An Analysis Of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita

Lolita, the novel that recounts the “intense and obsessive involvement of a middle-aged man with a sexually precocious young girl.” (Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia. "Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich.") In the present-day, Lolita is considered Vladimir Nabokov’s most famous and controversial novel that implies obsessive desires, heartbreak, and transformation among other sensitive subjects. However, the Russian’s masterpiece was not always categorized as a favorite. The book itself had a resilient time obtaining approval in the United States, as it was rejected several times by American publishers due to the possibility of obscenity charges. When it was originally issued by Olympia Press in France, it resulted challenged and in some cases removed …show more content…
In his poem, Poe mentions a child with whom he falls in love and according to him, their love is mutual. All of a sudden she gets taken away by kingsmen following her death to “shut her up in a sepulchre”. Similarly, in Nabokov’s novel Annabel Leigh gets taken away by her parents so she does no longer has contact with Humbert. She then tragically dies of typhus sealing her relationship with the speaker of the novel and beginning a sickening traumatic …show more content…
Humbert is a slave to the attraction he feels for “nymphets” as he liked to call them, like Lolita, while she on the other hand has to live with the morbid memories that his stepfather and rapist marked on her although she did not know any better. There are many factors that cause the development of the situation to be quite unpleasant. Firstly, none of them had a good relationship previous to the one they underwent. Humbert often found himself struggling with women and marriage to the point where he was cheated on, and there were rumors of his sexual preferences. He was familiar with psychiatrists even before he knew Lolita, as he mentions himself that he often visited these type of clinics and had to “take breaks” several times from his work due to his unbalanced condition. Lolita did not have a father figure to look up to or guide her during her adolescence, as she also grew unattached from her mother because of her “terrible” manners. The story ends tragically with the death of Dolores during labor on Christmas Day with a child from another man, Clare Quilty, murdered by Humbert. Consequently, the speaker of the novel is sentenced to prison and dies of coronary