Lolita

without trying to cover it up with false feelings. But, what happens when our reality becomes intertwined with fiction? How do things play out when we coincide real with the unreal? In Oliver Sacks’ text, “The Mind’s Eye”, and Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran” some insight is provided on this situation. What we make…

identification, individuals are able to decide which and to what degree identities apply to them. In other words, identification is not about fitting in to a label, but making the label fit into the individual’s perception of their self. In “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” Azar Nafisi and her students exercise the power…

in which the protagonist expresses his vile lust towards the innocent seems highly indecent. However, Nabokov makes that idea a reality in the 1955 novel “Lolita”. A scenic interpretation of the story, executed by Adrian Lyne, comes out in 1997, revisiting the old, yet still shocking tale of the incestuous, pedophilic relationship in which Lolita Haze is held hostage and Humbert Humbert takes great pleasure in. Although Nabokov and Lyne approached the element of character development quite…

Humbert an unreliable narrator is something remarkable. By showing us how to spot the unreliable narration and in turn giving us the tools to engage with this book, Nabokov allows us to alleviate ourselves from the conventional, topical reading of Lolita. That this is not a book that works to justify, explain, or understand Humbert’s love (and it is about the nature of this “love”, though pedophilia is the vehicle) but to display a history of pleasure and passion, that exists simply as that and…

Lionel Shriver’s fictional novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin, is a novel told in a series of letters from mother/wife to her estranged husband, in relation to the upbringing of her son leading up to the eventual massacre that he commits at his school. Unreliable narrator Eva Khatchadourian reminds readers that she is writing about her past in the first chapters, due to the dates of the letters, allowing readers to understand that her memories may be slightly incorrect. Shrivers use of…

Being a young adult, constantly concerned about how you are perceived and attempting to fit it, is one of the most critically important and talked about moments in a person’s life. Stephen Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower is a extremely significant bildungsroman novel that explores the coming-of-age narrative. It fundamentally explores the realities of high school, friendships, and the issues of self-discovery and acceptance through its narrator who refers to himself as ‘Charlie’. Within…

“You two could be siblings!” Everyone has been told this at least once in their lifetime and more times than not, the two people who could be possible siblings look nothing alike. This was a frequent issue for Felix after he met Hermann Karlovich in the novel Despair by Vladmir Nabokov. Nabokov had a common theme in many of his works and a theme that is very prevalent in this novel- fake doubles. He creates a static and narcissistic protagonist, Hermann, that propels the plot forward and sets…

To what extent do you agree with Jonathon Greenberg’s view that ‘Joe’s genealogical account of unreliability undercuts the very authority of his own intellectual position’? Refer to the whole novel and the critical anthology in your answer. The term ‘unreliable narrator’ refers to a narrator who is an ‘invariably invented character who is part of the stories they tell’, this therefore indicates how they are provide a first-hand point of view of the situations which take place. The term was first…

In the end, Lise achieves what she wants to do. When Lormerin reach home, he looks in the mirror and sees an “elderly, gray-haired man” and remembers “what he had been in the olden days, in the days of little Lise?” (11) Lormerin brought the light closer to him in order to look at himself closely. Lormerin sits down “crushed at the sight of himself, at the sight of his lamentable image, murmuring: “All over, Lormerin!” (12) Lormerin identity has been diminished by the fact that he is not the…

Redeeming the madman artist: 60 years of a misinterpreted Lo “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.” With thoughts like that, Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert cannot be the abhorrent pedophile it was once believed, or at least, not only that. Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, of pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom, was born on Shakepseare’s birthday on 1899. At the –not so young- age of 60, the émigré became not only a recognized author, but an adjective, through the succes de scandale of…