ID: 76149 Paper Type: Pages:

ID: 76149 Paper Type: Pages: 4 Topic: Lolita by Nabokov Citation Style: Turabian with Endnotes Bibliography: 0 Due: 2007-04-24 07:00:00 Worth: $36.00

Info: Arrive at a theme that weaves its way through the book and discuss the motif's signifcance in four double spaced type pages. Lolita as a Love Story

Lolita, by Vladamir Nabokov has drawn a lot of attention since its mid-20th Century publication. As a story about a pedophile and his relationship with a young 12 year old, it is sure to draw a controversy. But a primary theme in the work has often gone overlooked at that is love. Love; or rather the obsessive nature that love can assume is a theme in which Nabokov touches upon through many of the relationships in the story. From Humbert's failed childhood love, to his obsession of Lolita to his marriage to Charlotte and relationship with Rita, Humbert goes through his life chasing a love he will never find. Or when he does find it, it is often not the fulfilling nature that he had desired. Ultimately, Lolita is a powerful love story of a twisted kind and the love expressed is not often pure love, but obsessive, and Lolita is therefore a warning on the dangers of obsession as obsession, even when realized, is left unfulfilled. Humbert begins his prison memoir by telling of his failed love as a childhood which has set him on a path as a pedophile. It is this unrequited love, or rather love that was stolen from him that has turned in to what he is. This suggests the power of love in that the entire deviant future that would eventually lead Humber to prison is because of the love he could not consummate. Perhaps this indicates the power of love, or the power of love to cause obsession, but it also shows the deviant nature that failed love can lead. The slope from a failed love can cause irreparable harm bordering on obsession. This would be a problem for Humbert in his next stop in which he is overcome with sexual desires for Lolita. While living in Charlotte's household Lolita becomes on obsession for him and he begins to create plans to put her, and her mom under sedatives to sexually molest her. "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta," Humbert writes in the beginning to describe his relationship with Lolita.[i] This shows the extent of her meaning to him, but that is not solely based on pure love as he treats her as a sexual toy and not as one who shares a relationship with him. Humbert often bribes her for sexual pleasure and it this obsessive drive for sex that is characteristic of his relationship with Lolita. In fact, he even marries Charlotte out of his desire for Lolita and enters a loveless marriage in which he has designs to kill her to help realize his obsession with Lolita. It is tough to disseminate between love and obsession and there has to be some elements and love in his desire for Lolita as she is replacing a part of his past that has long since been lost. But this means that the obsessive love for Lolita is not for the young girl in itself, but because of what Humbert has assumed her to be and his sexual desire. He has turned Lolita into an obsession, one that may be the result of love and there may be some love, his behavior in writing letters and marrying a women who he does not like just to be closer to the young girl is indicative of the obsessive nature of his love for Lolita. Humbert's interest in Lolita is rooted in his long term interest in young girls that he refers to as "Nympthets." He seeks these nymphets prostitutes, which is evidence of his obsession for women who are of the certain age. While he gives the reader a psychological reason for his poor behavior, it cannot be assumed that he is anything but a person who has a perverted desire for young girls. It is not just a desire, but an obsession, and he consumes himself with such fantasies until he meets Lolita and the fantasies are able to become a reality. Between his own failed marriage and relationship with Lolita, Humbert's psychological madness is revealed. He does not believe that the psychologies have any idea about what true madness is, yet it is very clear that many times Humbert is made, such as his desire to kill Valeria his ex-wife he cheated on him. The madness is an important theme that strengthens the obsessive behavior in Humbert in his quest for little girls. He ultimately finds the object of his desire in Lolita. Once her Mom is successfully out of the way after being hit by a car, Humbert picks up Lolita at camp and then travels the road with her forcing her to offer sexual favors. This is not characteristic of a loving relationship, but one of force and it is in this relationship that Humbert's obsession becomes a reality. It is hard to discern whether that relationship borders on true love or not. Humbert writes that, "I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita."[ii] This shows that he does in fact have a special connection to Lolita. He may love her in an obsession love that does more harm than good, but he feels Lolita is the sole object of his desires. He truly does care for her, not in the purest sense of love, but a sense in which love is contorted by the madman that he is. Regardless or not Humbert experiences true love for Lolita, it is a maddening obsession love that when she elopes, Humbert's paranoia is realized and he cannot live with his young girl. This sets the stage for the final obsessive actions that love has sparked in Humbert. Humbert settles into a relationship with an alcoholic named Rita, but it is still not as satisfying as his experiences with Lolita. This leaves a void in his heart and suggests that his love for Lolita may in fact be real. A letter from Lolita resets the spark in Humbert and he seeks to punish the one that took Lolita from him. This means that Lolita's love for Humbert was not real, but she understands that Humbert does have a real care for her. However, Humbert will only help Lolita if she is to tell Humbert who abducted her. When Humbert finds out who, and that Lolita really cared for this man who stole his obsession from him, Humbert sets out to kill him. Thus the obsessive love turns in a madman's desire. At this point Humbert does not care so much for Lolita, but for exacting revenge on the man stole from him his greatest desire. And here the work takes a twist as Humbert's desire for love turns into a madman's quest for revenge. Humbert's killing of Quilty at the end of the work is the final descent of the madness that has haunted Humbert his whole life. He commits murder on the one who robbed him of Lolita, even though it is not Quility who stole Lolita, but the fact that Lolita herself grew up and became her own person that has caused Humbert so much harm. Ultmately Humpert's madness is because of his loss of love, or the obsession desire that he equates for love because his love is not forgiving but selfish it its motivations. Humbert notes that, "Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical," which suggests people are meant to follow the certain paths that are expected of them [iii] In this case, his undying obsession for Lolita is a path which he must follow to the end, even if that means murder, and he commits murder out of jealous obsession, but something hard to define as love. Humpert loved Lolita for what she was and what she represented, but not as a person. He exerted power and influence over her to meet his own selfish desires; not because he truly loved her. But in this way, love is a major theme of Lolita. Love is the driving force of the work as love is the cause of the madness and the actions which follow. However, it is a love gone wrong, a love tainted with obsession. Humpert loves an idea and loves nothing else. He is mad and his love is an obsessive kind that drives all the major characters towards dismay endings. Thus Lolita is perhaps also a warning on the dangers of unjust love, the power of love, and the often indiscernible differences between love and obsession. Lost must be giving, and Humpert is always taking. He cannot truly have loved Lolita for he wanted to put her to sleep and kill her mom to achieve his goals. But his desire for the girl is something more than ordinary and can be construed as love, and even the product of a previous love that ended in tragedy. Humpert therefore is a character who is caught the middle of madness, love, obsession, and a twisted perspective on life. But because his love is false, it does not make Lolita something other than a love story. Even at times when Humpert finds love with Lolita, it does last and his obsessive nature means he always unfulfilled until the very end.