Lolita I Hope You Love Your Baby Quote Explained
Main Character Throughline
Humbert Humbert — Lolita's seducer and stepfather
- Heed
- Chief Character Throughline
Humbert is a supreme egoist; he maintains the stock-still attitude that his outlook and ideas are correct, contrary to society's norms.
- Preconscious
- Principal Character Business concern
Humbert has built-in reflexes when information technology comes to prepubescent girls. These innate responses are a smashing aid to him when he is sizing upward a potential prostitute, or when he is surreptitiously scanning a playground or a park for young girls. When he meets Lolita, he knows immediately that she is his ultimate goal. His instincts and his amazing talent for picking out "nymphets" from ordinary immature girls stands him in good stead: "A normal man given a group photo of school girls or Girl Scouts . . . volition not necessarily cull the nymphet among them. You take to be an artist and a madman, a animal of space melancholy, with a bubble of hot toxicant in your loins . . . in order to discern at once . . . the niggling deadly demon among the wholesome children . . ." (Nabokov xix).
- Worry
- Main Graphic symbol Issue
Considering Humbert has a fixed mental attitude in regard to his and Lolita's relationship (every aspect of her life is dictated and controlled past him) he is prone to all kinds of worries. He is frightened that guild volition effigy out his unnatural liaison, especially the law. He is very apprehensive that Lolita, who, when she shows overt signs of distaste towards him, will effort to run away. He becomes paranoid about people, places, and specially, the time to come. This concern for his hereafter motivates him to set up for the worst equally "the continuous take a chance and dread . . . ran through my bliss . . ." (Nabokov 153).
- Confidence
- Main Character Counterpoint
Humbert is an extremely self-assured, almost cocky individual, with "imperious charm and sardonically elegant tenor of his style" (Norton 1733): "Humbert is a narcissist" (Amis Ix). Nosotros observe him admiring himself in the mirror, and all throughout the novel he inserts descriptions of his physical characteristics, as he preens and seems to take invisible bows. He prides himself on packing his memoir with allusions and references to artwork, music, classical poems and books. These are unremarkably tossed in equally asides. The offhand use of other languages also underscores his pride of scholarship, equally do the clever puns and acronyms he employs. His incredible vanity shows through when he pokes fun at philistines and the suburbia. He derides Charlotte'south attempts at foreign language and interior decoration, winces at Lolita's pedestrian teenage interests, shudders at "any other deadly conventionality . . ." (Nabokov 37) and groans at all popular tastes of the general public.
- Main Grapheme Thematic Conflict
Worry vs.ConfidenceThe struggle between Humbert's overwhelming confidence and his fear of exposure and losing Lolita, begins to wear him downwardly to the point that worry gets the upper hand. He begins to become truly agitated—paranoid about everything equally his confidence wanes. He talks virtually "figments of my persecution mania . . ." (Nabokov 218). "I imagined that secret amanuensis, or secret lover, or prankster, or hallucination, or whatever he was, prowling effectually . . ." (Nabokov 220). When Lolita does make her escape and Humbert barely prevents himself from being arrested in a hospital scuffle, his confidence returns, because now he has zero whatever to lose: "Freedom for the moment is everything . . . .To myself I whispered that I yet had my gun, and was still a gratuitous man—complimentary to trace the fugitive, gratis to destroy my brother" (Nabokov 225).
- Non-Accurate
- Master Character Problem
Humbert is frequently overwhelmed by guilt over his obsessive lust and intolerable use of Lolita. At times he comes to hate himself for his unpardonable actions. Even so, his lust comes roaring back and all of his good intentions (to stop his beliefs) go out the window.
- Accurate
- Main Character Solution
Humbert needs to attach to society's acceptable standards of carry.
- Process
- Master Character Symptom
Humbert is well aware that he has an insatiable lust for Lolita. The principal symptom of this realization causes him to focus on keeping everything in their human relationship running smoothly: their itinerary, the concrete state of their car, their well apposite "father/daughter" scenes, and his bribes and threats, designed to go on Lolita from straying. Past constantly honing, refining, and tinkering with these procedures, he hopes to create the desired issue of enjoying a worry-free sexual relationship with Lolita for as long as he should wish.
- Result
- Chief Character Response
Humbert, highly focused on keeping his liaison going smoothly—obsessed with lists, duties, maps, carefully apposite dialogue/facades, and regular threatening reminders to Lolita—is and so intent on the cease product of a glorious, undetected human relationship, that the management of this human relationship takes an unexpected turn before he can achieve his goal. He fails to notice Lolita'southward unusual physiological and verbal indications that signify something is upwards with her; the unusual genuine grinning for him, the laughter, heretofore so infrequent, "her eyes . . . calculating . . ." (Nabokov 217) and above all, the out-and-out seduction of him a short while earlier she leaves: "Carry me upstairs, please. I feel sort of romantic tonight" (Nabokov 189).
- Worry
- Primary Character Unique Ability
Humbert is unable to terminate worrying over his and Lolita'southward future. If he had allayed this feet by dissolving his relationship with Lolita, he would accept been able to solve the objective and subjective story bug.
- Security
- Master Grapheme Critical Flaw
Humbert is adamant to protect and continue Lolita after the boggling luck of her female parent's expiry. He is so concerned with the rubber and security of his and Lolita'south world that he both over and nether prepares for real and imagined threats. He follows a rigid plan to go along Lolita in check, but he underestimates her depression and wiliness.
- Conscious
- Main Graphic symbol Benchmark
Humbert's unalterable and instinctual response to nymphets has aided him in recognizing Lolita as one of them. Their relationship progresses and he, time and again, suffers guilt and remorse. He is in full possession of the negative impact of this relationship, yet he still stays his course of action. He knows the moment he meets Lolita "that my discovery of her was a fatal consequence of that 'princedom by the sea' in my tortured past" (Nabokov 39).
- Master Graphic symbol Description
Good looking. "European intellectual and pedophile" (Merriam Webster 692). ". . . a peachy big handsome hunk of movieland manhood" (Nabokov 39). ". . . with thick black eyebrows and a queer emphasis, and a cesspoolful of rotting monsters behind his ho-hum boyish smile" (Nabokov 43).
- Main Character Throughline Synopsis
"The novel is presented as the posthumously published memoirs of its antihero Humbert Humbert. A European intellectual and pedophile, Humbert lusts obsessively after 12-yr erstwhile nymphet Lolita . . . . The work examines love in the light of lechery" (Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature 692).
- Main Character Backstory
European professor Humbert lost his mother when he was three, and his true love Annabel when they were both 13. These events left a tragic mark, and during his college years he developed a taste for young girls. Rather than human action upon this animalism, he stuck to immature looking prostitutes until he met his outset wife, Valeria, whom he married basically to go on him from acting upon these unnatural desires. After mistreating her, she divorced him and left with her lover. Humbert embarks on a new life in America; he decides to hire rooms from Charlotte Haze, specifically because she has a twelve-year-erstwhile girl.
Additional Principal Character Information →
Influence Character Throughline
Lolita (Dolores Brume) — Humbert's boyish step-daughter
- Universe
- Influence Character Throughline
Lolita's situation is that of an orphan in the care of her stepfather—a pedophile. This state of affairs seems stock-still because of Humbert's desire for her and his meticulous attending to those details necessary to the maintenance and continuance of their relationship.
- Progress
- Influence Character Concern
Lolita'southward sole purpose is to go on from her static, unchanging human relationship with Humbert to freedom. During her two years of virtual sexual servitude she is slowly able to accelerate to her goal by ways of a set of successive maneuvers on her office; increasingly evasive and crafty actions that eventually assistance her reach her liberty.
- Threat
- Influence Character Effect
Lolita is in a horrendous situation. She is controlled by Humbert'southward desires and fears. In the beginning, she avoids "rocking the gunkhole" considering his seemingly real threats terrify her into keeping quiet about their abhorrent liaison. She knows she is all alone and at her young historic period, is very vulnerable to Humbert'south menacing ways.
- Security
- Influence Graphic symbol Counterpoint
Lolita has evaluated her defenses and has found they come up short. The safeguards she employs against Humbert'southward sexual advances and threats are: building a hard shell effectually herself, maintaining a studied indifference to her situation, and using sarcasm and withering putdowns. Humbert: "Y'all would give me ane look . . . 'Oh no, not again' (incredulity, exasperation);" and, "Pulease leave me solitary, will you . . . for Christ'due south sake leave me lonely" (Nabokov 176).
- Influence Character Thematic Conflict
Threat vs.SecurityEqually Lolita and Humbert'southward relationship continues, she is able to reevaluate her vulnerability and perceived danger and take an active role in planning her escape. She enjoys watching Humbert squirm when he begins to feel threatened by her subterfuges. The fear of losing her somewhen causes him to become paranoid, and to feel extremely insecure himself. The tension between threat and security starts to change in the balance: In the beginning Lolita felt threatened and insecure, and now it is Humbert who feels the weight of both.
- Procedure
- Influence Grapheme Problem
The problem of Humbert's sexual obsession is the cause of Lolita's difficulties. Since he is clearly unable to put a end to his behavior, it is up to her to solve the story problem by dealing with information technology. After awhile—after she has had time to observe the many facets of Humbert'due south control, she proceeds to contrive a plan, and through a series of clever actions, is able to finally get away from him.
- Upshot
- Influence Graphic symbol Solution
When Lolita is finally able to free herself of Humbert with the help of Quilty (and her own acting skills), the touch on Humbert is enormous. He spends the next three years ("Dolores departed") (Nabokov 231) going from bad to worse: hallucinating, losing contact with reality and finally checking himself into a sanitarium. The consequences of separation from Lolita are such that Humbert has time to remember about his obsessions and, although he admits his lust is still with him, he finds that he has an ever abiding beloved for Lolita, something he never actually had earlier.
- Cause
- Influence Graphic symbol Symptom
Lolita'southward curiosity, adolescent vulnerability, and natural preteen interests in Hollywood stars and celebrity glamour, along with having no father and a difficult mother, all atomic number 82 to her interest in Humbert. She wants to know more nearly him, she sees him as affable and entertaining and as a co-conspirator confronting her female parent's unfair edicts. This mental attitude of course leads to large problem. Lolita doesn't know it right away, just she is Humbert'due south "raison d' etre." He now has a focus for his animalism. Here is the nymphet Annabel, reincarnated, in a sense, in Lolita.
- Effect
- Influence Character Response
When Humbert sees Lolita again subsequently a iii-year absence, she has grown considerably. She appears to have emotionally disengaged from him and, at least on the surface, is able to handle him with great aplomb. It is she who controls the situation; who sets the step. "She was, as I say, talking. It now came in a relaxed menstruation . . . in her washed-out grayness eyes, strangely spectacled, our poor romance was for a moment reflected, pondered upon, and dismissed like a boring political party . . . like a humdrum do . . ." (Nabokov 248).
- Threat
- Influence Grapheme Unique Power
Later on being with Humbert for a long stretch of fourth dimension, Lolita is able to accurately assess the intensity of his behavior. She develops the ability to neutralize any danger when he is bluffing, when he will be off-guard, and when to pay especially close attention to his moods. She understands when his threats are hollow and she begins to ascertain when she can threaten him and make her ain marking.
- Confidence
- Influence Character Disquisitional Flaw
In the beginning of the story, Lolita's immature age and inexperience, up against the worldly Humbert, adds to natural preadolescent lack of confidence in herself and in her altered world. It is to be expected that early in the game she volition lack optimism, but as she grows during the ii years she is with Humbert, she gradually builds confidence in herself and is thus able to notice the fortitude to escape.
- Present
- Influence Character Benchmark
Lolita uses all of her energy to deal with Humbert and all of his demands, and at the same time she is secretly casting about for a ways of escape.
- Influence Character Clarification
" . . . delicate, honey-hued shoulders . . . silky supple bare back . . . juvenile blank breasts . . . indrawn abdomen . . . puerile hips" (Nabokov 38-9). "I actually recall she should wash her pilus once in a while" (Nabokov 42). " . . . slangy speech . . . harsh high voice" (Nabokov 41).
- Influence Character Throughline Synopsis
Lolita Brume is a twelve-year-one-time girl who lives with her widowed female parent in the house where Humbert comes looking for lodging. Humbert, with his secret obsession for young adolescents, steps into a pseudo-fatherly office with great alacrity and secret joy. (Information technology is credible that he must marry Charlotte, her mother, to accept closer contact with Lolita.) Soon thereafter, a providential accident removes Charlotte from the scene. Thus, Lolita is thrust into what turns out to be a harrowing two year ordeal of sexual subjugation. During this time, she develops a strong sense of survival and is ultimately able to escape, with the center-aged Quilty'due south help. Toughened and crafty by the abuse she received from Humbert, she is fully equipped to immediately leave the repulsive Quilty when it becomes apparent that he didn't return her love just was merely trying to cast her in a pornographic romp. After drifting for a couple of years, she hooks up with and marries Dick Schiller. Lolita is meaning with his child when Humbert finds her once again (at her behest). She doesn't seem to harbor the farthermost hate and loathing for Humbert that one would expect. (Abusive relationships die difficult and the bailiwick of abuse has great difficulty completely cut the ill ties that demark.) She touches his wrist when he cries at her incredulous reaction to the money he gives her. (This as well could accept great bearing on her moderate treatment of Humbert.) Amazingly, she even offers him an apology: "Oh, don't cry, I'thousand and so sorry I cheated and then much, but that's the way things are" (Nabokov 254). The reader finds, in the beginning of the book, her ending—death in childbirth. It's interesting to note that Humbert had said: "Nymphets practice not occur in polar regions" (Nabokov 33). Quite truthful—since Lolita the nymphet and Lolita the female parent both died in Gray Star, "a settlement in the remotest Northwest" (Nabokov half dozen).
- Influence Character Backstory
Lolita lives with her female parent, Charlotte, in a pleasant New England town. She is an average twelve-year-old, and she and her friends are interested in all the normal things a young girl enjoys. She is an indifferent student, and follows a coincidental hygiene routine. Her begetter is dead and she and her mother have an offhand, sometimes antagonistic relationship. She is particularly interested in the lives of movie stars and avidly follows and believes all the pap served up in the fan magazines. When Humbert enters her world, handsome, charming, and suave, possessing pic star adept looks and manners, she is ready to have a major crush on him.
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Relationship Story Throughline
""She Had Nowhere Else To Become""
- Physics
- Relationship Story Throughline
In their part as subjective characters, Humbert and Lolita are always on the go, particularly after they enter into sexual relations: "It was and then that nosotros began our extensive travels all over u.s." (Nabokov 183). They spend a goodly office of two years moving from place to place. Even when they are living at Beardsley, Humbert spends his time literally tracking Lolita; following her and monitoring her every move. The step seems to get more and more frantic every bit Lolita gets closer and closer to being able to leave Humbert.
- Doing
- Relationship Story Concern
Humbert'due south compulsions cause him to engage in sexual activities (several times daily) with Lolita. He seeks her constant physical and emotional attentions and, as a event, she starts to pull away from him. Humbert relates: "Information technology was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were with the pocket-size ghost of somebody I had just killed" (Nabokov 129). Again, " . . . that await I cannot exactly describe . . . an expression of helplessness so perfect . . . what reflected despair" (Nabokov 258-9).
- Skill
- Relationship Story Issue
The extreme proficiency which Humbert has in controlling Lolita, is incredible and terrifying. He is amazingly expert at manipulating and keeping her in line. He uses blackmail, threats, money, and potential bribes and, at one point, hauls off and hits her: " . . . and without a word I delivered a tremendous backhand cut that caught her smack on her hard little cheekbone" (Nabokov 207). After two years of this, Lolita herself has developed enough wariness and dissimulation to be able to accomplish the complicated chore of leaving him (aided by Quilty).
- Experience
- Human relationship Story Counterpoint
Humbert has the experience with which to control Lolita. From the time he was an adolescent to the present, he has gained the necessary expertise through personal participation and grooming. Lolita has brought an innocence to the relationship, and certainly has no experience in dealing with this complex liaison.
- Relationship Story Thematic Disharmonize
Skill vs.ExperienceTo excel at the mind games Humbert employs, i needs both skill and feel, and he has plenty of both, (with some to spare). He has adeptly adult his innate potential past observing and becoming quite familiar with how to handle women. He is very knowledgeable about the law. The twelve-year-former Lolita brings neither skill nor experience to the relationship, simply manages to develop enough of both to eventually outwit Humbert.
- Non-Authentic
- Human relationship Story Problem
The subjective story's problem is linked to Humbert'south unacceptable sexual proclivities. Lolita is put into an intolerable situation, kept there by Humbert's behavior.
- Accurate
- Relationship Story Solution
The solution to Humbert's ungovernable desires for Lolita would be to adapt to society's norms of conduct: "All widower Humbert had to do was to give this wan looking . . . petty orphan a sound education, a healthy and happy girlhood, a clean home, squeamish girlfriends of her age . . ." (Nabokov 103). Unfortunately, this proves impossible for him to practice.
- Determination
- Relationship Story Symptom
"Determination" equally the principal symptom of the difficulties in the subjective story is illustrated by Humbert concentrating on finding out exactly where Lolita goes, with whom she has contact, and for exactly how long a period of time. His obsession with her causes him to make the determination that she must be meeting boys behind his dorsum, and that she is saving upwards enough coin to leave him.
- Expectation
- Relationship Story Response
Humbert takes a very aggressive approach to his fears that Lolita will eventually run abroad. He subjects her to interrogations—at one point reels off the number of soda fountains in town to run across if her alibi for existence out of his sight (for twenty-eight minutes) volition hold up . . . He phones up Lolita'south friend to corroborate another excuse. Because he is focused so intently on trying to isolate her and effigy out her every move, he fails to pick up on the subtle changes in her demeanor that signal her preparations for divergence.
- Experience
- Relationship Story Catalyst
Living in such close physical and emotional quarters with 1 another, dark and 24-hour interval, over a catamenia of two years, causes both Humbert and Lolita to employ their acquisition of cognition virtually each other—confronting one another. This element of cumulative feel keeps the subjective story moving along.
- Ability
- Relationship Story Inhibitor
An example of how "ability" impedes the subjective story'due south progress is Lolita's inability to free herself from Humbert's fe grip.
- Learning
- Human relationship Story Benchmark
The more that Humbert learns nearly Lolita's indifference to, and outright disgust of, their relationship, the more than he gathers upwardly his snippets of data regarding her suspicious actions out in the globe, making their confrontations more than strident and ugly, causing Lolita to finally (with Quilty's help) crystallize a feasible plan to go out Humbert.
- Relationship Story Throughline Synopsis
Humbert brings his intellect, skills and abilities for manipulating women, and above all, his uncontrollable desire for the "nymphet" Lolita to their relationship. This is a formidable arsenal, and in the start, the twelve year old girl, although possessing a limited sexual background and immature sexual curiosity, is woefully ill-equipped to deal with him. Humbert subjects her to a full range of sexual acrobatics while threatening, bribing, and cajoling. Having a clear field in one case Lolita'southward mother is expressionless, his tactics escalate, but so does her awareness and power over him. She learns to lie consummately, and to extract coin, goods, and promises from him, although the cost of this ii year relationship is inordinately high. She eventually leaves him. Later three years of casual and anonymous sex, Humbert begins to disintegrate. Lolita makes contact with him. Although he still loves her, (worn-out and pregnant) and asks her to come up away with him, she patiently and wearily refuses. When he leaves her, he tracks down and kills Quilty and gets himself arrested on purpose. After writing his confession/memoirs, he dies in jail.
- Relationship Story Backstory
Humbert married a woman for the primary purpose of keeping him out of problem—that is, to prevent him from giving into the temptation of seducing adolescent girls. Subsequently his divorce and move to America, Humbert rents a room from Charlotte Haze, whose twelve-twelvemonth-erstwhile girl reminded him of "my Riviera dearest" (Nabokov 38). "The twenty-five years I had lived since so, tapered to a palpitating point, and vanished" (Nabokov 39).
Boosted Human relationship Story Information →
Additional Story Points
Primal Structural Appreciations
- Being
- Overall Story Goal
Of common concern to the objective characters is Humbert's efforts to maintain the facade of loving male parent to Lolita. He needs to keep up the advent of having a normal and happy dwelling house life with Lolita, to continue his sexual liaison with her privately and indefinitely.
- Doing
- Overall Story Upshot
If Humbert is unable to maintain his facade of a normal stepfather, and the true nature of his and Lolita'southward relationship is discovered, he will go to jail and the nether-age Lolita will become a ward of the court. After Lolita leaves, she does tell Quilty about the liaison, but he is merely amused, and is inappreciably in a position himself to go to the law. Her confession, in fact, causes him to invite her to participate in communal sexual activity. Lolita'due south escape from Humbert triggers a iii year search on his role, during which time he becomes more and more mentally disturbed and he fixates upon killing whomever it is that Lolita is with. Quilty pays the ultimate consequence of death at Humbert'south hand, as does (in a different way), Lolita.
- Progress
- Overall Story Price
The costs are high for anyone in Humbert's style as he proceeds toward his goal of complete and total possession of Lolita. Charlotte and Quilty pay with their very lives, and Lolita almost immediately begins to pay the cost of the unwilling whore, even as she extracts from Humbert money and teenage goods and services—tennis lessons, wear, movies, radios, bicycles, teen magazines and an endless supply of processed and ice cream—anything but her liberty. As they motion about the country Humbert notices that he is paying an increasing price for his pleasures: " . . . our long journey had simply defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreary enormous country . . . and her sobs in the night—every night, every night—the moment I feigned sleep" (Nabokov 160). And of grade, the reader is painfully enlightened of the price Lolita has to pay along the way.
- Preconscious
- Overall Story Dividend
Humbert'due south sexual impulses are unthinking, innate responses. Since the story problem has to practise with the total unsuitability of his essential nature, it behooves Humbert to agree these dangerous tendencies in bank check, at least in public. The benefit of doing so brings Humbert continual physical ecstasy: " . . . I withal dwelled deep in my elected paradise—a paradise whose skies were the colour of hell-flames—but however a paradise" (Nabokov 152). Charlotte's impulsive response to Humbert'south charm brings her but short-term dividends. Lolita also reaps benefits from interim on her sexual impulses, but incurs devastating costs subsequently. Quilty's fascination with Lolita is instinctive and he too collects short term rewards only to pay the ultimate price in the stop.
- Conceiving
- Overall Story Requirements
In order to maintain his facade of the nice, average stepfather to Lolita, Humbert establishes the idea that he is, in reality, her biological begetter. He makes up a plausible story about having an affair some xiii years before with the equally nonetheless unmarried Charlotte, a story which the minister and the Farlows and a diverseness of innkeepers and Beardsley kinesthesia members believe. Some other necessary precursor to achieving this goal is to keep himself, and particularly Lolita, away from prying busybodies—to brand certain that no-1 has any thought of what really is going on behind closed doors. He keeps his distance from neighbors and acquaintances and makes sure that Lolita does the same.
- Learning
- Overall Story Prerequisites
Before the objective characters tin begin to acquire solid information about Humbert they need to pierce his outer trounce, a chore which turns out to exist very difficult, if non incommunicable. Humbert is bright and very wary, and has an excellent understanding of human nature. Charlotte really only has a superficial agreement, beingness superficial herself. Although Quilty recognizes a fellow pervert, he has not bothered to proceeds enough knowledge most Humbert's human relationship with Lolita. He dismisses information technology with a wink and he "had roared with laughter when she had confessed about me and her, and said he had idea and so" (Nabokov 251). Humbert doesn't let anyone else nigh him or Lolita, so they never go the necessary knowledge about him. Thus, Lolita who does gain the awful experience of knowing Humbert, has no one to assist her, because Humbert has succeeded so well in keeping everyone at a altitude.
- Present
- Overall Story Preconditions
The objective characters are unable to accurately approximate the current state of affairs of Humbert and Lolita'southward human relationship considering Humbert himself has imposed limitations on their efforts. One of these limitations is the fact that he is a foreigner and comes complete with his own fabricated background and personality. He has everyone assertive exactly what he wishes them to believe. It also helps him that he does take a real bookish groundwork, an authentic resume, equally it were. So even the near suspicious graphic symbol is deflected from the way things really are and their emphasis is oft misplaced. (The headmistress Pratt at Beardsley school completely misses all of the signs that Lolita is a victim: "The general impression is that xv-yr-quondam Dolly remains morbidly interested in sexual matters . . ." (Nabokov 178).
- Conscious
- Overall Story Forewarnings
An outstanding example of a forewarning as it relates to the "witting" is the recurring image of the crooked street Charlotte and Lolita alive on, and that Humbert often contemplates: "Speaking of sharp turns: we almost ran over a meddlesome dog . . . as we swerved into Backyard street" (Nabokov 36). "It (the street) curved in from under an arching of huge shade copse, so sped towards us down, down, quite sharply, past old Miss Opposite's ivied brick house and high sloping backyard . . . and disappeared behind our ain front porch . . ." (Nabokov 69). "I turned down into our steep little street . . ." (Nabokov 89). At that place is the yapping canis familiaris who always chases every car, overgrown leaf, the narrowness of the sidewalk. The twisted street becomes the setting for Charlotte's death. She reads Humbert's diary (as we know she will)—"Why is this thing locked up? . . .Is at that place a primal?" (Nabokov 86), and suddenly is fully conscious of how he really feels virtually her: "The Brume woman, the big bitch, the old cat, the obnoxious Mamma . . ." (Nabokov 89). We are not surprised when she meets her fate in the street, foreboding hereafter untimely ends: "I rushed out. The far side of our steep little street presented a peculiar sight. A big black sleeky Packard had climbed Miss Opposite's sloping lawn . . . the laprobe on the sidewalk (where she had so often pointed out to me with disapproval of the crooked green cracks) concealed the mangled remains of Charlotte Humbert . . ." (Nabokov 91).
Plot Progression
Dynamic Act Appreciations
Overall Story
- Becoming
- Overall Story Signpost 1
Humbert explains how he has become obsessed with "nymphets." After introducing the reader to the young Annabel and the young Humbert and their thwarted adolescent love affair, he wonders if that was where " . . . the rift in my life began . . ." (Nabokov fifteen). He also states that the stupor of Annabel'due south death precluded any further youthful romances. As a young adult, he becomes adept at procuring the services of very young looking prostitutes, and he chooses his first married woman considering she looked like a "gamine." Lolita becomes the incarnation of Annabel. " . . . Lolita began with Annabel" (Nabokov 16). Although Lolita doesn't realize information technology at the time, she had been initiated into Humbert'south world by the "couch" run into—he has reached sexual ecstasy brushing upward against her. Charlotte becomes Humbert's lover and futurity wife by making a written declaration to him. It can be said that shrewd Humbert allows her to become such: "By God, I could brand myself bring her that economically halved grape fruit, that sugarless breakfast" (Nabokov 66-7).
- Overall Story Journey one from Becoming to Existence
Humbert remarks: "The only ace I held was her (Charlotte's) ignorance of my monstrous love for her Lo" (Nabokov 78). " . . . she would distinguish at once a fake intonation in anything I might say with a view to keeping Lo most" (Nabokov 79). Humbert must now pose equally the model husband/father; Charlotte goes from lover to married woman, and, equally such, fulfills the part according to her ain ideas: "With the zest of a banal young helpmate, she started to 'glorify the habitation'" (Nabokov 73). She is the bustling chatelaine and social arbiter. Lolita now appears as the innocent immature daughter, off at camp, sending the usual trite messages home to her parents.
- Being
- Overall Story Signpost ii
Humbert does a magnificent chore playing the bridegroom; showering Charlotte with endearments, making up a suitable reply to her question as to his religious beliefs, and glamorizing his past in their wedding proclamation. Charlotte takes to her role with zest: "With her . . . book guild, her mannerisms of elocution . . . " (Nabokov 74). When Charlotte is killed, Humbert easily steps into the office of bereaved hubby. His act of stepfather being seduced by stepdaughter is nothing less than laurels winning: "I feigned handsome profiled slumber. I simply did not know what to practise . . . I gave a mediocre imitation of waking upward . . ." He lets Lolita atomic number 82 the way, then: "I feigned supreme stupidity and had her take her way. . ." (Nabokov 122-3). Lolita appears to have been enjoying her role of nymphet, showing off her new constitute sexual techniques to Humbert, getting a kick out of scaring him by threatening to telephone call the police force. But when she learns that her mother is dead, she becomes " . . . the orphan . . . love child, an absolute waif . . ." (Nabokov 129). Every bit for John and Jean Farlow, they fill the role of conventional suburban pals; superficial bridge and highball partners.
- Overall Story Journeying 2 from Existence to Conceiving
Humbert plays "The widower, a homo of exceptional self control, neither wept nor raved" (Nabokov 92). He begins to invent a background story about himself and Charlotte: ("Oh what a crafty Humbert!") (Nabokov 93), and he announces that he is Lolita's real male parent. "And so artistically did I impersonate the at-home of ultimate despair . . ." (Nabokov 94). After going on the road, Humbert dreams up ways of keeping Lolita in line by means of the "Appalachian farmhouse" threat, the "reformatory" threat, and the "juvenile detention" threat. To go along her in skillful sense of humor he "had to devise some expectation, some special point in space and fourth dimension for her to look forward to, for her to survive till bedtime" (Nabokov 139). Lolita, the whiny, bored, sulky, vulgar and sprawling "disgustingly conventional fiddling girl" (Nabokov 136) begins to call up upwardly retorts: "How long did I think nosotros were going to alive in stuffy cabins, doing filthy things together and never conduct like ordinary people?" (Nabokov 145). Humbert envisions a solid plan to go along Lolita from "the demoralizing idleness in which she lived" (Nabokov 158) by enrolling her in a private girls' twenty-four hours schoolhouse. Lolita implements her programme of putting a price on her favors: "She proved to be a cruel negotiator . . ." (Nabokov 168). She and Quilty brainstorm to conceive a plan of running abroad.
- Conceiving
- Overall Story Signpost 3
Humbert has absolutely no conception of Lolita's plans for escape with Quilty. In hindsight, he does recall noticing nuances of phonation inflection, facial looks, unusually compliant attitudes, etc., which, upon looking dorsum, does signal that something was going on with Lolita. "What special suspicion could I have? None indeed . . ." (Nabokov 196).
- Overall Story Journey 3 from Conceiving to Conceptualizing
Lolita and Quilty come up with a practical implementation of Lolita'south escape programme. Lolita tells Humbert: "'Look, I've decided to do something . . . I want to leave school . . . go for a long trip again. But this time we'll get wherever I want . . .'" (Nabokov 189). "Gustave Trapp" (Quilty) in his "Aztec Red convertible" keeps Humbert on his toes: "A veritable Proteus of the highway . . ." (Nabokov 207). Humbert imagines him to be "A detective whom some busybody hired to see what exactly Humbert Humbert was doing with that minor stepdaughter of his." " . . . queer, how I misinterpreted the designations of doom. Perhaps I had been lulled past Lo'south modest behavior in wintertime . . ." (Nabokov 198). Not yet imagining the truth, Humbert is not able to conceive of Lolita leaving, much less conceptualizing a plan of retaliation.
- Conceptualizing
- Overall Story Signpost 4
Lolita and Quilty, through their undercover meetings on the road, pull off Lolita'southward removal from the hospital and disappear. It takes Humbert 3 more years to put into practice his cold-blooded plan of killing Quilty. (Of course the boozy little Rita and the silent dullard Dick Schiller could neither entertain whatever kind of idea in their head, much less act upon information technology.)
Main Character
- Preconscious
- Main Character Signpost 1
Humbert relates that as a young adult, he fought to go on his innate unwholesome tendencies in check: " . . .inly, I was consumed by a hell furnace of localized lust for every passing nymphet whom every bit a police force abiding poltroon I never dared approach . . . My earth was split. I was aware of not ane but 2 sexes, neither of which was mine" (Nabokov nineteen-xx). Painfully enlightened of his ingrained sexual impulses, he strove to protect himself from disgrace and arrest by using prostitutes and so by marrying. After, when he meets Lolita, he treads very advisedly.
- Main Graphic symbol Journey 1 from Preconscious to Memory
"Lolita'due south" story problem zeroes in on Humbert'southward inappropriate inborn impulses and his continuous struggle to go on them reined in. In the story, we see the recurring theme of memory: "Man is unique because in his consciousness, with his retrospective kinesthesia, he tin can conquer time and space" (Encyclopedia of World Lit. 345). Humbert taps his retention at every plow—a subjective expect at what had happened in his life. His memories cause him ache, they are "limbless monsters of pain" (Nabokov 259).
- Memory
- Chief Character Signpost 2
Afterward Humbert marries Charlotte, she demands a recounting of his erstwhile women. "She showed a trigger-happy insatiable curiosity" (Nabokov 75). He conjures upwards and elaborates on a highly inventive catalogue of his women: "A long series of mistresses for Charlotte's morbid delectation . . . my glib compositions . . ." (Nabokov 75). Humbert also sketches a background for the "credulous Farlows" (Nabokov 93) describing a artificial affair with the young single Charlotte years earlier her first marriage, and having them believe that "Humbert is Dolly'southward real father" (Nabokov 94).
- Chief Character Journey 2 from Memory to Subconscious
Humbert tells the reader: "I am trying to draw these things non to relive them in my nowadays boundless misery, but to sort out the portion of hell and the portion of sky in that strange, awful, maddening earth—nymphet love" (Nabokov 124). He clearly and continuously tries to grapple with his bones drives and desires. He sees a definite dichotomy ("sky/hell," "a prison cell of paradise") (Nabokov 133) ("eternal horror/elation") (Nabokov 154) in his sexual proclivities. The struggle he has with his libido causes him great pain.
- Subconscious
- Principal Character Signpost 3
Humbert talks about taking Lolita to "the seaside and have me discover there, at last, the 'gratification' of a lifetime urge, and release from the 'subconscious' obsession of an incomplete childhood romance with the initial Miss Lee" (Nabokov 152). Notwithstanding, he continues, because he had enjoyed Lolita'southward reluctant favors for so long, the "search for a kingdom by the ocean, far from being the impulse of the subconscious" had merely go a "rational pursuit of a purely theoretical thrill" (Nabokov 152-3). He had been liberated already, the moment he first saw Lolita, and the object of his libido, his basic, essential sexual urges, had been transferred at that fourth dimension, from Annabel to Lolita.
- Main Character Journey 3 from Subconscious to Conscious
Humbert's bones desires, coupled with his paranoia at being followed, causes him to use concrete force on Lolita: "I delivered a tremendous backhand cut. . . " (Nabokov 207). Every bit they connected "our grotesque journeying" (Nabokov 207), Humbert begins to contemplate a plan: "Information technology occurred to me that if I were really losing my heed, I might end by murdering somebody. In fact, information technology might be quite clever to prepare things—to transfer the weapon from box to pocket—so as to exist set to take advantage of the spell of insanity when it does come up" (Nabokov 209). Afterwards Lolita makes good her escape, a nebulous idea, an nearly throwaway bit of nonsensical musing crystallizes into a deadly adamant course of action: Humbert spends the adjacent three years tracking downwards Quilty.
- Witting
- Principal Grapheme Signpost four
Humbert, "crazy similar a fox," spends time in another sanitarium, composing terrible (purposely so) verse. Afterwards he gets out, he very rationally decides to seek an developed female person companion, in society to preclude a adventure encounter with a stray "nymphet." He knows he needs to stay sane to proceed in his course of activeness. After finally hearing from Lolita he takes off with "my little black chum," and has target practice in a secluded woods, the amend to be prepared to coldly impale his prey. Humbert all along is quite conscious of the consequences of such an act, but is driven to it anyway.
Influence Graphic symbol
- Progress
- Influence Character Signpost 1
Lolita has a series of innocent encounters with Humbert when he first moves into her house. She allows him to lick her eyeball (in order to remove an irritating speck that had lodged in that location). There is the quick, permitted nuzzle, the lap-sitting, the hidden handholding in the car. She initiates the game of putting her hands over his optics; then, later: "The impudent child extended her legs across my lap" (Nabokov 56). (The beginning of the famous couch scene.) Before going off to campsite, she rushes back into the house: " . . .stamping, panting, and so she was in my arms, her innocent rima oris melting under the ferocious pressure of dark male jaws . . ." (Nabokov 63). These meetings, taken in their entirety, course a foundation and pave the way for Lolita and Humbert'southward futurity relationship.
- influence Character Journeying one from Progress to Future
Lolita, already having a schoolgirl crush on goodlooking, sophisticated Humbert, is initiated into developed sex at camp past ii young contemporaries. When Humbert picks her up there, she shocks him by her tough, grown up flirting. She is showing off; she likes him enormously, and she unknowingly fans the flame of his lust. She giggles about incest, tells him he kisses the wrong style, and is dying to tell him most her daily tryst at camp: "Oh I've been such a icky girl . . . lemme tell you . . ." (Nabokov 113).
- Future
- Influence Character Signpost two
Humbert returns to the hotel room, expecting to discover the supposedly heavily drugged Lolita dead asleep. He is surprised to find her partially awake and not adverse to sleepily sharing her bed with him. In the morning, he hangs back, non knowing what to practise. "She put her mouth to my ear . . . she laughed . . . and gradually to the odd sense of living in a brand new, mad new dream world, where everything was permissible, came over me as I realized what she was suggesting" (Nabokov 122). After they "had had strenuous intercourse three times that very morning" (Nabokov 129), Lolita has seen the time to come, and it is Humbert.
- Influence Character Journeying two from Future to Present
"As she was in the act of getting back into the car, an expression of pain flitted across Lo'south face . . .Loquacious Lo was silent. Cold spiders of pain crawled downwards my back . . ." (Nabokov 129). After Lolita and Humbert's first sexual see, reality sets in and whatever rosy, boyish movie Lolita may have had is replaced by her current situation: she "had absolutely nowhere else to get" (Nabokov 130). Lolita is living with a human ". . . 3 times her age, and for two years he rapes her at least two times a day" (Amis XII). Lolita can see the future in the present—the mode things are at present are the manner things will be. She can't go dorsum to the future—it is too late.
- Present
- Influence Grapheme Signpost 3
Humbert chillingly describes the way things are for Lolita: "How sweet it was to bring that coffee to her, and and so deny it until she had done her morning duty. And I was such a thoughtful friend, such a passionate father, such a good pediatrician, attending to all the wants of my lilliputian auburn brunette'south body!" (Nabokov 151)
- Influence Graphic symbol Journeying iii from Present to By
Through Humbert's eyes, the reader is engaged in a infinitesimal retrospection of his and Lolita'south past—with sudden clarity he realizes: "I perceived all at once with a sickening qualm how much she had inverse since I first met her 2 years agone" (Nabokov 186).
- By
- Influence Character Signpost 4
When Humbert finds Lolita once again, she considers their shared by and perceives it to accept been "like a rainy picnic to which only the dullest bores had come . . . like a flake of dry mud caking her childhood" (Nabokov 248). In this terminal scene between them, ruminating on their previous life together, Lolita comes out by far the strongest of the ii. She controls the entire interview and fifty-fifty bestows a kind of casual, offhand, forgiveness on Humbert, in spite of the horrific scars the reader knows she will e'er carry. It is as if she has come full circumvolve: the tough, in control young preteen, and so the frightened and subjugated boyish, and one time again, the best of her past is now here in her present.
Relationship Story
- Obtaining
- Human relationship Story Signpost 1
The moment Humbert lays eyes on Lolita he knows he must possess her. Lolita obtains a living personification of male movie stars she admired near: "I am said to resemble some crooner or role player chap on whom Lo has a vanquish" (Nabokov 42).
- Human relationship Story Journey 1 from Obtaining to Learning The reader begins to learn, through Humbert's detailed descriptions, what exactly a "nymphet" is, and precisely what those attributes are that cause him such pain: "Never in my life . . . Never take I experienced such agony" (Nabokov 43). "I shall probably have another breakup if I stay any longer in this house, nether the strain of this intolerable temptation . . ." (Nabokov 45). Humbert and Lolita are in the procedure of learning nigh each other, and what they might be able to achieve in a future relationship: "All at once I knew I could kiss her pharynx or the wick of her mouth with perfect impunity. I knew she would let me do so, and even shut her eyes as Hollywood teaches . . . I cannot tell my learned reader . . . how the knowledge came to me . . . for now she was not actually looking at my scribble, but waiting with curiosity and sophistication . . . for the glamorous lodger to do what he was dying to do" (Nabokov 47).
- Learning
- Relationship Story Signpost 2
Humbert says: " . . . I really knew very little near children. After all, Lolita was simply twelve, and no matter what concessions I made to time and infinite . . . I all the same was under the impression that whatever went on among those brash brats, went on at a after age, and in a different surround." (Nabokov 115)
- Relationship Story Journeying two from Learning to Understanding
In hindsight, Humbert concludes: "Merely somewhere backside the raging elation, bewildered shadows conferred—and not to accept heeded them, this is what I regret! . . . I should have understood that Lolita already proved to be something quite different from innocent Annabel . . . I should have known (by the signs fabricated to me past something in Lolita - the real child Lolita or some haggard angel backside her back) that nothing but pain and horror would result from the unexpected rapture" (Nabokov 115). (It could be argued that although the reader never actually hears Lolita'southward thoughts, Humbert'south aforementioned conclusions could also be taken as hers. Of course, Lolita was not in a position to listen whatever signs sent out past Humbert.) Humbert learns that Lolita has had prior sexual experiences: " . . . I was not fifty-fifty her starting time lover" (Nabokov 125). He also learns that she is quite capable of terrifying him by threatening to betrayal their hotel tryst. Lolita learns that her female parent is dead and that Humbert is the only one in the world who is left in her family. She comes to understand that "She had absolutely nowhere to go" (Nabokov 130).
- Understanding
- Relationship Story Signpost iii
Humbert begins to comprehend what Lolita is all about and vice versa. Sharing close quarters in an endless variety of hotels and motels for a year, they both acquire a deep and meaningful agreement of one another'due south body, mind, and spirit.
- Human relationship Story Journey 3 from Understanding to Doing
Closeted, every bit information technology were, with each other during their year of being on the route, Humbert and Lolita came to know ("nous connumes") (Nabokov 133) every type of hotel, motel, resort, road, foliage, geography, eating house, bathroom, tourist trap, museum, tennis court, and movie, not to mention all kinds of people and a rich assortment of food. Aside from driving to all of these places and visiting most of them, there were the twice (at least) daily sexual gymnastics, the arguments, and looking dorsum, Lolita'south furtive meetings with Quilty.
- Doing
- Relationship Story Signpost four
Humbert and Lolita'southward activities escalate. She is busy planning her escape and he is busy wondering why she suddenly becomes so tractable. He tries vainly to outmaneuver Quilty. When Lolita'south plans practice succeed, and she leaves with Quilty from the infirmary, Humbert spends the adjacent year on the road looking for them and and then spends time in a sanitarium and teaching at a college, while living with an amiable drunkard. Lolita, meanwhile, goes to alive with Quilty, leaves him and goes on the route with a girlfriend and finally ends up married. Humbert's next activity is to requite Lolita money and kill Quilty. Lolita accepts Humbert's coin and turns down his entreaty to return to him. Both of their last endeavors, so to speak, are to die.
Plot Progression Visualizations
Dynamic Deed Schematics
Bone: MC: IC: RS:
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Source: https://dramatica.com/analysis/lolita
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