LOLITA(1955), written by Vladimir Nabokov(1899-1977)

Humbert

 a verbal trickster
 he also explains that one who loves nymphets must be an "artist and a madman, a creature of
infinite melancholy"– like him

Lolita

 Humbert immediately regards Lolita as an incarnation of Annabel Leigh, a second chance at lust.
 We do not know Lolita through any perspective other than Humbert's highly subjective one –
thus to talk about Lolita is to talk about Humbert's thoughts about Lolita.
 over the course of the six or so years represented, Lolita changes, but Humbert does not.
 Lolita is a fantasy, a nymphet, and a figment of Humbert's past, a reincarnation of his lost
Annabel, and a girl whose "true nature" as a nymphet, in Humbert's words, "is not human […]
but demoniac.
 In an interview, Nabokov said he was "probably responsible for the odd fact that people do not
name their daughters Lolita any more
 Lolita, as a typical American teenager has a deep affection for the meaningless culture industry,
which already implies a sort of loss of purity.

Clare Quilty

 Clare Quilty is Humbert's "brother" in lust, his double and worthy opponent in verbal skills.
 Quilty fervently trails Humbert and Lolita across the United States, leaving behind a trail of
provocative clues (literary references, initials, inside jokes) in motel ledgers, generally
making Humbert into a (more) paranoid and jealous lunatic
 Even facing death, Quilty takes nothing seriously
 Shockingly, he is the only man Lolita ever really loves, or is "crazy about."

Charlotte Haze(Becker)

 Her death by a car swerving to miss a dog is more tragicomic than anything. The sick part is the
reader is relieved for Humbert.
 Widow Charlotte is smart enough to impress people at a bridge gathering or a book club, but
grossly inferior by Humbert's impossibly sophisticated standards of language usage
 Louise – negro maid

Valeria

 Valeria is Humbert's first wife, whom he married in an effort to cure himself from his desire for
young girls

Rita
  Spending two years traveling, Humbert speaks kindly of her as "the sweetest, simplest, gentlest,
dumbest Rita imaginable. In comparison to her, Valechka [Valeria] was a Schlegel and Charlotte
a Hegel”

Jean Farlow

 After Charlotte's death, Jean reveals a brief crush on Humbert (and kisses him), expressing the
hope that they will meet again someday. She dies of cancer at a young age.
 John Farlow- husband

Ivor Quilty

 The Ramsdale dentist who thinks Clare is a “rascal”; Humbert locates the nephew, Clare Quilty,
by pretending he needs dental work.

Charlie Holmes

 Lolita's hook-up at Camp Q. Lolita loses her virginity with him near Lake Climax while her friend
Barbara Burke keeps guard. Killed in Korea.
 Shirley Holmes –his mother

Vivian Darkbloom

 Clare Quilty's writing partner. Vivian is a "hawk-like, black-haired, strikingly tall woman". Lolita
tries to confuse Humbert by telling him that Vivian is a man and that Clare Quilty is a woman.
Later in life, Darkbloom writes a biography of Clare Quilty, My Cue. Her name is an anagram for
Vladimir Nabokov.

Symbolism

 Lolita is a very cinematic novel. Not only is the style highly visual, but Humbert also constantly
imagines scenes unfolding as if they are up on the big screen
 He is fully prepared to exploit Lolita's affection for movie-land illusions and Hollywood glamour.
 What America stands for – consumerism, kitsch culture, excessive advertising – is more of an
allegory than a symbol.
 To Charlotte, Humbert is the epitome of European elegance and intelligence;
 Theater plays an important symbolic role, because Lolita's involvement in it not only trains her
to trick Humbert even better, but also becomes the way she gets closer to Clare Quilty
 Lolita is full of doubles, also known as doppelgängers: Humbert and Quilty, Lolita and Annabel.
 Humbert sees Lolita as Annabel's reincarnation and the cure to his life-long ache over losing
Annabel.
 Quilty is the one person in the novel whose intelligence Humbert even remotely respects. They
are bound by their perverse desire for Lolita
  Between Humbert and Quilty, there is a constant switching back and forth between who is the
hunter and who is the hunted.They are also both "enchanted hunters" of Lolita because they are
both mesmerized by her.
 Humbert sees Lolita as Annabel's reincarnation and the cure to his life-long ache over losing
Annabel.
 strange coincidences and convergences that Humbert experiences: he reappearance of the
number 342: it's the street number of the Haze home, the room number at The Enchanted
Hunters, and the total number of hotels in which Humbert and Lolita stay during their travels.
What the number ultimately signifies is unknown.

Setting

 His European past is also tied up with how people like bourgeois Charlotte see him: as a
cosmopolitan and elegant gentleman with "old-world" manners. Likewise, Lolita's image is very
tied in to America, with all of its implications of youth, shallowness, and endless consumer
possibilities.
 American motels, all interchangeable, lowbrow, and equally kitsch – provide the setting for their
illicit relationship. All of which are dramatically different from his father's palatial hotel on the
Riviera.

Narrator point of view

 The reasons he gives for his four recorded "bouts of insanity" are "melancholia and a sense of
insufferable oppression", a "sexual predicament" and "losing contact with reality". These are
what we call narrative red flags: the guy is nuts.
 the novel offers one point of view, one voice, and one side of the story: that of Humbert the
victimizer, whose skill with language surpasses just about any reader who comes across the
novel. Humbert is about as far from a reliable narrator as can be.
 He wants the reader to envision, invent, participate, approve, and speculate.
 his lawyer has prompted him to write this account, which unfolds as a strange combination of
self-incrimination and self-defense.

Genre

 Lolita is such mash-up of different genres, it's impossible to label the novel as any specific one.
Autobiography (memoir), Realism, Romance, Satire and Parody, Tragedy, Mystery
 The novel's Foreword has pretentions to realism, announcing that it's a "memoir"
 Humbert's dark humor, puns, and exaggerations all contribute to the satiric effect.
 Elements of fantasy and fairy tale take hold as Humbert and Lolita approach The Enchanted
Hunters hotel.
 elements of fantasy and fairy tale take hold as Humbert and Lolita approach The Enchanted
Hunters hotel.
  there is another shift as a sneaking paranoia begins to take hold of him immediately after he and
Lolita have sex.
 we are also reminded throughout that we are reading a murder mystery. The Aztec Red
Convertible initiates the novel's turn toward the detective genre

Tone

 Crafty: Humbert expresses both shame and bravado (I got her! I'm such a pig – my bad. But I'm
the man!). In other words, if we like him or are like him, we won't condemn him; he thus uses
tone to seduce us
 Writing style: Poetic and Pretentious ("Fancy")The novel's humorous and ornate style is the
result of double entendres, multilingual puns, anagrams, and coinages. The style is also highly
visual.
 Like the novel's genre, style often changes to serve Humbert's purpose.

Title

 The name "Lolita" is everything, as Humbert indicates in the book's opening lines. It's poetry,
a religious incantation, and an erotic gratification.
 On the one hand, the ending of Lolita is open-and-shut: everyone is dead. On the other hand,
the conclusion is complicated by the fact that we only know everyone's fate by going back and
re-reading John Ray, Jr.'s Foreword.
 They end up going on a year-long trip around the United States and then shacking up in
Beardsley.