Religion, literature, and the problem of evil in Nabokov's Lolita

Vladimir Nobokov's book titled Lolita, is a story of a pedophilic romance between a girl and an older man. Famous for its eroticism and exploration of a taboo part of human sexuality, it delves into what makes a girl appealing to a man like Humbert and the consequences behind their affair. The novel discusses through a series of events, the sexuality of the 12- to 16-year-old Lolita and Humbert, a pedophilic man who calls the girls he likes "nymphets." What is a Lolita, why has it become so synonymous with underage female sexuality? (This is the question explored throughout the novel. And the passage later discussed ties into that. This is also the thesis.)

The four-year period in which Humbert and Dolores embark on a perverted, sexual experience develops what the archetype of Lolita is and the consequences of being one. Nobokov describes their sexual relationship vaguely with fleeting and minimal detail, leaving much to the imagination, which is where the archetypal Lolita lays herself. Lolita represents the underage Eve of Adam and Eve who tempts the man and seduces him and herself into ruin. In all actuality, the man is the one who initiates and continues, but Lolita is seen as the driving force, the thing that causes the obsession.

These Lolitas as described by Humbert are "the demons amongst good children who entice men into desiring them." "Lolita," represents to Humbert, a long sought after nymphet who posseses the ability to placate the desires he, for so long, has hidden and kept locked away. It is also the term in which all sexualized girls who appear young, or are young, are named there after. In the start of chapter one, Humbert describes the name coming from his mouth as if to show the reader the sensuality behind it. "Lo-lee-ta: the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down to the palate to tap, on three, my teeth" He later mentions it again towards the end of chapter twenty-six as he asks the publisher to put simply and only "Lolita" throughout the page. This last showing of "Lolita" generates and instills in the reader the continual passion of the perverted character as well as the lingering sexuality of society in regards to young females.