A case for rewriting Lolita

JRSP-ELT (ISSN: 2456-8104), 2020

The language used by authors and the characters they create is, of course, of the utmost importance when it comes to our understanding of texts and, throughout history, this language has been used as a shield behind which characters (and their authors) can hide. This paper focuses on the language of sexuality and shows how characters use language to conceal the true nature of their sexuality in two different ways through two different novels: Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. I argue that, in Lolita, Humbert Humbert uses language not only to hide his own perversions but that, in fact, he is successful in doing so, normalizing it in the process, generating sympathy for himself, and painting all those who oppose him as villainous. In The Awakening, we take a look at the representation of female sexuality, where Chopin hides the controversial matter of Edna Pontellier’s sexual awakening and subsequent sexual autonomy behind an intense narrative style. In both cases, language is used in an attempt to protect oneself, either from judgement or persecution, when discussing the conventionally taboo subject matter of sexuality. And, in both cases, this attempt has been a futile one.

Diametros

In attempting to answer whether Nabokov’s Lolita can be described as an unethical novel, the author ponders on what basis one could make such a determination. At (1) the author analyzes the merited-response argument offered by Gaut (and previously Hume and Carroll), which provides a conceptual framework for the resolution of the controversy surrounding Lolita. Based on this analysis, (2) the author decides what constitutes the novel’s ethical foundation and what (3) prescriptions and (4) responses can follow from it.

The anachronist, 1999

Lolita is a deceptive text that has been putting readers on trial ever since its publication in 1955 by the ill-famed Olympia Press. 1 It is a fictitious autobiography written by Humbert Humbert, whose conjoined propensities for pedophilia and highbrow aesthetics have persistently baffled critics. Humbert's erudition manifests itself in the numerous literary allusions he scatters throughout his text. They have been noticed by Nabokov's earliest critics, but little has been said about the corresp ondences between them and the patterns they form. 2 The allusions to past writers and their works bolster Humb ert's intention of convincing his readers that his case is not an abnormal one, since it has precedents in the lives of renowned artists. In other words, he is trying to persuade his readers that he truly regrets having ruined Lolita's childhood, but he also wants to make them condone his immorality. The allusions serve particular authorial purposes; they posit the book as texture and intimate themes, thereby revealing the "secret points, the subliminal coordinates by means of which the book is plotted" as Nabokov expresses it in a postscript to the novel, ' On a Book Entitled Lolita ' (p. 334). 3 Nabokov, through Humbert's direct or indirect literary references, also points to the exclusively literary existence of his character. 1 American publishers rejected the book and only the French Olympia Press was willing to publish it. Later, the author in an article entitled "Lo lita and Mr. Girodias" declared that he had not known that most of Olympia Press's production consisted of "obscene novelettes ." (Vladimir Nabokov , Strong Opin ions [New York : McGraw Hill, 1973] p. 271.) As a result, Lolita's reputation was tainted for years. There were many objections on the part of the American reading public when the book was published in 1958 in the United States.

HUMANITNÉ A SPOLOČENSKÉ VEDY V PREGRADUÁLNOM VZDELÁVANÍ 12, 2024

In postmodern literature, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955) stands as an iconic yet controversial novel of the 20th century. Over half a century since its publication, the themes introduced by Nabokov remain provocative and daring, challenging the sensibilities of the modern Western world. The presented text explores not only the novel’s Western reception but also its interpretation in the East, where societal norms and values may differ significantly. The Eastern viewpoint is presented by Iranian American writer Azar Nafisi, who in her work Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) depicted Lolita as a symbol of freedom, rebellion, and courage for young Iranian girls. The research goes beyond the moral debate surrounding the taboo nature of intimate relationships between adults and underage individuals. Instead, it delves into the cultural perspectives that shape the perception of such relationships. What may be forbidden and shocking in the West could find acceptance or understanding in the East.

2020

Through examining Humbert Humbert's psychological defense mechanisms in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, this essay aims to analyze Humbert Humbert's sexuality through the framework of psychoanalytic theory by demonstrating how Humbert Humbert's abuse is employed as a psychological defense to process his sexuality. By analyzing his abusive actions, the results suggest that the reason for Humbert Humbert's psychological defense is caused by his fear of abandonment that has been a constant issue throughout the novel, both physically and emotionally. This essay shows that the inconsistency of Humbert Humbert's abusive behavior further indicates his denial and separation of self, contributing to his sexually abusive behavior.

Canadian Slavonic Papers, 2015

ISSN: 0008-5006 (Print) 2375-2475 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcsp20 Lolita. The story of a cover girl. Vladimir Nabokov's novel in art and design Katherine Hill Reischl To cite this article: Katherine Hill Reischl (2015) Lolita. The story of a cover girl. Vladimir Nabokov's novel in art and design, Canadian Slavonic Papers, 57:1-2, 131-133,

In: Lolita: Critical Insights, edited by Rachel Stauffer, pp. 27-44. Ipswich, Mass.: Grey House Publishing/Salem Press, 2016

Lolita is well known as Nabokov’s most “American” novel, cementing his success as an American writer, paving the road to international fame, and famously highlighting the thorough knowledge of American culture that he acquired during years of residence in the United States. The author himself further accentuated his connection to the U.S. in subsequent interviews and autobiographical writings, downplaying the multiple layers of Russian culture that helped to shape his novel. Indeed, the extent to which this most American of novels sinks its roots deep into Russian literary tradition often escapes readers’ notice. Nonetheless, even while reinventing himself as an American writer, Nabokov continued to re-elaborate elements from the Russian texts that he knew well, echoing and often parodying antecedent images, bits of plot, literary personages, and narrative structures; the densely allusive Lolita, which has been described as postmodern for its numerous references to and sustained parallels with prior literary texts, is a case in point. This chapter outlines Lolita’s fundamental connection to several classic works from nineteenth-century Russian literature by outlining some of the multiple intertextual connections between that novel and its classic predecessors, specifically those authors and works whose themes, paradigms, and personages are relatively well-known – over and above their resonance in Lolita – and are especially likely to be familiar to students. It illuminates a part of Nabokov’s own cultural background, makes Pushkin, Gogol’, Lermontov, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy more clearly relevant for readers of Lolita, and engages students of the Russian nineteenth-century classics with issues of that tradition’s continuity into the next century. As will become clear, the dubious psychological state of Lolita’s protagonist, his perverse sexual desires, the techniques by which his character and crimes are revealed to the reader, and also the entanglement of identity involving author, authorial persona, and other literary personages may all be linked to Russian antecedents.

2009

A reader's guide to Nabokov's Lolita / Julian W. Connolly. p. cm. -(Studies in Russian and Slavic literatures, cultures and history) Includes bibliographical references and index.

The Creative Launcher, 2024

The present article aims to show how this modernist novel resisted and actively undermined the overwhelming critical discourse of Freudian psychoanalysis that has dominated the critical and theoretical world of literary studies at the time. Although much has been said and written about the antipathy of Vladimir Nabokov to Sigmund Freud, very little has been written on what the novel has actively done in respect to reversing the epistemological power discourse that dominates the relationship of literary works to critical “theory.” The contribution of this paper is reading Lolita as an example of “applied literature,” i.e., a literature that anticipates, challenges, revises and undermines the critical theory that is supposed to read/analyze it. Theoretically, the paper benefits from contributions of scholars such as Shoshana Felman and Piere Bayard. The paper is sectioned into an introduction, a “classic” psychoanalytical reading of Lolita, a section that reviews and assesses the problems with such a reading, and a conclusion that sums up the findings of the study.