The narrator and key character of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, who may have appointed after himself the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, strikes the reader among the most despicable and unusual protagonists in classic literary works. He embodies numerous flaws and qualities that would be practically intolerable in a human being, yet which provide for a fascinating literary character. In Humbert’s narrative, his critical traits of self-delusion and inherent immorality are unavoidably exposed to the audience, his supposed jury, because they drive the storyplot forward. However , in an attempt to repair his reputation, Humbert quietly reveals another prominent characteristic of his: a general indecisiveness and tendency toward repos. Nabokov determines these chief characteristics through various literary tools, including various kinds of chance occurrence, the activities of additional characters toward him, and, most importantly, Humbert’s own narrative and usage of language.
The most identifying characteristic of the novel’s leading part is his delusional enthusiasm for Lolita and general detachment by reality, since it is this feature that encourages Humbert’s wrong actions and tragic stopping. One of the main aspects of Humbert’s delusional character is his love intended for the idea of Lolita rather than the girl herself. Nabokov keenly exposes this real truth through the skilled use of terminology in Humbert’s narrative. As an example, the foreword tells someone that Humbert had modified all of the labels in his history except Lolita’s, because “her first term is too closely interwound with all the inmost fibers of the publication to allow someone to alter it” (3). Humbert also begins his story by conveying the pronunciation of his love’s term as “the tip of the tongue going of three steps down the palate to engage, at 3, on the teeth” (9). This heavy focus on Lolita’s brand presents Humbert’s infatuation like a rather ” light ” one, which is presumably focused more by using an arbitrary idea of the lady rather than the women’s actual identity and habit. Humbert’s delusional fascination with Lolita is demonstrated later inside the narrative if he describes his attempt to recreate one of his childhood sex experiences with “Annabel Haze, alias Dolores Lee, alias Loleeta” (177). Once again, this playful usage of names suggests that Humbert isn’t concerned with Lolita as a person, but rather together with his ideal pregnancy of a “nymphet, ” which usually both Annabel Lee and Dolores Haze seem to in shape.
One other aspect of Humbert’s lust-induced delusion is his inability to simply accept Lolita’s relative disdain toward her lover and the inevitability of her maturation away of age of puberty, as showed primarily simply by Humbert’s hostile and oppressive actions with Lolita in the custody. Initially of his relationship with all the child, Humbert acknowledges that Lolita are not able to remain a nymphet permanently, and absolutely does not expect her to ever reciprocate his lust for her. Instead, he looks for more faithful and one-sided outlets of his desire, and appropriately expresses his satisfaction at having “stolen the darling of a spasm without impairing the morals of a small, ” by simply relieving his physical urges against her body and against her knowledge (65). However , when Humbert sleeps with Lolita and fractures the physical barrier between himself plus the nymphet, this individual simultaneously destroys the obstacle between what is reasonable and what is uncommon within his mind. It truly is at this point that he expects her to love him as much as this individual loves her and will not let her disregard his affections. This individual becomes paranoid and jealous, refusing to allow her to mingle to males within their travels, and persuading her to show him affection and offer him lovemaking favors as a swap for spending cash, which draws a disturbing parallel into a traditional infant’s monetary permitting. In a eager attempt to preserve Lolita’s nymph-like qualities, Humbert threatens to take her away from the school and community that they can had become an integral part of, refusing to believe that, throughout two years, the girl could turn into comparable to “any vulgar untidy high-school girl who does apply shared cosmetics” (216).
Although the target audience immediately accuses Humbert Humbert of immorality with his confession of hebephilia, Nabokov frequently displays additional, possibly deeper, nuances of Humbert’s immorality that build that his wickedness is of an inborn nature rather than a result of conditions, primarily by using death and Humbert’s personal, creative self-directed insults. Lolita, in conformation to it is overall tragic nature, is definitely plagued with death, especially pertaining to the ladies in Humbert’s life. Having been raised motherless, his Annabel Lee was killed prior to he could consummate his love on her behalf, both of his wives suffered untimely fatalities, and his precious Lolita passed away alongside her stillborn child.
However , consistent with the concept of the Humbert’s lustful delusion, non-e of those fatalities which do not immediately interfere with his carnal needs prove to be a vast amount of moral consequence to him. On the contrary, Humbert refers to his first wife’s death in childbirth as “[his] tiny revenge, inch (32), and values the death of Lolita’s mom as a highly fortunate ensure of his complete own the child. Just like the taint of death permeates the narrative, therefore does Humbert’s apparent sense of self-loathing.
In comparison to Lolita’s good and delicate features, for example , the narrator pertains to himself because “lanky, big-boned, wooly-chested Humbert Humbert, with thick dark-colored eyebrows and a singular accent, and a cesspoolful of decaying monsters at the rear of his gradual boyish laugh, ” implying the immoral desires that hide behind his seductive demeanor (46). Even if these kinds of terms of self-denunciation are designed to illicit compassion from “the jury, ” they even so indicate a fundamental sense of malice in Humbert’s mother nature.
What ever crimes Humbert has committed, and the immoralities that he possesses, it is strongly recommended that he could be not completely to blame for his actions. This is because he offers the quality of inaction and indecisiveness, he hardly plans out his actions with full conviction, nevertheless must be nudged toward a large number of courses of action. Nabokov highlights this feature with frequent references to Humbert’s evil contemplations and subsequent refusals to carry these types of ideas out, and the repeating role of fate through the narrative. Frequently throughout the story (barring the finish, of course), Humbert contemplates murder to be able to meet his desires or compulsions, yet decides to not so. Since it is difficult pertaining to the reader to readily deduce that this is a result of moral limitations, this is data that Humbert has difficulty carrying out decisive actions, and prefers to back of them, just like when, considering murdering Lolita’s mother inside the lake in order to ensure his possession of the lady, he address the reader by simply concluding, “simple, was it not? But what d’ye know, individuals I just could hardly make personally do it, ” indicating that it was not any practical matter but the inherent unwillingness to take this kind of a strong actions that averted him via doing so (92). Where Humbert’s own effort fails, then simply, “McFate, inches as tagged by the narrator, takes order. It is below, therefore which the blame of Humbert’s actions partially land. Many of the story’s critical occurrences happen by chance, including the death of Lolita’s mom, the vacancy at the Haze’s residence which usually facilitated Humbert and Lolita’s meeting, and Lolita’s ending up in Quilty, who steals the child from Humbert. Therefore , Humbert is a generally inactive figure and does not completely participate also in the many integral with the narrative’s activities.
Humbert Humbert of Vladmir’s Lolita is a despicable, yet entirely intriguing character of vintage literature. The taboo of hebephilia is usually portrayed creatively in this personality through the odd and well-developed traits of inherent values, lust-inspired self-delusion, and a tendency toward inaction and indecisiveness.
