Characters

After reading the first section of the novel, Lolita, it is clear that characters are a huge portion of the novel and contribute largely to the understanding of the book. The primary character, "Humbert Humbert", is the one largely in the limelight. He is a clear pedophile with arguably psychopathic tendencies. All of our understandings of other characters, settings, and events come through his first person narration, and due to that our lens through which we see the events of the novel is largely skewed. This becomes poignantly clear as the novel progresses, and our faith in the narrator is largely dependent on his effortless persuasion in remarking on the details of his life.

To give some background, the novel starts out with Humbert recollecting on his past. He tells tales of a happy childhood in which he was raised by his father and his aunt since his mother died in childbirth, and was admired by many guests in the hotel that his father ran. He then explains a romance that he had at the age of thirteen with a girl named Annabel who died a few months later due to typhus.

Annabel, although only understood through Humbert's recollection of the past, is a very important character in the novel because of how her death affects Humbert. Arguably his sexual attraction towards her and his feelings of overwhelming love are where his perversion originated, or so he claims.

He explains that this traumatic event led to his inevitable perversion towards young girls when he states, "We loved each other with a premature love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives. I was a strong lad and survived, but the poison was in the wound, and the wound remained ever open, and soon I found myself maturing amid a civilization which allows a man of twenty-five to court a girl of seventeen but not a girl of twelve" (pg 18). He claims that this incident led to his failed sexual and romantic escapades with older women and his constant desire for younger girls.

When describing Annabel, he states, "I remember her features far less distinctly than I did a few years ago, before I knew Lolita." In this way, he creates an almost before and after; his time with Annabel and then his time with Lolita. Even in his description of decades going by, these two girls become the central focus of all his emotions. All other events that happened in his life between his love affair at thirteen and his obsession with Lolita at age 37 are only brushed upon and these two people and events seem as though they're the only important moments of his life and all else described seems almost irrelevant.

After being introduced to Annabel, we are introduced to a few other characters who seem like they should have a lot larger part in the novel but are seemingly irrelevant to Humbert. He describes a long series of "one-sided diminutive romances" that are largely meaningless to him (pg 20). Besides various characters like a prostitute he services and some other minor people, we find out that in a desperate attempt to ward off his perversion for younger girls, Humbert marries a woman named Valeria.

He states, "I decided to marry for my own safety...[It] might help me, if not to purge myself of my degrading and dangerous desires, at least to keep them under pacific control", which shows how lacking of real emotions this relationship was (pg 24).  He only marries her because of "the imitation she gave of a little girl" (pg 25). His descriptions of his time with her are surprisingly short, showing how little he cared or valued his time with her.

The next characters we meet are Lolita herself and her mother, Charlotte Haze. When Humbert moves to America, he stays with this family. We get very little description of Charlotte and when we do, she is described almost as a nuisance in the way of Humbert's obsession with her daughter. The lack of meaningful description about her until Humbert decides to marry her in order to stay with Lolita shows how largely irrelevant to the novel she is besides being an inconvenience for him.

Lolita, however is clearly described in detail as the title may indicate. However, everything about her is viewed through the lens of Humbert's lust. We grow to know very little about Lolita as an individual besides that she likes comic books, is defiant towards her mother, and has a growing interest in Humbert himself. There is very little dialogue with her (or any characters really) and most of what is described about her are her physical appearances regarding her youth and supposed attractiveness.

At one point he describes, "Thus I had delicately constructed my ignoble, ardent, sinful dream...What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation, another, fanciful Lolita-- perhaps, more real than Lolita; overlapping, encasing her; floating between me and her, and having no will, no consciousness-- indeed, no life of her own" (pg 62). This shows how his love for Lolita transcends the girl herself and comes to represent something new entirely.

He furthers this idea when he states, "I knew that I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew that she would not be forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a "young girl" and then, into a "college girl"-- that horror of horrors. The word "forever" referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in my blood" (pg 65).

Therefore, Lolita herself is really not portrayed in this novel very thoroughly and doesn't really matter to Humbert. If he truly loved her, he may describe her in ways that encompassed her essence, or her interests, but instead the description of her is really only about his sexual attraction. His twisted "love" of her is evident by how little he describes anything worthwhile of her and more of his lustful desire towards her various physical traits.

This lack of worthwhile description of Lolita, or any other characters shows Humbert's egotistical and self centered view of the world and the people in it. All characters are only briefly mentioned, their dialogue lacking, and our understanding of them as individuals very limited to only the scope of how they interfere with Humbert's life. This leads to my understanding of the main character, Humbert, and clearly shows his sociopathic nature in addition to his pedophilia.

As readers, we are purposefully conflicted as to our opinions of Humbert. Through his pitiful description of his heartbreak over Annabel and his supposed resistance to his pedophilic nature, we begin to empathize with his plight. Although clearly disgusted by his perverse nature, readers find themselves oddly sympathizing with Humbert and liking him as a character.

Through his beautiful crafting of his story and his love for "nymphets", or young girls, particularly Lolita, we begin to see his internal struggle in regards to his sexual desires. He persuasively describes himself (often in third person) as pitiful and a character to empathize with. When describing his own pedophilia, he states, "Humbert Humbert tried to be good. Really and truly, he did. He had the utmost respect for children, with their purity and vulnerability...But how his heart beat when, among the innocent throng, he espied a demon child (or nymphet)...Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for" (pg 20).

He describes himself pityingly, stating things like "All of which goes to show how dreadfully stupid poor Humbert always was in matters of sex" (pg 25). And therefore, readers begin to sympathize with him as well. There is this constant conflict of clear opposition to Humbert's perverse nature and actions and a strange, reluctant sense pity for him as well. As he describes, he seems to know that what he is doing is wrong but feels that he has no way to change it, which makes readers empathetic towards his predicament.

What complicates this tension between the reader and the main character even further is when one considers how persuasive he can be due to his sociopathic nature. Although he does not express this as openly or learnedly as his pedophilia, we get glimpses into his psychopathy at various points throughout the novel. Unlike his perversion, he is completely unapologetic for it.

The first glimpse we get into this side of his character is when he ponders murdering his wife, Valeria after he finds out about her affair despite his lack of affection or love towards her. His reaction towards this affair is very strange, and he states, "A mounting fury was suffocating me-- not because I had any particular fondness for...Mme Humbert, but because matters of legal and illegal conjunction were for me alone to decide, and here she was, Valeria, the comedy wife, brazenly preparing to dispose of in her own way of my comfort and fate" (pg 28).

He feels a deep betrayal from her affair but not because he loved her in any manner, but because she disrupted his life. After this interaction, he ponders killing her, but since her lover never leaves her alone, he does not get the chance. His reasons behind being upset about the affair and his ultimate reasons for not killing her are severely pragmatic, to the point where it is concerning.

His lack of emotional depth or morality in this scene is in stark contrast to his description of himself when he describes how he knows that pedophilia is wrong. He is markedly unashamed of using his wife to abate his disturbed sexual nature nor his desire to murder her after she has an affair. This shows that there may be another side to Humbert than this curiously pitiful man who simply cannot control his deviant desires.

In addition to this, he states at one point, "If I ever commit a serious murder... mark the "if", the urge should be something more than the kind of thing that happened to me with Valeria..." (pg 47). This shows that he would have no qualms about murder if he had a proper urge to do so. This most likely alludes to the beginning of the novel which states that Humbert is on trial, although it does not say for what. One can reasonably conclude that it is because of his obsession with young girls, but this may foreshadow a different reason.

We also see his sociopathic tendencies after he is institutionalized for a "bout of insanity" (pg 34). He states, "I discovered that there was an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists: cunningly leading them on; never letting them see that you know all the tricks of the trade; inventing elaborate dreams, pure classics in style....teasing them with fake "primal scenes"; and never allowing them the slightest glimpse of one's real sexual predicament. By bribing a nurse I won access to some files and discovered, with glee, cards calling me "potentially homosexual" and "totally impotent". The sport was so excellent..." (pg 34).

Here, we clearly see his lack of emotion and his capacity for charm and persuasion, all tendencies of sociopaths. This, to me, adds another layer to our view of the character and the work as a whole. Because this whole novel is written through Humbert's understandings of events and is treated almost as a diary of sorts, all of our opinions and understandings of what he did are through his viewpoints. Due to the aforementioned understandings we have of him, it is clear that he is very persuasive and may be persuading the readers themselves to see his story from his charming perspective.

The novel starts off as a defense to a jury for a certain crime, and yet Humbert treats it almost as though it is a journal in certain parts of the book. This begs many questions about Humbert's purpose in writing the novel and to what extent the readers are swayed by his charm and persuasion. Although readers condemn the abhorrent actions of Humbert towards little girls and particularly Lolita, we are conflicted because we also pity him at the same time.

This leads to the question of not only what the speaker, Humbert, intends for a purpose of writing this supposed letter to a jury or diary entry (which is unclear at this point), but also as to what the author intends. Does he mean for this to portray Humbert in a more positive light and give a humanistic perspective towards pedophilia like I initially thought, or does he purposefully include those details about Humbert's lack of emotion or morality to show how charming and persuasive he is so that readers may see that they are being manipulated as well?

Regardless, Humbert's character is clearly complex and the readers' interpretations of it are even more so. Seemingly all other characters are somewhat irrelevant in the novel as his character takes precedence over any themes and messages from the book, somewhat because of his egotistical and limited perception of events that he recites. The characterization of Humbert is at the forefront of the novel, and with it, the book derives most of its meaning.

I look forward to reading even more about Humbert's disturbing eccentricities and justifications for them. I am curious about what he intends for his readers to believe about him since he addresses them largely throughout the novel, but also what the author intends for readers to understand through his creation of this novel. The complexities and tensions that the readers feel towards Humbert are what makes the book so interesting and thought provoking, and his character leads to many more questions than it does answers.