WesleyW+Lolita

Lolita – Themes, Motifs, and Symbolism

“Big Haze and Little Haze rode on horseback around the lake, and I rode, too, dutifully bobbing up and down, bowlegs astraddle although there was no horse between them, only elastic air – one of those little omissions due to the absent-mindedness of the dream agent” (54).
 * Theme of absence and omission**

Nabokov consistently plays with a sense of lacking, both in the telling of the story and within the story itself. From the very beginning we learn that Humbert’s past is filled with repeated loss; his mother and his first love were taken away in a brutal stroke of fate, and his subsequent attempts to replace these prototypical sources of affection met with similar disaster.

This want of emotional support was likewise echoed in Lolita. Her biological father was absent in her childhood, and her mother was of the oddly strict yet negligent sort that “was more afraid of Lo’s deriving some pleasure from me [Humbert] than of me enjoying Lo” (56). Both Humbert and Lolita were defined most strongly by what it is they lacked, and its subsequent impact upon their development.

To bridge the fourth wall, Nabokov also teases us to be wary of what it is that he, as the author, has omitted from his novel. Dropping clues that Humbert as the narrator has craftily manipulated event he most studied psychiatrists, we are led to doubt the most poetic and vehement assertions of Humbert as the most ambiguous and unreliable passages. Even the periods of absence of inconsistencies are themselves inconsistent with Humbert’s un-omitted flaws.

“My habit of being silent when displeased, or, more exactly, the cold and scaly quality of my displeased silence, used to frighten Valeria out of her wits” (89).
 * Theme of silence, deception, and ambiguity**

In conjunction with the theme of the absent, we are occluded by the theme of the hidden. This deception takes many forms, deliberate and otherwise, manifesting as a anywhere from a basic defense mechanism to a tool of intimidation.

Most literally, Humbert’s embrace of deception is most beautifully seen in his romancing of Charlotte Haze to get closer to Lolita. His entire marriage and disposition was a ploy with the simple, pure intent of impurity. The relationship culminates in a powerful metaphoric scene in which Humbert tries to make sense of the shredded letters Charlotte had attempted to deliver before her death. This imagery could of course been interpreted as a direct allusion to novel itself as a compilation of fragmentary narratives, obscured through destruction and permutation.

Likewise, Humbert has an ongoing theme of shifting identities, transitioning seamlessly between Humbert the Incubus to Humbert the Butcher, or even Jean-Jacques Humbert in those moments necessitating a clever name to reference upon the favored philosopher of the hour. Humbert wields these masks with terrify skill only to discover too late that those closest to him, Lolita and Quilty, were as talented deceivers as he. The question we must then adopt upon ourselves is to determine whether Humber attracts deception, promotes deception, or is, in fact, no special deceiver at all.

“As I look back on those days, I see them divided tidily into ample light and narrow shade: the light pertaining to the solace of research inpalatial libraries, the shade to my excruciating desires and insomnias of which enough has been said” (32).
 * Theme of language**

This theme is difficult to discuss beyond the self-evident beauty of the entire reading experience. Nabokov’s writing is uncompromisingly artistic, filtered through the lens of Humber, our English-teaching-book-writing-pedophile friend. Language is used to seduce and to deceive, to comfort and, as we must never forget, to narrate. Humbert’s embrace of language was his solace from his sins upon his northern expedition; and yet, Humbert’s mastery of language was his greatest tool towards the acquisition and acclimation of his desires.

“But even had they blinded, her, still nothing might have happened, had not precise fate, that synchronizing phantom, mixed within its alembic the car and the dog and the sun and the shade and the wet and the weak and the strong and the stone” (103)
 * Theme of Fate**

Should we trust in the words of our narrator, and believe all to have occurred as it did, then we must concede that our story could only have been born of a strong stroke of fate. The universe conspired to descend upon Mrs. Humber with a bolt of lightning, thus driving in Humbert’s first seeds of longing and imprisoning him within the strict confines of his aunt Sybil. Fate took away Annabel, Humbert’s first love, which in turn sparked his craving to relive the childhood that was stolen away from him. A last strive for normalcy was denied with the intervention of an overly charming taxi driver who stole away Humbert’s wife.

Luck with ignite again, burning down the house of Humbert’s acquaintance and guiding him instead to the titular nymphet. Chance would lead to the convenient death of Charlotte Haze, Humbert’s many adventures with his erstwhile daughter, and the repeated reoccurrence of, (un)coincidentally, a rival pedophile. This entire novel, if written by any less of an author or narrated by any perfect of an imperfect narrator, would be terribly contrived.

An infrequently appearing yet significant motif is that of water. It is the sea that took away Humbert’s first love Annabel. Humbert repeatedly looks forward to a lake picnic so that he may romance Charolette with the hopes of romancing Lolita, and in his frustration Humbert is contemplates drowning Charolette in a lake to be rid of her frivolity. It is by a lake in camp that Lolita gives up her virginity, before her first night with Humbert. And, of course, water itself carries with it obvious allusions to the wet nature of sex.
 * Motif of Water**

Nabokov, Vladimir. __Lolita__. New York: Vitnage Books, 1955.