Lolita
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Your opinion of Dolores?
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I feel sympathetic towards her too. I don't remember reading about any gesture where it evinces her mother's love for her, but that may be Humbert's prejudice. We know Humbert loves it when Lolita is acting crude and annoying so she is probably annoying. But people are annoyed by children in general, so that's to the credit of Nabokov's brilliantly real characters.
The only impression we have of Dolores is the impression given us by Humbert through his narration. His own twisted and perhaps totally selfish fixation with Dolores makes it difficult for us to entirely grasp what Dolores herself feels. Moments of revelation do occasionally shine through and the following passage in particular is quite revealing.And I have still other smothered memories, now unfolding themselves into limbless monsters of pain. Once, in a sunset-ending street of Beardsley, she turned to little Eva Rosen (I was taking both nymphets to a concert and walking behind them so close as almost to touch them with my person), she turned to Eva, and so very serenely and seriously, in answer to something the other had said about its being better to die than hear Milton Pinski, some local schoolboy she knew, talk about music, my Lolita remarked: "You know, what's so dreadful about dying is that you are completely on your own"; and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile clichès, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate--dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsions; for I often noticed that living as we did, she and I, in a world of total evil, we would become strangely embarrassed whenever I tried to discuss something she and an older friend, she and a parent, she and a real healthy sweetheart, I and Annabel, Lolita and a sublime, purified, analyzed, deified Harold Haze, might have discussed--an abstract idea, a painting, stippled Hopkins or shorn Baudelaire, God or Shakespeare, anything of genuine kind.
This reveals something crucial of the true Dolores as opposed to the usual Dolores we see refracted through the narrators own perception. I wouldn't say that i hated Dolores at all, as Marina suggested people do, but i cannot adequately define my own opinion because we can only know her as well as Humbert himself does, which, as he admits in the passage above, is not well at all.
I agree Sam. I think the problem may be with the movie, it presents Humbert as a man in love and leaves out all the predatory aspects, like him drugging her, threatening her that if she goes to the police she will end up an orphan, withholding gifts from her until she has sex with him, wanting to eventually get her pregnant so he can rape the child they have together and eventually rape his grandchildren. And how he describes little girls that he fancies as demonic as if it's their own fault for being sexually attractive.If Dolores is a little annoying is it any surprise that she will have behavioral issues when the person she calls "Dad" is raping her?
Marina wrote: "More often than not, I notice that a lot of people hate her; they see her as crude and annoying.I think, however, it's important to take a sympathetic stance toward this character, taking into account the relationship she had with her mother and especially her relationship with Humbert. How little control she has of the course her life has taken. I don't think she is to blame nearly as much as I've seen people blame her.
Thoughts?"
Delores' character as a child (when she is "Lolita" in Humbert's view) is that of a victim. She has neither the resources nor the capacity to articulate what has been happening to her. She is characterized, by Humbert, as a seductress, but the plot points and events that he also describes shed a lot of light on how much weight we should give his description. That is, if she is at all the girl he makes her out to be, why does he have to drug her, take her away from her home, and rape her? Surely if she is anything like the sexual creature he portrays her as, those things would not be necessary.
As an adult, the "facts" that Humbert gives us is that she got away from him, found a husband, lives a more or less working class lifestyle and is going to have a baby. When it comes to actual behavior, how many adults ask their parents for money? It's not unusual, particularly when getting started. He intimates that she is trying to extort or manipulate him--however, this encounter is then the trigger for him to perform a murder. As an adult, she seems to be just trying to build a life.
So, overall, I think those who don't sympathize with Delores have missed the main idea of the book. They may not want to sympathize with the victim for whatever reason, or they may relate more to the language that Nabokov uses when writing from Humbert's POV, but overall I'm confident that's not what Nabokov's message was.
I myself don't see her in 'simple' terms; she's not 'just' a helpless victim; and not 'just a precocious minx'. She's not entirely innocent but she's not a trollope either. She strikes me as just the same kind of wacko kids we see today. They get into berserk situations because they're half-grown and thrust into predicaments they can't handle. Some messes they get themselves into and some messes, they've gotten a shove or a push which they didn't need. Obviously, she was taken advantage of; but its the outcome of a series of poorly-thought-out decisions and actions by nearly everyone in the story. Such girls as Dolores possess childish mentality but with quickly-maturing bodies, maturing too fast for them to mentally keep up. Straddling childhood and young adulthood. But I don't think the story is one where you can just conveniently point-your-finger and identify just one culprit or factor which fed into the result.
I do feel bad for her, it´s strange that people could blame her. Yeah she may have "flirted" with him at first but so what everybody does it. Even if she didn´t she would have been in the same awful situation she´s in the rest of the book.She can be petty I guess but she´s young and living with a complete psycho (a fancy one at that) but still maybe it´s her way of dealing with it along with her personality.
Then there are times when we see her real feeling one being a time when her and Humbert have guests (a daughter and her father). Lolita sees them cuddling like family should, certainly not how her relashionship is with her "dad" and we see her get hurt or maybe dazzled at seeing what she was denied. I don´t know she must have felt a lot of things. We also can´t forget her tearfull display of emotions when Humbert discovers her crying in the bathroom with a look of total helplessness.
I don't hate Lolita, she was a lonely child who grew up faster than needed, she learnt the bad way. I hate Humbert, he was a "mature" man, he was the one who needed to play adult. Lolita was not the only one in his list, he was sick!!
Lo was a very sad character. Humbert took everything from her, including her childhood. Lo was a child, Humbert was an adult.
I've heard so many people call Lo a "temptress", and state that she "led Humbert on." Again, Lo was a child, Humbert was an adult.
In a nutshell, I have much sympathy for Lo. She was a victim of Humbert's manipulation.
I've heard so many people call Lo a "temptress", and state that she "led Humbert on." Again, Lo was a child, Humbert was an adult.
In a nutshell, I have much sympathy for Lo. She was a victim of Humbert's manipulation.
I don't think there is any logic behind over thinking a child's naive action. Even if she led him on or so was interpreted, I don't think she herself fully realise what she was leading herself too. Humbert took advantage of her naivete , he himself had acknowledged it in passing.
She was a female, with all the weight that term carries and implies. No more, no less.
Humbert's narrative doesn't create much sympathy for her, but the narrative behind the narrative, i.e. Nabokov's intent, which can be glimpsed past Humbert's voice, does create sympathy. I find it heartbreaking to see her at the end in such shabby circumstances. She's the victim presented by the victimizer as the one to be blamed, and at the end we see her with her hopes torn to shreds by her predator, or rather predators.
It's sort of impossible to form an accurate opinion of someone who we only learn about through the eyes of a mad man (the narrator Humbert).
Danielle wrote: "I agree Sam. I think the problem may be with the movie, it presents Humbert as a man in love and leaves out all the predatory aspects, like him drugging her, threatening her that if she goes to the..."Where is the evidence/quotes to say that Humbert wanted to rape Dolores to then consequently rape their children and grandchildren? I must have skipped over this?
Jay wrote: "Where is the evidence/quotes to say that Humbert wanted to rape Dolores to then consequently rape their children and grandchildren? I must have skipped over this?"The comments about raping Delores run throughout the text in various degrees, but specifically regarding his fantasy of having a daughter with her to abuse/impregnate and then a subsequent granddaughter to abuse, it is while he is musing about having to get rid of her when she grows too old and no longer has the "nymphette" qualities he wants in Part 2, Chapter 3:
...the thought that with patience and luck I might have her produce eventually a nymphet with my blood in her exquisite veins, a Lolita the Second, who would be eight or nine around 1960, when I would still be dans la force de l'age; indeed, the telescopy of my mind, or un-mind, was strong enough to distinguish in the remoteness of time a vieillard encore vert—or was it green rot?—bizarre, tender, salivating Dr. Humbert, practicing on supremely lovely Lolita the Third the art of being a granddad.Lots of folks don't seem to have noted that bit. I've only rarely seen it brought up by reviewers and even those who seem to "get" the book on that level often pass by it. Lolita is incredibly dense text, so that's not unusual, but I think it's particularly easy to miss the meaning of that passage because of his use of French. The term "dans la force de l'age" is probably best translated as "in the prime of life" though I think Nabokov was quite aware of the English/French meanings of "force" in that term. While "vieillard encore vert" means, directly, something like "old man still green" or "elderly yet green" which lacks the poetry/alliteration of the French, but I'm confident has a same basic sense of "green" as in "youthful" but also (as Nabokov notes) as in "rotten."
Thank you! This will really help me with me English essay.
Jay wrote: "Thank you! This will really help me with me English essay."You're welcome. Be sure to tell your teacher a dog did your homework.
There is no way that any blame can be apportioned to Lolita and I find it very strange that anyone would see fit to do so. Lolita was never able to consent - she’s a child with Stockholm syndrome at best. Humbert groomed her and her mother. He doesn’t care about Lolita’s thoughts or feelings - she’s merely the objectification of the fantasy he has to be able to continually rape a child without consequences for him (and it is a child he wants not a woman with an adult body) He never even knows her at all. The sheer destruction Humbert wreaks on Lolita’s life is utterly heartbreaking. Nabokov leaves us in no doubt that Humbert is an unreliable narrator. We see occasional glimpses of the reality of the situation- ie Lolita sobbing every night.
More often than not, I notice that a lot of people hate her; they see her as crude and annoying.
I think, however, it's important to take a sympathetic stance toward this character, taking into account the relationship she had with her mother and especially her relationship with Humbert. How little control she has of the course her life has taken. I don't think she is to blame nearly as much as I've seen people blame her.
Thoughts?