Before you can completely understand a book you must first understand theme. Theme is the main idea or concept the author conveys throughout the story. In the romance novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator Humbert Humbert tells the reader about his life before prison that he has spent desperately trying to fulfill his pedophiliac fantasies and essentially recreating his scarred youth. The theme of the novel is an obsession with youth, not in himself but in innocent young girls, showing the reader the inner turmoil Humbert struggles with when he describes the many failed attempts to replace his tragically lost teenage love Annabel Leigh. With this idea, Nabakov is trying to convey to the reader that it is human nature to have even a slight obsession with youth including age and physical appearance.The
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To him, she is basically a reincarnated Annabel and he might finally have a chance to mend the wound in his heart. He describes his love for her as “... I was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion” (15). This shows the incredibly strong connection he feels to Lolita, and it seems as though his feelings will never change.Later, Lolita is now 15 years old, one year over the nymphet age limit, and Humbert is starting to notice.He describes his once “ frail, supple, honey colored beauty”(39) as having,” … the complexion of any vulgar and untidy highschool girl who applies shared cosmetics with grubby fingers to an unwashed face.It’s smooth tender bloom had been so lovely in her former days... I sat in horror as the realization hit me that my Lolita was no longer the same beautiful nymphet I had met only two years ago” (204). Humbert has realized that Lolita has lost her nymphet qualities, and clearly shows his obsession with youth by saying he no longer loves her because she’s too
To him, she is basically a reincarnated Annabel and he might finally have a chance to mend the wound in his heart. He describes his love for her as “... I was ready to offer her everything, my heart, my throat, my entrails, I gave her to hold in her awkward fist the scepter of my passion” (15). This shows the incredibly strong connection he feels to Lolita, and it seems as though his feelings will never change.Later, Lolita is now 15 years old, one year over the nymphet age limit, and Humbert is starting to notice.He describes his once “ frail, supple, honey colored beauty”(39) as having,” … the complexion of any vulgar and untidy highschool girl who applies shared cosmetics with grubby fingers to an unwashed face.It’s smooth tender bloom had been so lovely in her former days... I sat in horror as the realization hit me that my Lolita was no longer the same beautiful nymphet I had met only two years ago” (204). Humbert has realized that Lolita has lost her nymphet qualities, and clearly shows his obsession with youth by saying he no longer loves her because she’s too