Context; Plot Overview; Analysis of Major Characters; Themes, Motifs & Symbols
1. Foreword
Summary
Written by the fictional John Ray Jr., Ph.D., the foreword informs us that the author of this manuscript, entitled Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male, died of heart failure in 1952, while imprisoned and awaiting trial. He does not mention what the author was arrested for. The author’s lawyer, C. C. Clark, contacted Ray to edit and possibly publish the manuscript, but only after the death of the title character. Ray, who had previously edited works on abnormal psychology, makes some changes to ensure the anonymity of the characters. He states, however, that he had very little editing to do, and the book is entirely the invention and creation of the author. He feels that to change it further would not be true to the author’s intent or to the richness of the subject matter.
Ray states that while the story in the manuscript is entirely true, almost
all names have been changed because its sordid nature. The exception is the
name Lolita, which is the title character’s nickname (her real name is
Dolores) and too intertwined with the tale to be changed. Lolita’s last name,
however, has been changed to the pseudonym “Haze.” The author had chosen his
own pseudonym, “Humbert Humbert.” Ray notes that a diligent reader would be
able to ascertain the events of the novel by researching news events in the
fall of 1952. He then summarizes the fates of various characters in the novel,
including the death of a Mrs. Richard Schiller. He states that he received some
confirmatory details from at least one person, a Mr. “Windmuller,” who does not
want his family to be connected with the author or his crimes in any way.
Ray admits that despite its lack of four-letter words, the book may be
considered very offensive by some. Nonetheless, he argues that to change the
language or wording of the novel would be to dilute its essence and its
sensuous detail. Ray states that he finds Humbert Humbert’s actions
reprehensible and his opinions ludicrous. However, he nevertheless thinks that
the author manages to be very persuasive, articulate, and seemingly sincere in
his love for Lolita. Given his background as an editor of psychology, Ray
provides some psychological insight into the author’s character. He suggests
that about 12 percent of the adult male population may share Humbert’s
condition and further posits the notion that, with the help of a competent
psychoanalyst, the tragedies in the novel might have been avoided. Ray believes
that this manuscript will become a classic in psychiatric circles, where it
will be read as a personal study of abnormal behavior. It may also prove to be
a cautionary tale, encouraging parents to be vigilant in the rearing of their
children.
Analysis
The title of the manuscript clearly indicates that the story is a confession, but the title also provides for the doubling of stories with its use of the word or. Since the author died in jail, the reader may assume that he is confessing to a crime. Ray does not say what crime the author is in jail for, but he does indicate that Humbert is a pedophile. The reader will later learn that Humbert is in fact being tried for murder rather than pedophilia. Yet the confession concerns itself almost entirely with the pedophiliac affair (or love affair, as Humbert argues) between the “widowed white male” and the title character, Lolita. The doubling of the title also indicates that more than one story will be told. Indeed, the manuscript tells not only of the confession of the Humbert, but of the strange life of its nymphet character, Lolita. Finally, the doubling of the title mimics the doubling of the author’s pseudonym, Humbert Humbert. Nabokov uses the linguistic pattern of doubled words and doubled characters to suggest the play of—and overlap between—opposites. .
Ray’s assertion that the novel tells a true story mocks the popular
fascination with lurid crimes and tabloid newspaper articles. Painstakingly,
Ray comments on the fates of many of the characters. Even here, Nabokov plays
games in order to keep the reader guessing. Though Ray admits that there is
indeed a real Lolita, he notably does not identify her fate during this time.
He does, however, note the demise of a Mrs. Richard F. Schiller, a ploy that
will become clear to the reader only near the end of the book. Nabokov also
invites the reader to investigate the factual events in newspaper archives but
explains that those events will not provide the whole story. Throughout the
novel, many characters will claim to be honest, only to have ulterior motives
and trick the reader as well as other characters. The factual truth is
ultimately less interesting than the manner in which that truth is recounted
In both his narrative voice and his point of view, the framing device of
John Ray, Jr., Ph.D., creates a point of view distinct from both Humbert and
Nabokov. Ray represents the book’s first reader, and, like him, we may have many
contradictory responses toward Lolita. While clearly disgusted by
Humbert’s crimes, Ray nonetheless admires Humbert’s literary skill and his
honest passion for Lolita. Ray, a believer in psychology and an editor of
psychological books, does not represent Nabokov’s attitude toward psychology.
Nabokov was, in real life, an outspoken critic of psychoanalysis and Freud, and
Ray’s reliance on a psychological explanation for Humbert’s actions will soon
seem comical as the story unfolds. For Nabokov, psychology was often a
simplistic and rudimentary explanation for complex human behavior. Though many
characters pay lip service to psychology throughout the novel, sheer
psychological explanations soon prove inadequate. In particular, Ray’s
insistence that Lolita is a “cautionary” tale will appear less like a valid
analysis and more like a desperate attempt to justify his admiration for a
manuscript of such objectionable subject matter.
2. Part One: Chapter 1 - Chapter 5
Summary: Chapter 1
Humbert lists the many different names of his love: Dolores, Lo, Dolly,
Lolita. He admits to being a murderer and states that he will present his case
to the readers, whom he calls “his jury.” Humbert explains that Lolita was not
the first girl-child in his life and refers to a particular girl he calls
“exhibit number one.”
Summary: Chapter 2
Humbert begins his story from his birth in Paris
and his childhood on the Riviera,
where a frequently absent father and a kind, yet strict aunt raise him. His
mother had died suddenly, and he describes this traumatic event with only two
brief words: “picnic, lightning.” His father runs a luxurious hotel, and
Humbert lives a healthy, happy childhood among the Riviera tourists. He states that his sexual
education up until the age of thirteen has been sporadic and somewhat dreamlike,
based on old French novels and movies.
Summary: Chapter 3
In the summer of 1923, Humbert meets a twelve-year-old girl named Annabel
Leigh, who is traveling with her parents. Although Humbert and Annabel are
initially just friends, that friendship soon changes into passionate,
adolescent love. Humbert states that he doesn’t have as clear a picture of
Annabel as he does of Lolita, though he lyrically recounts their awkward,
fumbling attempts at sex. Annabel and Humbert never manage to consummate their love,
and four months later she dies of typhus in Corfu.
Summary: Chapter 4
Humbert wonders if his predilection for young girls began with Annabel and
claims that she and Lolita are somehow connected. He claims that his brief
encounter with Annabel had physical and spiritual components that today’s
children would never understand. He mourns the fact that he was never able to
complete the sexual act with Annabel and describes one encounter in the mimosa
grove where they came very close. He tells the reader that he was only able to
break free of Annabel’s spell when he met Lolita, more than twenty years later.
Summary: Chapter 5
Humbert discusses his college days, when he gave up the study of psychiatry
for the study of English literature. Moderately successful, he publishes a few
books. During this time, he visits many kinds of prostitutes but finds himself
mostly drawn to a particular type of girl, the nymphet. A nymphet, according to
Humbert, is a girl between the ages of nine and fourteen, not necessarily beautiful,
but possessing an elusive, sexually appealing quality. He attributes this
quality to a magic spell and makes references to historical and cultural
instances of romance and marriage between underage girls and older men. He
states that that the allure of the nymphet can only be understood by adult men
who are at least thirty years older and who have the wisdom to understand the
girls’ enchanting qualities. While Humbert spends his time watching nymphets in
the playground, he rarely acts on his obsession. As an attractive man, Humbert
finds himself with many adult female admirers. However, most of them repulse
him. Humbert finds it unfair that a man can bed a girl of seventeen but not one
of twelve.
Analysis
John Ray, Jr., Ph.D., has already warned the reader of Humbert’s
persuasiveness, and Humbert confirms this assessment by beginning his
manuscript with a direct plea to the reader. The first chapter combines both
elements that Ray commented upon: unrepentant lust for a girl-child and the
elegant language of a man who is determined to tell the story from his own
point of view. This emphasis on language sets most of Nabokov’s work apart from
other novels of its time. In Lolita, Nabokov showcases the connections
and individual beauty of words through word games, puns, and patterns. The
reader soon becomes involved in the games and, as a result, involved in the
narrative. This involvement occurs even though most readers are repulsed by the
subject matter, pedophilia. Humbert relies on elegant language that will prove
to be very persuasive, even though Humbert himself may not earn our sympathy
and often acts monstrously.
Humbert describes his childhood as rather idyllic, and this description reveals many personality characteristics that make him unique among other characters in the novel. Most important, his background is European—not from any particular country, but from a mixture of nationalities. His European character and manner will prove irresistible to many Americans, and it sets up the American-European cultural conflict. Though Nabokov explicitly stated that this is not a novel of a jaded European seducing an innocent American or a shallow American seducing an elegant European, the contrast between the two cultures is highlighted prominently throughout the book. Humbert’s childhood, in other ways, is edenic and dreamy, far different from the childhood that Lolita will have. As the only son of a well-to-do father, Humbert is cultured and educated with high standards, and was raised among the elite vacationers on the Riviera. This privileged childhood is interrupted and forever marked by his encounter with Annabel Leigh.
The name Annabel Leigh is an allusion to Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee,” an ode to a young wife. Critics generally assume that the poem refers to Poe’s young wife, who died tragically early in their marriage. There are multiple allusions to Poe throughout the novel, but none so overt as this. Annabel’s name indicates her status not only as a prepubescent lover and object of desire but also as a young life cut short. Even though Annabel predates Lolita, Humbert makes clear that his love for Lolita has blurred the memory of his earlier love. Humbert can’t recollect Annabel’s appearance exactly, but he provides a lyrical description of their attempts at lovemaking. This tendency will be reversed when it comes to Lolita, whose physical features receive long, evocative descriptions while her sexual encounters with Humbert are narrated ambiguously and obliquely. Though Humbert romanticizes his trysts with Annabel, he manages to provide detailed accounts of their failed sexual encounters. With Lolita, he is too far in love to provide anything so mundane.
Humbert’s concept of the nymphet recalls the nymphs of Greek mythology, who were beautiful, wild, sexually active, and seduced by gods and men alike. Thus, Humbert’s invented name for the category of girls he likes places a learned and romantic veneer over his deviant desires. The age range of nymphets is fixed, and Humbert has no use for the nymphets who grow into ordinary women, an unfortunate aversion. Many adult women in the novel are clearly attracted to Humbert, but he sees them only as obstacles and hindrances. Humbert also tries to make his love for nymphets timeless by linking it to the practices of historical figures and faraway cultures. His romanticization of his attraction to underage girls belies his half-hearted attempts to provide a dutiful psychiatric analysis of his tendencies. Throughout the novel, Humbert speaks of the “enchantment” and “spell” of his moments with Lolita and Annabel. The nymphet is a symbol of lost youth and pure love, a dream-girl, who, given her romantic qualities and the censure of society, is virtually unattainable to the adult man.
3. Part One: Chapter 6 - Chapter 9
Summary: Chapter 6
Humbert wonders what happens to nymphets as they grow older. He describes
his affair with the young prostitute Monique, which ends when Monique matures
out of her nymphet phase. Humbert then encounters an aging procuress who
provides him with another prostitute who, although young, isn’t a nymphet in
Humbert’s view. When he tries to leave, the girl becomes angry. Humbert takes
her upstairs and pays her, but he doesn’t sleep with her.
Summary: Chapter 7
In an effort to curtail his illicit desires, Humbert decides to get married.
He courts and marries a Polish doctor’s daughter named Valeria. He finds the
conquest rather easy, given his good looks, but states that despite his success
with adult women, he considers himself hopeless in matters of sex.
Summary: Chapter 8
Humbert chooses Valeria because of her childlike nature and flirtatious,
doll-like airs, and she quickly falls in love with him. Despite his initial
attraction to her girlish personality, Humbert finds Valeria’s intellectual
inferiority distasteful, and he rarely sleeps with her. After some time, an
uncle dies and leaves him an inheritance, but the will includes the condition
that Humbert move to America
and take some interest in the uncle’s business. Valeria feels reluctant to
leave Paris, though Humbert tries to convince
her that she’ll enjoy America.
Finally, Valeria confesses to having an affair with a taxi driver. Despite his
relative indifference to Valeria, Humber feels
deeply betrayed and thinks about killing her. Courteous and apologetic, the
taxi driver arrives to take Valeria away. He does not leave Humbert alone with
Valeria at any moment, so Humbert can’t kill her. Valeria rather
melodramatically packs her things and leaves. He later learns that Valeria died
in childbirth in 1945, after she and her husband moved to California to participate in a bizarre psychological
experiment.
At this point in the story, Humbert becomes distracted by the poor state of
the prison library. He names some of the books available, including the Children’s
Encyclopedia, which he likes for the pictures of Girl Scouts. He notes a
surprising coincidence in a copy of Who’s Who in the Limelight and
transcribes a page for the reader. The page includes the playwright Clare
Quilty, who wrote such plays as The Little Nymph and Fatherly Love.
Who’s Who claims that Quilty’s works with children are particularly
notable. The transcribed page also contains an entry on Dolores Quine, and
Humbert says that seeing Lolita’s given name, Dolores, still gives him a
thrill. He states that his Lolita might have appeared in a play called The
Murdered Playwright, and he plays word games with the names “Quine” and
“Quilty.” He notes that he now has only words to play with.
Summary: Chapter 9
Humbert recounts his travels to New
York, where he takes a job transcribing French
literature and writing perfume ads. He watches the nymphets in Central Park and later has a breakdown due to the stress
of his job. After his release from the sanitarium, Humbert takes part in an
exploratory trip to the Arctic, where he is
charged with studying the psychology of his teammates. The trip improves his
health, but he finds the project tedious and publishes a phony analysis of the
psychological issues he was supposed to be studying. Upon his return, he has
another breakdown and is institutionalized once again, where he enjoys confusing
the doctors with fictional symptoms. This behavior improves his mood greatly.
He stays for a few months before checking out and reentering the world.
Analysis
The digression into Who’s Who in the Limelight initially seems like a
diversion but, in fact, represents another narrative game on Nabokov’s part.
Like the list of characters in the foreword, the meaning of the facts unearthed
in the book will only become clear much later in the novel. Humbert offers
clues that suggest the reason for his incarceration, in his word games (“guilty
of killing Quilty”) and his offhand remark that Lolita might have appeared in a
play called The Murdered Playwright. The incident contains certain clues
about Quilty’s character, as well. For example, the fact that the Who’s Who
notes Quilty for his plays with children will seem disturbingly ironic when the
reader learns that Quilty traffics in child pornography. Though Humbert
transcribes the entry on Quilty, he doesn’t pass any comment on it, remaining
fixated on the name Dolores. Nabokov’s word games indicate that neither
meaning nor truth will be fixed or literal. In Lolita, words become
unmoored from their ostensible referents and take on new meanings, depending on
their narrator and the point of view.
Humbert reveals the darker side of his personality during his adult years,
which are marked with periods of anger, rage, and lust. Though Humbert speaks
eloquently and persuasively, he is also prone to volcanic rages and cold,
calculating cruelty. For example, his terrific anger and murderous thoughts
upon learning of Valeria’s affair foreshadow his many instances of violence
later in the novel. Also, Humbert alludes to several nervous breakdowns and
bouts of madness. Though he attributes these breakdowns to melancholia, he does
not describe them in detail, and the reader must wonder what kind of mental
illness Humbert suffers from. Humbert once again dismisses the practice of
psychology by playing games with the psychologists who analyze him. Yet he will
describe himself as a madman numerous times, and his tenuous grasp on sanity
will be tested throughout the book. Humbert’s tendency toward violence, along
with his obsessive nature, will prove to be his downfall in the novel, and more
powerful forces than his eloquence or his education.
Humbert’s encounters with adult women are often darkly comic. He enters into
both his marriages with coldly rational motives that have little to do with
love or affection. He marries Valeria because his obsession with nymphets
worries him, and he wants to become a normal man. However, this attempt at
normalcy fails, and he finds both his wives coarse and intellectually inferior.
He does not describe his encounters with Valeria in detail, and the reader will
see later in the novel that he was quite cruel to her. When Valeria confesses
her infidelities in this section, however, Nabokov infuses the scene with black
humor. As Humbert seethes in anger, Valeria’s taxi driver lover apologizes for
his transgression in bad French and Valeria dissolves into hilariously
melodramatic tears as she packs. The comic action of the scene thwarts
Humbert’s attempts to demand satisfaction, but the sparing of Valeria spares
Humbert, as well. Driven to laughter by the antics of the two lovers, the
reader becomes distracted and shielded from the extremes of Humbert’s rage. And
by not killing his wife, Humbert manages to hold onto the reader’s sympathy for
a while longer.
4. Part One: Chapter 10 - Chapter 15
Summary: Chapter 10
Upon his release from the sanitarium, Humbert heads for a small town to stay
with a Mr. McCoo. A relative of a friend of his uncle’s, McCoo has a
twelve-year-old daughter, whom Humbert fantasizes about. When he arrives in the
town of Ramsdale,
however, he learns that the McCoos’ house has burned down. Mr. McCoo recommends
a boarding house at 342 Lawn
Street, run by the widowed Mrs. Haze. Neither Mrs.
Haze nor the house impress Humbert. He describes her as a fatally conventional
woman, one who, despite her so-called cultural and community activities, has
many pretensions and little imagination. He realizes with distaste that she
will probably try to seduce him. He finds the house horribly unappealing until
he sees Mrs. Haze’s twelve-year-old daughter, Dolores, sitting on the lawn.
Humbert finds her resemblance to Annabel uncanny and immediately remembers his
time with Annabel twenty-five years ago. He decides to stay.
Summary: Chapter 11
From prison, Humbert recalls passages from his diary regarding the time he
lived at the Haze house in 1947 and his initial thoughts of Lolita. Almost all
his entries describe encounters with Lolita and contain romantic descriptions
of her nymphet qualities, as well as his various attempts to lure her into his
presence. Delighted, he learns that he resembles a celebrity Lolita adores,
which causes Charlotte
to tease Lolita about having a crush on Humbert. Though he knows that he should
not be keeping a journal of his attraction, Humbert can’t help himself. He
often goes into Lolita’s room and touches her things. He describes Charlotte
Haze disdainfully and hates her for always complaining about Lolita. He knows
that he must behave himself with Charlotte
around, so he daydreams about killing her.
Summary: Chapter 12
Charlotte, Lolita, and Humbert plan to go to Hourglass Lake
for a picnic, but the trip continually gets postponed. Humbert gets a further
disappointment when he learns that a classmate of Lolita’s will accompany them.
Humbert learns that the previous boarder, elderly Mrs. Phalen, broke her hip
and had to leave suddenly, which enabled Humbert to come and live with the
Hazes. Humbert expresses amazement at how fate led him here, to his dream
nymphet.
Summary: Chapter 13
One Sunday, when the trip to the lake gets postponed yet again, Lolita
becomes angry and refuses to go to church with Charlotte. Delighted, Humbert has Lolita all
to himself. When Lolita starts eating an apple, Humbert teasingly takes it away
from her. He finally returns it and, as Lolita sings a popular song, discreetly
rubs against her until he climaxes. Lolita runs off, apparently without having
noticed anything.
Summary: Chapter 14
Famished, Humbert goes into town for lunch. He feels proud that he managed
to satisfy himself without corrupting the child, and he wavers between wanting
to repeat the experience and wanting to preserve Lolita’s purity. Later, Charlotte tells Humbert
that she is sending Lolita away to summer camp for three weeks. Humbert hides
his misery by pretending to have a toothache. Mrs. Haze recommends that he see
their neighbor, Dr. Quilty, a dentist and the uncle of a playwright.
Summary: Chapter 15
Humbert considers leaving the boarding house until Lolita returns in the
fall. Lolita doesn’t want to go to camp, but Charlotte dismisses her tears. Humbert muses
that Lolita might lose her purity while she’s away and cease to be a nymphet.
Just before she enters the car to go to camp, Lolita rushes back and kisses
Humbert.
Analysis
The contrast between Humbert and Mrs. Haze exemplifies the contrast between
the old, sophisticated, decadent world Europe and the artificial, pretentious
world of the United States.
Charlotte Haze aspires to be the kind of woman Humbert could love, a worldly,
elegant, refined woman who appreciates finer things. Yet her house, with its
modern furniture, cheap art, and general untidiness, manifests a different
personality. Throughout the novel, Humbert’s European manner and old-world
aesthetics attract a number of American women, each of whom he eventually
rejects. This sexual clash between America
and Europe will be upended in the relationship
between Humbert and Lolita, when Humbert falls under the spell of Lolita’s
fresh, vulgar American sensibilities. Despite Humbert’s best efforts, any
attempt to educate and sophisticate Lolita will fail. Humbert generally
forgives and occasionally romanticizes Lolita’s vulgarity, unlike Charlotte,
who has little patience for her daughter’s shallowness.
Humbert describes Lolita as an object, focusing on the nymphet qualities he
finds so exciting while rarely addressing her inner mind or feelings. Though he
notes her bad moods and her vulgarities, Humbert nonetheless remains convinced
of Lolita’s essential connection to Annabel. This connection is significant to
Humbert and Humbert alone, which reinforces his notion that only a special man
like himself could truly comprehend the rareness of a nymphet like Lolita. At
the same time, this reasoning reduces Lolita to a privately held notion of
Humbert’s and denies her the chance to grow or create meaning in her life. The
disconnect between Humbert’s romantic but objectifying view of Lolita the
nymphet and the real character of Lolita the girl finds a correspondence in
Humbert’s language, which also romanticizes the unromanticizable. Humbert
describes his perverse, unlawful desires with elegant, beautiful prose,
rendering attractive what many readers would otherwise find repulsive. This
effect of language is particularly notable when Humbert masturbates against
Lolita. Despite the troubling nature of the encounter, the rapturous,
satisfying language complicates the reader’s reaction, as we may simultaneously
be disturbed by the events yet seduced by the prose.
Even at this early stage, the love triangle between Lolita, Charlotte, and
Humbert appears volatile, particularly as the characters seem unaware of the darker
elements of their emotional responses. Besides the obvious, unsettling nature
of Humbert’s infatuation, a strong current of jealousy exists between Mrs. Haze
and Lolita, above and beyond the usual tensions between mother and daughter. Charlotte’s attraction to
Humbert parallels Humbert’s attraction to Lolita, as neither will see the true
nature of the object of their affections. When Lolita kisses Humbert, he is
ecstatic—Lolita has become real to him, rather than just a dream. Yet, given
her typically adolescent temperament, most adults would venture that her crush
is of the schoolgirl variety and unlikely to develop into a serious adult love.
Humbert prolongs the crush through his manipulation of her.
Humbert believes his life is controlled by the odd, unpredictable presence
of McFate, his word for the particularly American brand of fate that he
believes explains the repeated patterns and coincidences in his life. For
Humbert, McFate wields its power arbitrarily, bringing him to Lolita after Mrs.
Phalen’s accident but then thwarting their time together, such as with the
planned trip to Hourglass
Lake. McFate also works
in more subtle ways. For example, the Hazes live at 342 Lawn Street, and Humbert and Lolita
will later stay at Room 342 in the Enchanted Hunters Hotel, and will eventually
visit 342 hotels. Also, McFate continually brings Humbert into contact with
Clare Quilty. Though he has not yet appeared physically in the narrative,
Quilty is never far from Humbert. Quilty is the celebrity whom Lolita adores,
and whom Humbert resembles. When Humbert gets a toothache, Charlotte recommends Dr. Ivor Quilty, Clare
Quilty’s uncle. Humbert relies on McFate to explain the inexplicable and to
give order to his life. Similarly, Nabokov uses McFate to hide clues and
highlight thematic patterns in the novel.
5. Part One: Chapter 16 - Chapter 22
Summary: Chapter 16
Still reeling from Lolita’s kiss, Humbert is handed a note by the maid,
Louise. Charlotte Haze has written him a letter, confessing her love for him
and asking that he leave—unless he reciprocates the feeling and marries her.
Humbert goes into Lolita’s room and looks at the clippings on the wall. One of
the men in the pictures resembles Humbert, and Lolita has written “H. H.” on
it.
Summary: Chapter 17
Humbert considers marrying Charlotte
so he can stay close to Lolita. He even toys with the idea of giving both
mother and daughter sleeping pills in order to fondle Lolita. He would stop
short, he thinks, of having sex with the girl. Humbert decides to marry Charlotte and calls the
summer camp to tell her. However, Charlotte
has already left, and he reaches Lolita instead. He informs her that he plans
to marry her mother. Lolita seems distracted and not particularly
interested—she has already forgotten about Humbert at camp. However, Humbert
believes he will win her back after the wedding. He makes himself a drink and
waits for Charlotte
to return.
Summary: Chapter 18
Charlotte and Humbert become lovers and start planning the wedding. Charlotte quizzes him on
whether he’s a good Christian and says she will commit suicide if he isn’t. Charlotte enjoys the
prestige of being engaged to Humbert and waits on him hand and foot. Humbert
states that he actually enjoys some aspects of the affair and that it seems to
improve Charlotte’s
looks. Humbert tells himself that this helps him get as close as possible to
Lolita. Charlotte
responds to the engagement by becoming highly social and redecorating the
house. Charlotte
doesn’t have very many close friends besides John and Jean Farlow, whose niece,
Rosaline, goes to school with Lolita.
Summary: Chapter 19
Humbert describes Charlotte
further and mentions that she is about to suffer a bad accident. Humbert finds Charlotte extremely
jealous, as she asks him to confess all his previous relationships and
mistresses. Humbert makes up some stories to satisfy her romantic notions. He
grows used to Charlotte,
but her constant criticism of Lolita still secretly upsets him.
Summary: Chapter 20
Charlotte and Humbert go to the nearby lake in the last week of summer. Charlotte confesses that
she wants to get a real maid and send Lolita off to boarding school. Humbert
seethes quietly but, afraid of repeating his experience with Valeria, doesn’t
want to intimidate her. He considers killing her there at the lake but cannot
bring himself to do so. Jean and John Farlow join them, and Jean tells of
seeing two young people embracing by the water. She starts to tell a story of
Ivor Quilty’s nephew but gets interrupted.
Summary: Chapter 21
Humbert tries the silent treatment on Charlotte,
to no effect. However, when she decides they will go to England in the fall, Humbert argues
against it, and she immediately becomes contrite for making plans without him.
Regaining some control in the relationship pleases Humbert. Charlotte tries to be near him as much as
possible and mentions going to stay at a hotel called the Enchanted Hunters.
She wonders why he locks the small table in his study. Humbert teases her by
saying it contains love letters. Later, Humbert worries whether the table’s key
remains secure in its hiding place.
Summary: Chapter 22
Charlotte
informs Humbert that Lolita can only begin attending boarding school in
January. Meanwhile, Humbert visits a doctor and pretends to have insomnia, in
order to procure stronger sleeping pills to use on Lolita and Charlotte. When
he returns from the appointment, he finds that Charlotte has broken into the table in his
study and found the journal in which he details his lust for Lolita. Bitterly
angry, she threatens to leave with Lolita, having already written some letters.
Humbert goes into the kitchen to mix a drink and decides to tell Charlotte that the journal
was merely part of a novel he’s working on. Just as he finishes the drink, the
phone rings, and a man informs Humbert that Charlotte has been run over by a car.
Analysis
A combination of melodramatic gestures, laughable attempts at world-weary
refinement, and sincere, naked emotion, Charlotte’s
letter to Humbert provides insight into both the woman she really is and the
woman she would like to be. The letter also predicts the future in some uncanny
ways. In the letter, Charlotte
mentions that while Humbert is reading her letter, she’ll probably be speeding
home in her car and risking an accident, a fate she does indeed suffer at the
end of Chapter 22. Similarly, she tells Humbert that if he tries to seduce her
without reciprocating her genuine affection, he would be worse than a kidnapper
who rapes a child, which Humbert will indeed become. Surprisingly, the letter
also highlights certain shared characteristics between Charlotte and Humbert.
Even as he scoffs at it, the passionate prose and uncontrolled emotion of Charlotte’s letter echoes
Humbert’s own rhapsodizing of Lolita, though much less skillfully. Both
Charlotte and Humbert are propelled by their own poetic, romantic fantasies,
rather than a genuine connection to the people they profess to adore. When Charlotte discovers
Humbert’s secret, for example, she feels jealous that Humbert would prefer
Lolita to herself. The fact that an adult man yearns to molest her daughter
seems to be of far less consequence to her. Like Humbert, Charlotte is blinded by a passion that seems
more directed at herself than the people around her.
Through Charlotte
and her reactions to the impending marriage, Nabokov mocks the bourgeois values
of American domesticity. Despite her attempts at sophistication, Charlotte’s preoccupations
before and after her marriage show the power of her middle-class sensibilities.
First, she must assure herself of Humbert’s religious faith, which she
mistakenly sees as a sign of his good character. She devotes herself to
becoming a prominent member of the community by holding tea parties and
garnering mentions in the society column. She fervently cleans and redecorates
the house according to rules and tips she finds in catalogues and decorating
manuals. With these efforts, Charlotte
attempts to create an air of respectability about her, befitting society’s
expectations for the satisfied wife of a prominent man. Humbert describes the
town of Ramsdale
as idyllic and as artificially peaceful as a town depicted on sitcoms. Under
the surface, however, dark emotions prevail, and despite Charlotte’s attempt to remake her life in the
image of a perfect, American nuclear family, the façade soon crumbles.
In these chapters, McFate—the particularly American mix of chance, destiny,
and coincidence that Humbert distinguishes as a guiding force in his life—seems
to show its hand with increasing frequency. At the same time, in its seemingly
anarchic unpredictability, McFate serves as a counterpoint to the characters’
grander attempts at finding systematic meaning in their lives. For example, Charlotte demands that
Humbert “erase” his past romances so that nothing can obstruct his affection
for her, the woman destined to be his soulmate. However, in bringing Humbert to
Charlotte, McFate has also brought Lolita to
Humbert, and the girl will eventually displace Charlotte
and become what Charlotte
always wanted to be: the love of Humbert’s life. In a particularly cruel twist,
McFate will also mercilessly dispatch with Charlotte by sending her into the path of an
oncoming car, conveniently clearing the way for her daughter’s usurpation of
her place by Humbert’s side. Like many other characters in the novel, such as
Annabel or Humbert’s mother, Charlotte
is killed off suddenly and with little fanfare, as if she has fulfilled her
purpose and become obsolete to the narrative. Considering that Lolita
doesn’t represent an objective account of the given events, but rather Humbert
Humbert’s specific, biased view of those events, this harsh summation of
Charlotte Haze as a one-dimensional composite seems appropriate. Though Humbert
acknowledges McFate’s capricious nature, he assumes that Charlotte’s death has set him free so he can
be with Lolita forever. Humbert won’t always be able to rely on McFate’s help,
however, though he will never free himself from its influence.
Though he continually attempts to justify himself to us, the readers of Lolita,
Humbert’s cunning and deceitful nature hampers our ability to trust him fully.
More than once, Humbert has proven himself willing to create fictional accounts
in order to satisfy the public. He lies in his career, such as with his phony
Arctic report, and to those trying to help him, such as the doctors in the
sanitarium. Of course, he must constantly create fictions in order to distract
others from his pedophilia. When Charlotte
attempts the grand, romantic gesture of “erasing” their past loves, Humbert’s
willingness to invent a past yet again indicates his unreliability as a
narrator. Humbert’s deception represents one more kind of game-playing in Lolita,
and we must question whether his willingness to lie to other characters in the
novel extends to a willingness to lie to us. If we as readers truly are
Humbert’s jury, as he himself calls us, than we should bear in mind that this
book represents not just a confession—as the subtitle, Confession of a White
Widowed Male, suggests—but also a potential attempt to sway our judgment
and soften our harsh critique of a confessed pedophile, rapist, and murderer.
6. Part One: Chapter 23 - Chapter 27
Summary: Chapter 23
After receiving the phone call, Humbert races outside to discover Charlotte dead. She had
tripped on the wet cement and fallen into the path of a car, which was swerving
to avoid hitting a dog. Humbert quietly retrieves the letters she had been
planning to mail and tears them up. The Farlows arrive, and Humbert begins
drinking. That night, Humbert reads the letters, one of which is addressed to
Lolita, one to a reformatory school where Charlotte
planned to send Lolita, and one to Humbert himself. Later, Humbert implies to
John and Jean Farlow that he and Charlotte had an affair many years ago, when
he was still married to Valeria. Jean rushes to the conclusion that Humbert is
Lolita’s real father. Humbert asks them not to tell Lolita of her mother’s
death, so as not to ruin her time at camp. He tells them of his plans to take
her away on a trip.
Summary: Chapter 24
The driver of the car that killed Charlotte, Mr. Frederick Beale, Jr., comes
to apologize but states that Charlotte
was at fault. Humbert agrees. In private, Humbert feels guilty over not having
destroyed his journal, and weeps. The next day, as Humbert leaves to get
Lolita, Jean, who has become very attracted to him, kisses him passionately.
Summary: Chapter 25
Humbert muses on the coincidences that have brought him to Lolita but
doesn’t allow himself to become too excited by the thought of being with her.
Trying to plan how to steal Lolita away without looking suspicious, Humbert
becomes plagued by doubts. He plans to take her out of the camp by claiming
that her mother has fallen sick, but he can’t be sure that Lolita hasn’t
already heard about Charlotte’s
death. Unfortunately, Lolita has gone on a hike and won’t return for two days.
Humbert buys Lolita many presents, including clothing, as he knows her
measurements almost by heart. He also makes a reservation at a hotel called the
Enchanted Hunters, which Charlotte
had mentioned to him before her death.
Summary: Chapter 26
Humbert, worn down by prison life, considers abandoning his account. He
writes Lolita’s name out several times, and then commands the person who will
eventually print his novel to keep repeating her name until the page is full.
Summary: Chapter 27
When Humbert picks up Lolita from the camp, he thinks for a moment that he
might want to simply be a good father to her. That moment passes, however, and
he realizes he still loves her. Humbert tells Lolita that her mother is in the
hospital, and they drive off. Lolita tells Humbert that she’s been unfaithful
to him, but then she kisses him flirtatiously. In the midst of their kiss, a
policeman stops them and asks after the whereabouts of a blue sedan, which
Humbert and Lolita profess not to have seen. They arrive at the Enchanted
Hunters and take room 342. Unable to get a cot for Lolita, Humbert realizes
they will have to share a double bed. Lolita giggles and says that would be
incest. In the room, Lolita shows Humbert how to kiss, but she soon loses
interest in what they’re doing. Downstairs, in the dining room, Lolita spots
someone who looks like Quilty, the celebrity she admires. Back in the room,
Humbert gives Lolita a sleeping pill, and she soon becomes drowsy. As she falls
asleep, she tells Humbert that she has been a disgusting girl, but Humbert
tells her to tell him tomorrow. Humbert locks the door and goes downstairs.
Analysis
As Humbert settles into the role of the grieving widower, Charlotte’s death touches him with an apparently
genuine remorse, but he still cannot bring himself to deny his desire for
Lolita. The friction generated by Humbert’s intense appetites and his refusal
to be bound by conventional morality will continue throughout the novel. Ever
the sophisticated European, Humbert scoffs at Charlotte’s bourgeois morality and her vulgar
pretensions to class, yet he too believes in presenting a façade of
respectability that ultimately is not matched by an internal sense of decency.
Whenever Humbert feels guilt or attempts to be fatherly, he lingers for a
moment before brushing the feeling aside. Humbert continually mocks the adult
women who are attracted to him, and their naively romantic notions. However,
Humbert’s own desires are equally intense and equally starry-eyed, and those
passions control Humbert as much, if not more, as the women’s passions control
them. Despite the eloquence with which he argues his case, Humbert is guilty of
precisely the same faults as the women he scorns.
The hand of McFate, which we have already seen working in previous sections
of the novel, provides numerous coincidences in these chapters as well. For
example, Lolita and Humbert stay in Room 342 at the Enchanted Hunters, the same
number as the Hazes’ street address. At the hotel, Lolita spots a man who
resembles Clare Quilty, the playwright whose picture she once had on her
bedroom wall. In the car, Humbert and Lolita share a kiss that gets interrupted
by a policeman looking for a blue sedan. He doesn’t comment on the kiss, even
though Lolita states that Humbert should have been arrested—for speeding. This
foreshadows the final section of the novel in which Humbert, after killing
Quilty, is indeed arrested for speeding. The policeman’s lack of interest in
the kiss implies a certain societal tolerance of the relationship between
Humbert and Lolita, a situation that Humbert is more than willing to exploit.
A final instance of McFate at work can be seen in the name of the hotel, the
Enchanted Hunters. Later in the novel, Lolita will star in a play of the same
name, written by none other than Clare Quilty. The phrase itself represents
many things, but it most clearly refers to Humbert himself. He frequently
claims that he been spellbound by nymphets who possess magical powers and
mythical qualities. Humbert is enchanted by Lolita, the object of his
obsession, both in the charming, familiar sense of the word and the more
distressing, literal sense of being bewitched or spellbound. Later in the
novel, Humbert will also become a hunter—first of Lolita, then of Quilty.
Humbert notices these strange coincidences in prison, as he writes the
manuscript and ruminates on events from his past. Similarly, we won’t discover
the full import of these clues until the novel has ended, and we can look backward
to construct a pattern of incidents.
7. Part One: Chapter 28 - Chapter 33
Summary: Chapter 28
Humbert eagerly anticipates caressing the unconscious Lolita. He claims that
he hadn’t planned on taking Lolita’s innocence or purity but merely wanted to
fondle her while she slept. He admits that it should have been clear to him
then that Lolita and Annabel were not the same, and that if he had known what
pain and trouble would follow, he would have done things differently.
Downstairs, Humbert wanders through the hotel’s public rooms. On the terrace,
he encounters a man who insinuatingly accuses him of behaving inappropriately
with Lolita. Each time Humbert asks the man to repeat himself, however, the man
feigns innocence and pretends to make idle chit-chat about the weather. The
man, who remains half-hidden in the shadows, invites Humbert and Lolita to
lunch the following day, but Humbert plans to be gone with Lolita by then.
Summary: Chapter 29
Humbert returns to the hotel room to find Lolita half awake. He climbs into
bed with her but doesn’t make any advances. Anxious and excited, Humbert stays
awake all night. In the morning, Lolita wakes up and nuzzles him as he feigns
sleep. She asks him if he ever had sex as a youth. When Humbert says no, Lolita
has sex with him. Humbert states that, for her, sex was just another activity
between children, unconnected to what adults do behind closed doors.
Summary: Chapter 30
Humbert launches into a dreamy description of how he would repaint the
Enchanted Hunters hotel in order to make the setting of his first encounter
with Lolita a more natural, romantic one.
Summary: Chapter 31
Humbert once again defends his actions as natural, using history as
evidence. He notes that according to an old magazine in the prison library, a
girl from the more temperate climates of America becomes mature in her
twelfth year. He further reminds the reader, whom he calls his jury, that he
wasn’t even Lolita’s first lover.
Summary: Chapter 32
Lolita recounts her first sexual experiences. Astonished by Humbert’s
naïveté, she tells him that many of her friends have already experimented
sexually with one another. At summer camp, she used to stand guard while her
friend Barbara and Charlie, the camp-mistress’s son, copulated in the bushes.
Soon, Lolita’s curiosity led her to have sex with Charlie as well, and she and
Barbara began taking turns with the boy. Lolita says it was fun but expresses
contempt for Charlie’s manners and intelligence. Humbert gives Lolita the
various presents he bought for her, and they prepare to leave the hotel. He
warns Lolita not to talk to strangers. He later notices a man, about his age,
staring at Lolita while she reads a movie magazine in an armchair. Humbert
thinks the man resembles his Swiss uncle Gustave.
Humbert becomes upset by Lolita’s shifting moods and her seeming disinterest
in him, and he worries about how to keep their new arrangement a secret. As
they drive off, he tries to uncover what Lolita’s friends know about her
sexuality, but Lolita is in a bad mood and irritated by Humbert’s touches. Humbert
feels guilty but still desires her, and she remains confused and unhappy. Even
as he tries to cheer her up, Lolita says that she was only an innocent girl and
that she should tell the police that Humbert raped her. Humbert can’t tell if
she’s joking or not. Lolita complains of pains and accuses Humbert of tearing
something inside her. Lolita becomes angry and upset and demands to call her
mother. Humbert tells her that her mother is dead.
Summary: Chapter 33
Humbert buys Lolita many things in the town of Lepingville. In the hotel, they have separate
rooms, and he can hear Lolita crying. Sometime in the night, she creeps into
his bed because, as Humbert says, she has nowhere else to go.
Analysis
As Humbert and Lolita’s relationship transforms into a blatantly sexual one,
Humbert’s demonstrated duplicity and seductive skill with language should make
us question whether we can fully trust his description of the affair. In
particular, Humbert’s claim that Lolita seduced him, rather than the other way
around, seems suspicious. Like many adolescents, Lolita appears to have mixed
feelings toward sex, ranging from mild repulsion to enthusiastic curiosity.
Until now, she has appeared to be a flirtatious, vulgar girl of mercurial
moods, whose supposed crush on Humbert varies in intensity from moment to
moment. As she eagerly questions Humbert about his sexual relationship with her
mother, we can see that she clearly has a teenager’s typical interest in
sexuality. However, despite the passionate kisses she shares with Humbert, sex
seems mostly a game to Lolita. She describes her clandestine encounters with
Charlie as fun, but in the same chapter she makes reference to the “disgusting”
things that she learned at camp. She clearly enjoys Humbert’s attentions yet often
grows bored with his unceasing ardor.
Humbert doesn’t describe the actual act of sex with Lolita in any detail.
One reason may be that his desire for Lolita encompasses something beyond
physical lust—even when Humbert drugs Lolita, he mostly daydreams about
examining her body, rather than about actually forcing himself on her. In some
sense, Humbert’s refusal to describe the event explicitly may represent a
desire to preserve the sanctity of the act, or of Lolita herself. However,
Humbert’s reticence about the physical act of sex may be simply a strategy to
keep the reader from being too disgusted with him, enabling him to keep alive
the romantic element of his narrative.
Whether or not Lolita initiates the seduction, it would be hard to argue
that Lolita consciously intends to transform her relationship with Humbert into
a real love affair. Left to her own devices, Lolita might not have chosen to
continue with Humbert after their initial sexual encounter. Indeed, after their
first night together, Lolita becomes sullen. Her frequent references to rape
and incest indicate that she understands the impropriety of their relationship,
but her cool self-awareness suggests that she isn’t as outraged as we might
expect. However, despite the fact that Lolita often seems quite composed and
self-controlled for a child, the fact remains that she is deeply affected by
her first sexual encounter with an adult. Like many adolescents, she isn’t
prepared to handle the emotions that arise from sex, let alone the emotions that
arise from sex with a grown man who happens to be her stepfather. The next
morning, she wants to call her mother. While she may not exactly understand
what has gone wrong, she still seeks consolation from the person who was
supposed to be her protector.
Just as Humbert consummates his relationship with Lolita, Clare Quilty
appears as Humbert’s dark shadow. Quilty remains a mysterious form throughout
the novel, a trickster figure and a game player who never quite comes to light.
Lolita fascinates him, but Quilty doesn’t seem as controlled by his desires as
Humbert is by his. This self-control will eventually distinguish Quilty from
Humbert in Lolita’s eyes. Humbert, unaware of the role that Quilty will play in
his life and the danger he represents, fails to recognize him as the celebrity
that Lolita adores, and whom he himself resembles. Instead, he notes Quilty’s
resemblance to a Swedish relative of his, Gustave Trapp. This represents an
ironic kind of recognition, since Trapp and Humbert, being relatives,
presumably resemble each other as well. The fact that Humbert links Quilty with
Trapp, rather than himself, seems a perverse refusal to admit how he and Quilty
are connected—and, ultimately, very similar. Humbert’s inability to see
Quilty—to neither recognize nor to literally see him, since he is often
standing at a distance, or in the shadows—represents an powerlessness on
Humbert’s part to accurately see himself.
Freed from the constraint of friends, family, and watchful society, Humbert
can now take advantage of Lolita, since, as he himself observes, Lolita has
nowhere else to go. As the novel progresses, Humbert’s control over Lolita
becomes more and more forceful, just as she tries harder and harder to escape.
Significantly, Lolita surrenders to Humbert in the town of Lepingville, a name that recalls Nabokov’s
fascination with lepidoptery, or the study of butterflies. Like a butterfly
collector, Humbert will pin Lolita down and eventually drain her of the lively,
whimsical quality that he loved in the first place.
By the end of this section, Humbert seems to have passed a point of no
return, abandoning his already tenuous commitment to morality or decency. For
example, despite her problems with her mother, Lolita becomes understandably
distraught upon hearing of Charlotte’s
death and cries herself to sleep. Yet Humbert remains steadfastly attached to
his plan, even as he knows that she crawls into bed with him because she has
nowhere else to go. His obsession leads him to believe that he can fulfill all of
Lolita’s needs and keep her from needing anyone else besides him. This belief
represents one of Humbert’s many delusions about Lolita. He remains remarkably
insensitive to her feelings, ascribing her sullenness to mysterious bad moods
rather than genuine grief at her mother’s death or genuine disgust with the
sexual act. Humbert sees only his own nymphet, not the real thirteen-year-old
girl. Charlotte
was similarly obsessed with Humbert and saw only an erudite European, rather
than a dissolute, middle-aged pedophile. Both parental figures are blinded by
their own passion and fail to be proper parents and protectors to Lolita.
