Blog Post #8: FINAL REFLECTION - Rama S.P.

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov about a thirty-year old man named Humbert Humbert who falls in love with a twelve year old girl named Lolita. Part I opens with Humbert as a young child whose mother dies and whose father is absent so he is cared for by a loving aunt. His romantic education was based on dreamy French novels and movies. During his adolescent years he meets a girl called Annabel, who is the love of his life. Unfortunately, Anabel dies and Humbert is scarred for life. Humbert becomes obsessed with "Nymphets," girls between the ages of nine and fourteen. Humbert marries Valeria for her childlike qualities but she remarries, goes to California and dies of childbirth. Humbert then moves to America where he meets Lolita in the Haze house that he decides to stay in. He sees the tension between Lolita and her mother, Charlotte Haze. Little by little Humbert tries to get some psychical contact with Lolita without anyone noticing. Charlotte does many things that Humbert despises such as sending Lolita to camp, planning to put Lolita into a boarding school, and threatening him to marry her or else leave.  Humbert goes along with Charlotte's ideas and he sometimes contemplates on killing Charlotte but can't get himself to do it. Fortunately, for Humbert Charlotte Haze is run over by a car after they have a fight over the contents of his diary. Humbert decides to take Lolita all around the country and takes her from camp saying that her mother is ill. Lolita and Humbert begin to engage in sexual activities and this is noticed by a unknown figure who interrogates Humbert. Humbert tells Lolita that her mother has died and he realizes that Lolita doesn't have anyone else to turn to. 

Then in Part II we see Humbert's relationship with Lolita begin to fall apart. Humbert reassures Lolita that if she tells anyone about their activities then she will be put in a state-run school. We begin to see Humbert loosing Lolita's interest and how he is oblivious to Lolita's pain when she is sobbing at night; he just pretends to sleep. They both settle in Beardsley where Lolita attends the Beardsley School for Girls and conflicts arise between Lolita and Humbert. Lolita wants  more compensation for all the sexual favors she is doing for Humbert but Humbert is worried that she will run away so he starts stealing her money. After a huge fight about time not accounted for, the two continue their journey around the country. Humbert begins to become suspicious that Lolita is contacting some person at the gas station, post office, tennis court, and the swimming pool and this makes him paranoid. He also spots a car that has been following them for days now. Lolita has been acting duplicitous because she erases the license plate number, starts the car, and doesn't tell Humbert who is talking to her. Lolita come down with a fever and Humbert takes her to the hospital. When he comes to pick her up he is told that her uncle has taken her away. This is where we see Humbert totally insane because he has lost his Lolita. He goes crazy in the hospital ,then retraces their entire journey through the 342 hotels they both stayed in, and finds out that someone has been following them since the beginning. He gives up looking for Lolita and starts a relationship with Rita until he receives a letter from Lolita asking him for money. Humbert finds Lolita, finds out the whole story about Clare Quilty following them throughout their whole journeys and finally taking Lolita to his farm wherein Lolita escapes. He pleads with Lolita to come with him but she flatly disagrees and he leaves with a vengeance to kill Clare Quilty. He tracks down Clare Quilty and kills him then he drives away feeling lost and disillusioned. In these chapters we see Humbert referring to the "Gentleman of the jury" to state his emotions on all the events happening. In the last chapter Humbert agrees that he has deprived Lolita of her childhood but he doesn't take full responsibility. In the last paragraph we see Humbert giving Lolita advice and justifying the killing of Clare Quilty (below) even thought he wants the book published after both of them die. He ends the book with the same words that he started it: Lolita.


Lolita is a very interesting book and there were many lenses that I could have read it thought such as: the feminist lens, post-modernist lens, or reader response lens. I choose the psychoanalytical lens because I knew thought this lens I would get to know the characters motivations better. I learned that people will do anything for love and will go as far as controlling the person like a puppet to get what they want. I also learnt that what Humbert Humbert was doing was wrong but also we have to understand his side of the story and looking through the psychoanalytical lens helped me understand that Humbert Humbert is a hurt man who doesn't want to loose the love of his life like he has lost so many others. 

While reading through this lens I focused more on why Humbert acted a certain way instead of how bad his actions were. If I hadn't been focusing on the psychoanalytical lens I would have focused more on how his actions are impacting others and I would be judging him more harshly. I wouldn't have understood the fact that he was scarred at a very young age and this nymphet obsession sparked because of a certain event. Also I would have been totally biased and said that he was a very evil man and not even look at the reason why he acted this way. In other words I wouldn't be sympathizing with Humbert. 

On the other hand, since I am so focused on the psychoanalytical lens events that the feminist lens or post-modernist lens would see as important would be overlooked by me. Such as the fact that in Humbert's society a relationship between a older man and a younger girl is prohibited. Or looking through the feminist lens we can see that women don't have much say throughout the whole book. Concentrating on one lens can allow a reader to miss something that stands out to another lens. However, through these various lenses we can see the different points of view towards the novel as a whole. This can help us better understand the characters, their actions, and impact in the story. 

My beliefs about Humbert and Lolita's relationship still stands. This relationship was not only inappropriate it ruined many peoples lives. I do sympathize with Humbert towards the end and in the beginning because I realize that he has gone thought so much and it has definitely scared him. His paranoia when Lolita went missing, when Lolita puts his offer down in the end, and when he is aimlessly driving on the highway after killing Quilty. These all show that Humbert has been repeatedly hurt and we can feel his pain through the carefully chosen words of Vladimir Nabokov. This is the reason why he acts in a certain way that is outlawed in society. He wasn't taught properly and this is what is said in the forward by John Ray, Jr., Ph.D.: ""Lolita" should make all of us--parents, social workers, educators--apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world." (Nabokov 3) This book should be used to teach parents to bring up their children the right way to make the world a safer place. 

In the forward we are given the fates of different characters: "His [Mr. Windmuller] daughter, "Louise," is by now a college sophomore, "Mona Dahl" is a student in Paris. "Rita" has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. "Richard F. Schiller" died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlemen in the remotest Northwest. "Vivian Darkbloom" has written a biography, "My Cue," to be publshed shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book."(Nabokov 2) In the end we know Lolita becomes Mrs. "Richard F. Schiller" and so she dies giving birth to a stillborn. Everyone else settles into their own lives and this gives the reader and me a weird feeling. 

I learned that overall this project was fun. I not only got to understand Lolita though a psychoanalytical lens I got to write about it. I learned that we have to sympathize with others because they might have had a horrible childhood or something else might be affecting them. We should never judge people by the way they act we have to get to know them before making assumptions. Humbert Humbert was a deeply disturbed man and no one took the time to understated him as a person. He also didn't spend time to get to know Lolita as a person. Maybe If people understood him he wouldn't have ended up in jail or he would't have ruined so many people lives. There were many things that I learnt from reading this novel. Vladimir Nabokov writes this novel so well that the reader feels that they are on an emotional roller-coaster. Also watching the two movies made were really interesting!! :)