Lolita

Lolita Haze is the tantalizing twelve-year-old girl in Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial 1955 novel, Lolita, which was made into an equally controversial movie in 1962, starring Sue Lyon as the nimble nymphet. Lolita is the object of obsession of Humbert Humbert, the middle-aged, professorial narrator of the novel, who marries the mother in order to be near the daughter. Poor Lolita – she has no voice of her own, the narrative being commandeered by Humbert. It is through his interpretation that she is presented to us, and so we see her as a conniving, opportunistic woman-child who initiates the sexual relationship between them. Orphaned by her widowed mother’s accidental death, Lolita becomes the “property” of Humbert, who leads her on a cross-country, nomadic journey while posing as her father. Ultimately, Lolita escapes his clutches and after a brief liaison with Humbert’s nemesis, Claire Quilty, goes on to marry a young man her own age. The wages of sin follow her, and Lolita dies in childbirth. She is still a child herself.

Humbert Humbert is the protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 classic, Lolita, a book which produced a maelstrom of criticism (as did its movie treatment in 1962). Humbert is, by his own testimony, seductively good looking, and believes he resembles a Hollywood actor. In addition, he is a well-educated and academically respected professor, sophisticated, suave and knowing. Beneath this surface, he is torturously shy and timid, self loathing, paranoid and illusionary. Oh, yes, and that little matter of pedophilia. Humbert is fully aware of the contradictions and inconsistencies in his nature, but he has no idea of why he leans in the dark direction he does. Freudian and self-analysis only anger him; he is adamantly opposed to the idea that his preferences are the result of childhood traumas. Humbert’s sexual obsession with his landlady’s twelve-year old daughter leads to years of his sexual exploitation of her, rape, kidnapping, cruelty, deceit, abandonment, abuse and death. Regardless of the character (if a twelve-year old can be said to have a developed character) of the child in question, Humbert, Mr. Humbert, is a despicable pervert if we take him literally. Instead, let’s go along with British novelist and essayist, Martin Amis, and accept the whole novel as a representation of the totalitarian state that destroyed Nabokov’s native Russia. Case closed.

Valeria is the first wife of Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” whom he marries early in a failed attempt to keep his baser instincts for young girls at bay. Indeed, her main attraction for him is her girlishness, although he considers her stupid and fat. She has the last word, so to speak, when she confesses to an adulterous affair, packs her bags and leaves him for her lover. He considers murdering or otherwise harming her, but does nothing. Later he hears that she has died in childbirth.

Charlotte is the unfortunate mother of the title character of “Lolita,” the very controversial 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov. Charlotte rents a room in her house to Humbert Humbert, who promptly becomes obsessed with her 12 year old daughter, the nubile Lolita. Charlotte is at first blissfully unaware of his true affections, believing him to be interested in herself, until she reads the sordid truth in his diary. She may be said to represent conventional society as a whole, for upon this discovery, she runs out into the street in shock and is killed by an automobile.