Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Analysis

Lolita, a novel first written in english by Vladimir Nabokov in 1955. Is a very famous novel known world-wide for its incredible writing yet controversial plot. A story about a 40 year old widow, Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed and at the same time sexually involved with a 12 year old girl.

A novel built on the basis of trickery and manipulation; the narrator leads us into his personal intellectual game, and it’s up to us to play along or refuse to do so. 

He makes us believe that the story is a romance novel. Though the truth is, it’s only a romance novel in narrator's head. A narrator who’s unable to see that what he calls romance, is actually obsession. Thus it may classify as a romantic novel but only through one side of the story. I consider it to be a crime novel, because the act that he committed out of "love" was actually a crime committed out of obsession.

 "Did I deprive her of her flower? Sensitive gentlewomen of the jury, I was not even her first lover" We see a clear example of Humbert's mindset and attempt to influence our perception of him, in quotes throughout the book such as this. Where he tries to excuse his actions by putting the blame on others. In this case he's telling us that he actually was not Lolita's first, and hence he could not be blamed for taking the girl's innocence from her; giving us an idea of how he sees the situation, and his act being out of simple passion rather than egoism and rage for the young girl.

"Suddenly her hand slipped into mine and without our chaperon's seeing, I held, and stroked, and squeezed that little hot paw, all the way to the store."

This is yet another example where we see how Humbert attempts to misguide us in order to cover for the blame. It's difficult to be able to judge a situation like this because of the behavior of the narrator towards us, the reader, or as he sees it "the jury".

Throughout the novel, we as the reader feel unease as to what to believe or not believe about what Humbert is telling us. He's a very manipulating narrator, to the extent where he wants us to like him so much that we excuse or cease to see what he's really doing. A clear example of this is the scene in the hotel room the morning after he tried to drug Lolita, where he explains how she woke up and seduced him. 

These type of situations make us wonder as a reader where the line between manipulation and truth lies with this narrator. Although we have come to like him because of his writing, a moral side of us pops up every now and again, realizing that theres something wrong with the way the story is being told; and how somehow Humbert always manages to get his way without purposely doing anything. Situations that make us think that the narrator is not being honest about how the story actually goes.

The novel is incredibly engaging yet incredibly frustrating as well. Personally this is how I felt throughout the entire read. You want to hate Humbert's character, but are somehow dragged into his spell by his innovative choice of words. A moral battle that you face from beginning to end. Realizing at the end, that you have actually fallen into his trap, and left wondering if what you have just read, was in fact a true story, or a creation of his imagination.