Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Specifically

¶ … Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Specifically it will discuss the role of doubles in the novel, and their importance in terms of the overall meaning and implication of the novel. In this controversial and risque novel, Humbert and Quilty are doubles of each other, with Quilty representing the dark, evil side of Humbert's personality. They seem opposite during much of the book, but in reality, they are very much alike in many ways, and in the end, they blur together into one tragic and demented character.

Humbert and Quilty seem in direct opposition for much of this sexy novel. Humbert is French, Quilty is American, and they both disdain the other's country. Humbert is a literary snob, while Quilty is a cheap porn producer. Humbert is obsessed with Lolita, and will do just about anything to have her, from marrying her mother to attempting to locate her all across the country. Quilty, on the other hand, although he tracks them throughout the country, is not as obsessed with Lolita, and actually throws her out when she refused to star in his next porn film. Humbert is psychotic and has spent time in institution, while Quilty is content to manipulate his friends and her, never admitting there might be something wrong with him. While Humbert seems to almost revere Lolita, and at first, he did not want to molest her, Quilty, in contrast, is a "complete freak in sex matters" (Nabokov 278).

However, the two men have many similarities, which help indicate their purpose as doubles. Both love Lolita (in their own way). Humbert is a pervert, obsessed with children he calls "nymphets" between the ages of nine and 14. He says, "Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around me forever. Never grow up" (Nabokov 23). Quilty is a pedophile and a pornographer, at least one-step worse than Humbert. Nabokov writes, "Edusa had warned her that Cue liked little girls, had almost been jailed once" (Nabokov 277). Both men are writers, and both seem to drift from place to place, never calling anywhere "home" for too long. Both end up without Lolita, and both die in the end, rather tragically.

The two men think alike, too, which is apparent as Humbert attempts to find Lolita after she runs away from the hospital with Quilty. He says to himself, "[H]is genre, his type of humor - at its best at least - the tone of his brain, had affinities with my own. He mimed and mocked me. His allusions were definitely highbrow" (Nabokov 251). Both men think they are cleverer than they really are, and when all is said and done, they seem a bit pathetic and old, like old men looking back on their youth and vitality while not admitting they are old.

The two men, with their complex differences and similarities, create twice the impact in the novel. It is quite clear they are doubles of each other, and that Quilty represents Humbert's darker, evil side that he does not allow to surface very often. It is very clear that he can be much more dark and scheming than he seems to be. That is illustrated by just how far he will go to possess Lolita - marrying her mother and then literally abducting her after her mother dies.

In addition, they both are tragic figures who never get what they really want. Humbert discovers he is capable of love, and that he loves Lolita, even when she is "passed her prime" at 17. He says to himself, "[a]nd I looked and looked at her, and knew as clearly as I know I am to die, that I loved her more than anything I had ever seen or imaged on earth, or hoped for anywhere else" (Nabokov 279). Humbert is capable of real love, or as real as it can be for him, at least, while Quilty seems to be an incarnation of the devil, an evil presence in both Humbert and Lolita's lives.