humbert's sexuality is "frozen" in place is definitely very modern in its view of psychology (as opposed to earlier decades that would label pedophiles as "crazy"). Definitely sounds very cool.