Humbert's Lust and Love in Nabokov's Lolita

Introduction

In Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov creates a clear anti-hero in Humbert Humbert, a man guilty of pedophilia and possibly rape and murder. The bulk of the novel is devoted to Humbert's narration of his affair with his stepdaughter, a "nymphet" named Dolores Haze — or, in Humbert's mind, Lolita. For Humbert, the various forms of love he feels for the young girl are inextricably linked with his lust and sexual desires.

This paper examines the running theme of Humbert's sexuality and lust in Nabokov's Lolita. For Humbert, love can only be understood in the context of his powerful desire to sexually possess the object of his attention. He is therefore unable to express any love for the teenage Lolita — filial or romantic — without turning her into an object of his lust.

The first part of this paper looks at how Humbert treated the other women in his life: Annabel Leigh, Valeria, Charlotte Haze, and the easygoing Rita. This section discusses how, for Humbert, the degree of sexual attraction determines whether or not a woman is treated with love. The next part contrasts Humbert's relations with these other women against his defining relationship with the nymphet Lolita.

Other Women in Humbert's Life

This paper evaluates arguments that Humbert's attentions were akin to pedophilia or rape, or that his lust was intensified by its forbidden nature, against theories that Humbert's sexual desire is also an expression of genuine love for the adolescent Lolita. It argues that Humbert's willingness to commit murder on her behalf is proof that he not only lusted after but also loved the nymphet Lolita. However, because of his tendency to maintain control in his relationships — particularly with Dolores and Annabel Leigh — Humbert's first-person narrative should also be read with skepticism regarding his interpretations of the motives and decisions of the young girls involved.

Lolita is by no means the only girl or woman in Humbert's life. In the novel, he details at least four other females, all of whom shed light on his fascination with Lolita. His responses to Annabel Leigh, Valeria, Charlotte Haze, and finally Rita also reveal how his reactions to nymphets are necessarily creative, psychologically unbalanced, and intensely sensual.

A harsh critic of psychoanalytic theory, Nabokov always discounted theories that Humbert's lust for Lolita was brought on largely by his unrequited love for Annabel Leigh, the girl he had longed for since he was thirteen years old. However, a closer reading of Humbert's narration — and an examination of the character's very name — suggests otherwise.

Humbert describes Annabel as "a lovely child" (12), an outright admission that the preadolescent girl is not a woman. Neither, however, is Humbert a man at this point in his life. Despite their efforts, their affair is never consummated, a reality which "drove our healthy bodies to such a state of exasperation that not even the cold blue water . . . could bring relief" (12). Annabel dies only months later of typhus — the first of many sudden deaths in the novel — before Humbert ever has the chance of "possessing (his) darling" (13). This unrequited adolescent love affair essentially halts Humbert's sexual maturity and may have laid the foundation for his lifelong obsession with preadolescent girls whom he would later term "nymphets."

Annabel represents Humbert's first love. If his confession is accurate, she would be the only female besides Lolita whom Humbert truly loved. Critic Stephen Jay Parker attributes Humbert's emotional "rift" to his inability to satisfy his sexual desires with Annabel Leigh (Parker 72).

Critic Daniel Thomieres, however, observes that a careful reader can see how easily Humbert interprets these events to make himself sympathetic before launching into the details of his adult relationship with Lolita. As evidence, Thomieres points out that Humbert could not even recall Annabel's physical traits — he has lost her photograph and admits that the way he sees Annabel in his mind is also "the way I see Lolita" (11). Through the first-person narration, Thomieres also discerns that Humbert never lets Annabel speak for herself. In a sense, Annabel provides "(her) bod(y) and den(ies) her mind so as to incarnate that fantasy for Humbert" (Thomieres 168). Humbert states that she wanted him as much as he desired her, yet nowhere in the account does he give Annabel a voice.

Thomieres goes as far as to suggest that Annabel Leigh may not even have existed, and may simply be Humbert's ploy to justify his "rape and violent imprisonment of Dolores" (167). As his account of Annabel indicates, Humbert demonstrates a desire for power and a need to control the images of those he obsesses over. In the absence of actual sexual possession, Humbert recreates Annabel in his mind — a recreation that conveniently matches the current physical appearance of his stepdaughter Dolores (Thomieres 171). Later in the novel, Humbert does weave tales of fictional lovers to appease his wife Charlotte's curiosity, making it reasonable to question whether he is doing the same for his readers in his account of Annabel Leigh.

Nabokov's choice of name for this character is also significant. The young girl's name recalls Edgar Allan Poe's poem "Annabel Lee." By extension, Humbert's Annabel Leigh also evokes Virginia Clemm, Poe's child bride. Critic L. L. Lee further extends the reference to Annabel's mother, Mrs. Leigh — "born Vanessa van Ness" — to Jonathan Swift's Vanessa. These name references all allude to stories of young girls involved in love affairs with older men (Lee 117). Eventually, the cultural icon status of the name "Lolita" itself would overshadow the significance of these allusions.

In summary, the brief account of Annabel Leigh offers powerful insight into Humbert's character. If she did exist, Annabel provides an explanation for his obsession with Dolores. If she is a recreation or a ploy for sympathy, the account still illustrates Humbert's ongoing need to control the objects of his affection. Through his first-person narration, his choice of name, and the blurring of his mental image of Annabel and Lolita, Humbert reveals a persistent tendency to control and possess the bodies and images of those he swears to love.

Humbert is first attracted to Valeria because of "the imitation she gave of a little girl" (25). He soon realizes, however, that her childlikeness is merely an act. Her hair is dyed, and her unshaven legs begin to feel prickly. Instead of a thin, smooth, young, and hairless nymphet, Valeria proves to be "large, puffy, short-legged and big-breasted" (26). In Humbert's mind, the only trait that corresponded to childlikeness was Valeria's "brainlessness."

Four years into their marriage, Valeria admits to an affair with another man, a Russian taxi driver. Humbert's account of his emotions during what should have been a devastating moment is quite telling. Rather than expressing heartbreak, Humbert describes feeling suffocated by "a mounting fury — not because I had any fondness for that figure of fun, Mme Humbert, but because matters of legal and illegal conjunction were for me alone to decide" (28).

Humbert uses the excuse of "legal and illegal conjunctions" to justify his rage rather than the more common reason of a broken heart (Norton). In his reconstruction of events, Humbert takes pains to mask his lack of control over his wife and the loss of pride this entails. In a way, his inability to control or punish Valeria mirrors his inability to consummate his possession of Annabel Leigh. For Humbert, the real pain was caused not by the fact that Valeria — whom he found unattractive — did not love him, but by the fact that she chose to act on her own happiness. As an adult, she was free to take up with another man and leave her husband. Though he wanted to punish her, there was ultimately nothing Humbert could do to stop her.

Valeria's story rings truer than his narration of Annabel Leigh, in part because Valeria is granted an important — albeit brief — voice: "There is another man in my life" (27). Unlike Annabel, Humbert allows Valeria to articulate her own desires. Furthermore, this account is replete with Humbert's failures and his losing position in the balance of power (Norton). For revenge, Humbert can only concoct the unlikely story of Valeria and her new husband's humiliating role in an anthropological experiment. Like the other "uncontrollable" women in Humbert's life, Valeria eventually dies in his account.

Critics like Norton contend that Charlotte Haze could be seen as another of Humbert's victims (Norton). The unworldly middle-class widow falls easily for the dashing European gentleman. In Charlotte, the egotistical Humbert sees his cultural inferior — a woman who is decidedly bourgeois, as evidenced by her dress, the generic décor of her living room, and her "polished words (that) may reflect a book club or bridge club or any other deadly conventionality" (37).

Humbert soon discovers, however, that there are advantages to Charlotte's naivety. Unlike with Valeria, he clearly has the upper hand in his union with Charlotte. The naive American widow was powerless before "the superior sexual acumen and appeal so often assumed by Europeans and connived at by Americans" (Dupee 7). This control is illustrated when Charlotte thinks she is surprising her husband with a trip to England. Humbert's response is cruel, asserting that he would be the sole decision-maker in the household — a stance calculated to clear the way for his relationship with Dolores. He notes with satisfaction how Charlotte falls to her knees, declaring that Humbert was "her ruler and her god" (91).

Humbert's Obsession with Lolita

Humbert has clearly possessed Charlotte both physically and psychologically. Yet from the very beginning he neither loves nor desires her; she is merely a bridge to his true desire, the nymphet Lolita. Charlotte, by contrast, mistakenly believes they are in an equal partnership. His advantage in the balance of power rests on the fact that she is unaware of his powerful desire for her daughter. He constantly shuts her out of decisions to maintain control, and while he takes joy in demoralizing her, his actions are fundamentally oriented toward securing time with Dolores.

This balance of power shifts, however, when Charlotte reads Humbert's journal, learning not only of his disgust for her but of his infatuation with Dolores. Maternal instinct suddenly tips the scale, and for a brief moment Charlotte gains the upper hand. Despite earlier intimations of violence against Valeria, Humbert is unable to reassert control over the furious Charlotte, even by physical means. Only her fortuitous death — another in a series of women who have moved beyond his control — frees him to pursue his passion for Dolores.

The kind Rita, a divorcée in her mid-twenties, is Humbert's post-Lolita relationship. After Lolita disappears, Rita raises the possibility that Humbert could develop a normal, healthy relationship with an adult woman. She differs significantly from the other women in his life: unlike Annabel or Lolita, she is an adult who is clearly not dependent on him, and unlike his idealized girls, she is not a caricature of his imagination. Rita is certainly more attractive than Valeria and more able to assert herself than the timid Charlotte Haze.

Rather than treating Rita as a girl, Humbert recognizes her as "the most soothing, the most comprehending companion that I ever had" (259). It is in comparison to his acceptance of Rita — from her occasional drunkenness to her unidealized appearance — that Humbert finally puts his relationship with Lolita in context. In contrast to the imagined Lolita, Humbert recognizes that Rita is imperfect and exhilaratingly real. The reader can only imagine the possibilities for Humbert's personal growth had he not received the fateful letter from Lolita.

From the very beginning, Humbert admits to a desire to possess the young Dolores both literally and figuratively. He goes so far as to rename her, rejecting "Dolly" or "Dolores" in favor of "Lolita," and frequently refers to her using the possessive pronoun "my Lolita."

Early in the novel, Humbert explains his sexual preference for "nymphets" — a special category of femininity often indistinguishable from the average female. For Humbert, nymphets are preadolescents, much like Annabel and, later, Lolita. More importantly, Humbert asserts that nymphets are not fully human but rather "demoniac" (16). Though they are unaware of it, nymphets are "little deadly demons" with "fantastic power" (17).

Alongside his narration of Annabel, this explanation serves to deflect any charges of coercion. His attraction to Lolita is presented as a helpless reaction to her fantastic sexual power — she has, he asserts, "individualized the writer's ancient lust" (43). However, critics like Jeffery Alan Triggs contend that the opposite could well be true: that Humbert himself created this image of the demonic, flirtatious, and desirable Lolita in order to contrast her with her intrusive, bourgeois, and repulsive mother (Triggs).

Such an explanation lends credence to charges that Humbert's account of a willing and sexually knowledgeable Lolita masks the girl's lack of agency and options. Elizabeth Patnoe, for example, argues that through his narrative Humbert skillfully conceals how he repeatedly violates a hapless girl who has no other recourse. He "blames" her for her power and sexual prowess, oblivious to the fact that she cries every night after she believes he has fallen asleep. For Patnoe, the scratches on Humbert's neck are signs of resistance. Even Dolores's choice of geographic escape is symbolic: with their road trip, Humbert has raped her virtually all over the country, so when she finally escapes, she flees toward the country's borders (Patnoe).

Conclusion

Humbert's narrative confessional could be read as a record of his personal growth. In the beginning, the females of his life are constantly idealized and sexualized. "Lolita" is no exception, and the canny Humbert takes pains to paint the young girl as a complicit figure in their sexual relations. While his account is open to interpretation, it should also be read in light of his tendency to idealize and control the images and behavior of the women in his past — from the lost Annabel Leigh to the doomed Charlotte Haze.