I used this report for my oral English in my exam year and passed an 8.0. I've looked into the symbolism in the book, all the main characters, themes and a summary of the book. I also looked at the psychology behind the book and the deeper message of the book.
Introduction
Nabokov uses the introduction as a way to distance himself and us from Humbert
and his actions. He does this from the perspective of Humbert’s psychiatrist. In this
introduction, he wants to make us feel more comfortable in advance with what we’re
about to read.
Themes
Pedophilia: he tries to justify his pedophilia by making clear his interest in Lolita is
artistic in nature instead of only sexually perverted. He says he sees her as a
goddess, an artistic object.
Obsession: he wants to appreciate the artistic beauty of the ‘nymphets’ (children).
He is obsessed with Lolita and the control he has over her.
Summary
Humbert, a 40-year old man, tells the story from his cell in jail. He has a thing for
“nymphets’ and at the beginning of the story explains the age-range he is
attracted to and his experience with other girls, like Anabelle.
Humbert rents a room in New England and lives with Charlotte Haze and her
daughter. He meets the 12-year old Dolores Haze, who he later goes and calls
his Lolita and falls in love with her. He marries her mother Charlotte Haze, even
though he isn’t interested in her. He does it to get closer to Dolores.
Humbert keeps a diary, where he writes his thoughts down about Dolores.
Eventually, Charlotte finds this diary and is disgusted. She orders him to leave,
runs out of the house in anger and then gets hit by a car. She dies.
After her mother dies, Lolita is sent to a camp. Humbert shows up, tells the
people there he is her father and kidnaps her from the camp. They go on a road-
trip-adventure, where he sexually assaults her for the first time. But throughout
the story Humbert tries to manipulate us as readers to justify his actions. An
example of this is in the hotel they wake up in the first morning, where Humbert
imagines Lolita seducing him and by this justifies him raping her. Because he
portrays her as seducing, he tries to gain sympathy from the readers. The writer
of the book has actually had to make clear to the public that Lolita isn’t a love
story, and shouldn’t be romanticized.
The book follows Humbert and Lolita traveling through America for a year.
Humbert tries to emotionally manipulate her by reminding her that he is the only
one she has and the only one that cares about her. He wants her to become
dependent of him, because he is scared that she’ll leave him. He also tries to
minimize the amount of contact she has with strangers, because she could see
small encounters with other people as a possibility to seek help. When they stop
to get food or gas for example, he always leaves her in the car and doesn’t let
her get out to come with him.
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