Analysis Of Lolitas Enslavement To Humbert English Literature Essay

Analysis Of Lolitas Enslavement To Humbert English Literature Essay Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita depicts the relationship between a young girl and a much older3333 man. Humbert Humbert is in his late thirties and forties throughout the book and he talks the reader through how this relationship with Lolita made him feel and how it progressed as she got older and they moved around becoming closer as the months went on. Humbert Humbert narrates the entire book and he expresses to us how Lolita was in his words, but we never hear how it was for her, her side of the story, and how she felt in reality and not just how Humber Humbert thought she felt and was. It can be seen as how he wanted to ensure the reader believed him, about how he didn’t approve himself of the relationship he had and longed for with Lolita. It also however, makes the reader wonder was Lolita in one sense a slave to Humbert in that she was trapped as his daughter and lover because she had nobody else, the novel only gives Humbert’s point of view so there is no thing saying he isn’t making up Lolita’s personality to make himself look better to the reader. Humbert Humbert begins the book with a short chapter one his love for Lolita. He claims that his love for Lolita was only so strong because he had once loved a young girl before her for one summer, Annabel. He initially comes to meet Lolita when in chapter ten he moves to New England, to the house if Mrs Haze, 342 lawn street as she extended an invitation to him when he was stuck unsure of where he’d b going   [ 1 ]   . He sees Lolita for the first time in the garden and he describes her as if she was the young girl from his past, Annabel, and in doing this he seems to of immediately fallen for Lolita. Seeing Lolita was so much like Annabel, Humbert decides to accept Mrs. Haze’s invitation to stay on at the house. As the novel progresses we learn hoe Humbert’s ‘fondness’ for Lolita grew. He describes how he used to look at her and watch her sometimes. The reader quickly learns how fascinated he was becoming with Lolita, he would go into her bedroom from time to time and touch her things to be near her, â€Å"My heart seemed everywhere at once. Never in my life – not even when fondling my child – love in France – never†Ã‚   [ 2 ]   . Lolita it seems had no idea as to what Humbert was doing. It is during this part of the book that Humber first kisses Lolita, it was just on her eyelid but to him this created agony, when describing it in the book Humbert says â€Å"never have I experienced such agony†Ã‚   [ 3 ]   . Humbert becomes increasingly close to Lolita and her mother, mainly so he can continue being around the â€Å"hot little haze†. Even though he continually tries to justify his actions the reader still has no reason to trust him because he clearly tells of his deceit and the feelings he should not be having. After Lolita leaves for camp, Humbert and Charlotte Haze get engaged, this is purely from Humbert’s point of view just another way to stay in the house without question. However while Lolita is still at camp her mother gets run over by a car swerving from a dog and she is killed. Humbert now has to go and get Lolita from camp and tell her about her mother. They go to stay in a hotel and on the way she kisses him and again in the hotel. Humbert realises he still loves her and thought of being a good father figure leaves him. Also in the novel, towards the end or Part One, Humbert and Lolita’s relationship turns clearly sexual and it makes the reader question him, and whether we can trust how he describes the affair and how he says the Lolita seduced him in the hotel and not the other way around. Could Lolita of been too young to understand what was going on, the initial advance she makes on Humbert while she was so young is also questionable, Humbert was the only one she had at this point in her life, Humbert himself says ho w it was probably nothing huge for her, just exploring and living her adolescent life. And as Simone de Beauvoir says â€Å"She is already free of her childish past, and the present seems but a time of transition; it contains no valid aims, only occupations†Ã‚   [ 4 ]   .He also tells her at the end of Part One the truth about her mother and this upsets Lolita, drawing her closer and closer to Humbert, â€Å"in the middle of the night she came sobbing into mine, and we made it up very gently. You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go†Ã‚   [ 5 ]   .