The way the reader connects with a character in a book is different than with films. Generally, books allow for a more complex way to understand a main character which affects the reader’s journey of following the story. A prime example of this is Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Lolita uses beautiful prose to effectively entice the reader to listen to Humbert Humbert, the narrator, as he describes his “love” for a 12 year old girl. Humbert Humbert’s artful prose masks the atrocity of his actions to compel readers to sympathize and see him as a victim of Lolita rather than the vile rapist that he is. In Lolita, there is a stark difference between what the reader is led to visualize vs. what actually happens due to Humbert Humbert’s unreliability
