60 pages • 2 hours read
Vladimir NabokovLolita
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1955A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Male Gaze
The entirety of Lolita is from the perspective of Humbert Humbert and makes extensive use of the male gaze. In feminist theory, the male gaze refers to the masculine perspective of literature and film that represents women as objects designed for the sexual pleasure of the viewer. Lolita is full of scenes of Humbert watching young girls and looking for nymphets. Upon meeting Lolita, Humbert describes her body and clothing in extensive physical detail, including her “honey-hued shoulder” and “chestnut head of hair” (39). Though Humbert suggests that his attraction to nymphets is not based exclusively on looks, he devotes much attention to Lolita’s appearance. That she is a child emphasizes the perversity of Humbert and Quilty’s male gaze and subsequent obsession and abuse.
At the pool in Colorado, late in the novel, Lolita appears aware of two separate male gazes; Humbert watches Quilty watch Lolita, and he sees her performing for Quilty, “with her obscene young legs madly pedaling in the air” (237). To Humbert, Lolita can exist as a sexual being that belongs to him, and he cannot tolerate neither Quilty’s gaze nor the possibility that she might return his gaze.
Interestingly, in Humbert’s imagination, Lolita and Annabel look the same. He suggests that Lolita’s image has replaced his memory of Annabel, succeeding in “incarnating her spirit” (15) in Lolita. Both girls only exist through his own mind’s eye. Quilty, on the other hand, wants Lolita to appear in a pornographic film which would immortalize her in her most alluring phase; as well, Humbert vows that his book will make her story into art. Lolita’s immortality exists only as an extension of Humbert’s story, just as she exists primarily through his gaze.
Homelessness and Intransigence
Many characters in Lolita have no home. Humbert and Lolita spend years traveling to hundreds of hotels, motels, and inns, only settling in one place, Beardsley, for a short while. Humbert’s own life is one of drifting through Europe, America, and Canada. He even travels to the Arctic at one point. Humbert’s travels are designed to remove him from the temptations of nymphets or to keep him with Lolita; Humbert’s sexual proclivities inform his movements and prevent him from laying down roots.
As Humbert travels in search of Quilty, he spends one last night on the road and notes how much time he has spent in “small dead-of-night towns” (292). Such towns are far away from the arts and the culture he supposedly loves, but they are places that provide him with safety. By living on the road, Humbert does not have to confront his past; for instance, he refuses to return to the Enchanted Hunters, preferring instead to remember it on his own, even if he cannot find evidence to corroborate his own memories.
Being on the road provides easy cover for Humbert, as he knows he will not be in one place long enough for anyone to ask too many questions about him and Lolita. By securing his own safety, he deprives Lolita of a home. Later, Humbert recognizes that she could have had some stability with a steady home and family life if he had left when Charlotte asked him to. Lolita’s path is unfortunate, as she ends up on Quilty’s ranch and then alone, working in a diner until she meets Dick. Even with Dick, Lolita is not stable, as evidenced by their plan to go to Alaska. When Humbert arrives to her house in Ramsdale, Lolita becomes a tenant in her life, never able to stay in one place and always following or being followed by a predatory man. Whereas the road represents a certain idea of freedom for Humbert, for Lolita, the road is a trap.
Literature, Art, and Morality
In some ways, Lolita is a novel about literature. Humbert claims to be well-read, and he makes frequent allusions and references to classic literature and drama. He is something of a literary scholar, and his double, Clare Quilty, is a writer. Humbert tries to encourage Lolita to read more literature and fewer comic books, and he criticizes the books Charlotte reads and the way she writes. Later, Humbert makes fun of the plot of Quilty’s plays, and Quilty mocks Humbert’s writing.
Humbert uses literature to justify his own perversions, arguing, for instance, that “Dante fell madly in love with his Beatrice when she was nine” (19) and that Petrarch fell in love with Laura, who was only twelve. He also borrows from literature when he lies to Charlotte about his previous lovers and when he postures as a normal father to Lolita. Humbert also uses literature as an excuse for his behavior by suggesting that he is an artist, even going so far as to think of telling Charlotte his diary is part of a novel.
Humbert, whose story is Lolita, fills his narrative with clues and mysteries. Humbert suggests, for instance, that he finds morality at the end of the book when he recognizes the damage he has caused Dolores Haze by robbing her of a childhood. As well, Humbert compares the changes in John Farlow to the ways a character in literature can change. At these moments, Humbert recognize that morality and art are interconnected. He quotes a poem, writing that “the moral sense in mortals is the duty/we have to pay on mortal sense of beauty” (283). Humbert states that the story of Lolita is designed to immortalize her and to make her into art. In writing the story of Lolita, though, he writes a novel about himself, and his artistic aspirations become the confessions of a narcissist.
Related Titles
By Vladimir Nabokov
