Just my old Senior English final I found in my drafts…. figured I’d just post it.
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Ms. Douglass
English 12
June 7, 2008
Lolita
Pedophila is a topic of great controversy amongst parents. They don’t
want there child exposed to such dangers and don’t want such things to
happen to thier child. But for some people, it’s a interest or even
hobby. Though with the writings of Vladimir Nabokov in Lolita, it is
obviously still a very disturbing idea, but explain in a light not
often given. Should Lolita be kept from readers simply because it
revolves around the idea of Pedophilia and child molestation? No.
Lolita is still a captivating book that explain someones point of view
on life and how he deals with it.
As with all literature, many of the ideas and plot twists that supply
the excitement to this particular book are seen under a guise of the
particular generation that reads it. Not only do these ideas no longer
play an important part to the interpretation as it is transferred from
generation to generation, but many times the way in which a book is
written can affect the reader. The most prominent case of this
happening is in the works of Shakespeare. The ideas and plots he
present in his books are most often lost in our contemporary society as
we find not only his word usage, but also his themes to be archaic, and
unbarring on modern life. Such is the case of Nabokov’s Lolita.
There is one slight difference, however, between the writing of
Shakespeare, and the writing of Nabokov (and in particular Lolita). In
the writings of Shakespeare, one finds a sense of satire of the
hierarchy of England, and a sense of defiance toward the natural order
of things (in particular Romeo and Juliet’s defiance of fate). Nabokov,
instead, reaches toward a different audience for satire. He aims to
satire the middle class of contemporary America. This attempt at satire
gives Lolita its dynamic flow from decade to decade and generation to
generation because it allows each generation to interpret the book’s
meaning in a new and fresh way. Whereas Shakespeare satirizes an
institution and set of ideas that have always been resented by the
poorer classes, Nabokov instead decided to challenge a segment of
society that is by its very nature ever changing.
As much of the book is revolved around a middle class household,
Nabokov is forced to write a story which will be not only a reflection
of the evils of that household (represented by the relationships each
particular character brings to the text), but also the inherent
goodness that pop culture tells us is present in life. Because
Nabokov’s book is a direct reflection of the pop culture of the 1950’s,
reactions from audience to audience will forever change as the middle
class of not only America, but also the world, change faces and
morality in all areas of life. Unlike in Shakespeare, where he aims to
satire an institution that is and was disliked by the majority of
viewers, Nabokov aims directly to satire those who read his book. It is
this contradiction that leads to a generational gap as the book is
passed down from generation to generation.
But enough comparison between Shakespeare and Nabokov. With any piece
writen since the creation of the writen language, it’s always been a
challange on wether or not certain things should be kept from readers,
or free for everyone to read and form thier own opinion. With Nabokov’s
Lolita, his views on pedophelia are plainly expressed. And although
many people may not like his idea’s or they way he expresses them, they
are none-the-less just those; His expressions. And he’s free to express
such views under the first amendment in the United States Consitution.
But, Lolita is a french printed novel, and was first subject to it’s
restrictions on press and expression.
Although Lolita’s first printing of 5,000 copies sold out, there were
no notable reviews, and the book would likely have gone unnoticed for
some time had not respected author and critic Graham Greene, in an
interview published in the London Times, called it one of the best
books of the year. Greene’s statement outraged John Gordon, editor of
the popular Sunday Express, who responded in print, calling Lolita the
filthiest book I have ever read and sheer unrestrained pornography. The
British Home Office ordered customs officials to seize all copies
entering the United Kingdom and pressured the French Minister of the
Interior to ban the book. On December 20, 1956, the Paris police did
just this, and Lolita remained banned in France for two years.
However, The 1960’s proved to be more receptive of Nabokov and Lolita.
America was changing on different levels. The President had changed
again in 1960, now society was in the firm grip of Kennedy’s Camelot.
America’s involvement in Vietnam was beginning to heat up, thousands of
soldiers were being sent daily, and the American college system was
about to be rocked by protests not only about race, but about war. Life
in America was changing, and so was literature. So too was the public
view of Lolita.
Instead of being highbrow pornography, Lolita was soon becoming a
classic which, though still mostly misunderstood by those who it
attempted to satire, was beginning to take society in its grip. Nabokov
remembers a particularly disturbing incident involving the socializing
of Lolita. He was quite shocked when a little girl of 8 or 9 came to
his door for candy on Halloween, dressed up by her parents as Lolita.
Lolita would reach its most powerful grip on society in 1962 with the
release of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of the story, with partial
scripting from Nabokov himself.
The movie continued the Lolita tradition of causing a disturbance to
the social status quo: When the novel Lolita was released, the smash
hit outraged many middle-classman because it dared to tell of love
between a middle-aged man and a twelve-year-old girl. The movie
represented a new path for Lolita to take as it ventured down the road
to infamy. The summer of 1962 presented the movie going public with one
of the greatest varieties of films to date. Possibly the most important
movies that came from that year were Lawrence of Arabia and To Kill A
Mockingbird.
With so much publicity and scrutiny, the story of Nabokov’s Lolita was
analysed in great detail by many critics and fellow writers. The story
behind Lolita was gripping and and entransing in my experience. Through
the eyes of Humbert Humbert was how the story was told to it’s readers;
but with what I consider a slight twist. It wasn’t the typical telling
of a narrator to a reader, but instead a narrator to a jury. A jury at
Humbert’s trial. The story begins with Humberts telling of his boy hood
summer at 14. And his first love Annabel Leigh, before her premature
death from typhus. Before the beginning of World War II Humbert leave
his home country of France, to New York, eventually ending up in the
small town of Ramsdale, New England in 1947. With the unfortunate
burning of the house he was booked to stay in, he ends up at the door
of Charlotte Haze, a widow,who has a sexually charged interpretation of
taking in a lodger. As the two make their way through Mrs. Haze’s tour
of the house, Humbert rehearses different ways of turning her down, but
then, after being led out into the garden, he spies Haze’s 12-year-old
daughter Dolores sunbathing in the garden. Throughout the novel Dolores
is refered to by many names, including Dolly, Lolita, Lola, Lo and L.
Humbert, seeing the Annabel Leigh in her, is instantly smitten with the
daughter and eagerly agrees to rent the room.
Charlotte becomes his unwitting pawn in his quest to make Lolita a part of his living fantasy. When Mrs. Haze drives Lolita off to summer camp, she leaves an ultimatum for Humbert, saying that he must marry her (for she has fallen madly in love with him) or move out. He is absolutely horrified at first, but after much contemplation he warms himself to the idea of living with Charlotte for the sole reason of making Lolita his stepdaughter, intending to use heavy sedatives on both her and her mother so he can express his sexual desire on Lolita in her sleep. Although we never learn specifically what he plans to do, he does say he wishes to keep her purity intact. Humbert marries Charlotte and they live a domestic lifestyle, with Charlotte completely oblivious to his distaste for her.
Humbert starts to write a diary in which he records his life in Ramsdale and, more specifically, his relationship with Lolita. He locks the diary in a drawer. While Lolita is away at camp and Humbert has gone into town, Charlotte opens the drawer and finds his diary, which details his lack of interest in her and impassioned lust for her daughter. Horrified and humiliated, Charlotte decides to flee with her daughter. Before doing so, she writes three letters — to Humbert, Lolita and a strict boarding school for young ladies to which she apparently intends to send her daughter. Charlotte confronts Humbert when he returns home. Retreating to the kitchen, he tells her that the diary entries are just notes for a novel. But Charlotte has already bolted from the house to post the letters. Crossing the street, she is struck and killed by a passing motorist. A child retrieves the letters and gives them to Humbert, who destroys them.
Humbert picks Lolita up from camp, telling her that her mother is desperately ill in a hospital, and takes her to The Enchanted Hunters, a hotel of regional repute, where he meets a strange man (later revealed to be Clare Quilty), who seems to know who he is. Humbert intends to use the sleeping pills on Lolita, but they have little effect. Instead, she seduces Humbert (the first of only two times she is recorded as doing so), and he discovers that he is not her first lover, as she had had a sexual affair at summer camp. After leaving the hotel, Humbert tells the now-troublesome Lolita that her mother is dead. Alone and frightened, Lolita has no choice but to accept Humbert into her life on his terms.
Driving Lolita around the country in Charlotte’s car, moving from state to state and motel to motel, Humbert bribes the girl for sexual favours; he falls genuinely in love with her, but is conscious that she is not attracted to him and shares none of his interests. She is, in fact, a very crass and ordinary adolescent, who merely puts up with him and is not above manipulating him sexually when she can. Eventually, the two settle down in another New England town, with Humbert posing as Lolita’s father and Lolita enrolled in a private girls’ school where the headmistress views Humbert’s possessive supervision as that of a strict, old-world European parent.
Humbert nevertheless is persuaded to allow Lolita to take part in a school theatrical club (extracting additional sexual favours from her in exchange for his permission). Ominously, the title of the play — The Enchanted Hunters — is identical to the name of the hotel where they technically became lovers. Lolita is enthusiastic about the play and is said to have impressed the playwright, who attended a rehearsal, but before opening night she and Humbert have a ferocious argument, and she bolts from the house. Found by Humbert a few minutes later, Lolita declares that she wants to immediately leave town and resume their travels. Humbert is delighted, but increasingly guarded as they again drive westward, nagged by a feeling that they are being followed and that Lolita knows who the follower is. He is right. Clare Quilty, an acquaintance of Charlotte’s, the nephew of the local dentist in Ramsdale, and the author of the play being performed at Lolita’s school, is himself a pedophile and amateur pornographer. He is tailing the couple in accordance with a secret plan of escape devised with Lolita. While Humbert becomes increasingly paranoid, Lolita becomes ill and recuperates in a nearby hospital. One night she checks out with her “uncle”, who has paid the hospital bill. Humbert, still clueless as to the identity of Lolita’s “abductor”, makes farcical and frantic attempts to find them by inspecting various motel-register aliases which have been laced by Quilty with insults and jokes flavored with literary allusions.
During this period, Humbert has a chaotic, two-year love-affair with a petite alcoholic named Rita who, at 30, is 10 years younger than him and a passable physical substitute for Lolita. By 1952, Humbert has settled down as a scholar at a small academic institute. One day, he receives a letter from Lolita, now 17, who tells him that she is married, pregnant and in desperate need of funds. Armed with a gun, Humbert, still driving Charlotte’s car, visits his young obsession and turns over to her the money she was due from her mother’s estate. He also asks her to leave with him, but she refuses. During their conversation, Lolita explains that her husband, a nearly deaf war-veteran and the father of her unborn child, was not her abductor, whereupon Humbert offers to give her all the money he has if she will reveal the man’s identity. Lolita complies, saying that she had really loved Clare Quilty, but that he threw her out after she refused to perform in a pornographic film he was making.
Leaving Lolita forever, Humbert surprises Quilty at his mansion. Quilty goes mad when he sees Humbert’s gun. After a mutually exhausting struggle for it, Quilty, now insane with fear, merely responds politely as Humbert repeatedly shoots him. He finally dies with a comical lack of interest, expressing his slight concern in an affected English accent. Humbert is left exhausted and disoriented. Arrested for murder, he writes the book he entitles Lolita or, The Confessions of a White Widowed Male, while awaiting trial. According to the novel’s fictional “Foreword”, Humbert dies of coronary thrombosis upon finishing his manuscript. He is thus unaware that Lolita dies, during childbirth, on Christmas Day, 1952.
