Lolita is an emotionally hard read for me. The Character Narrator addresses the audience and I can't even figure out why. I'm hoping when I'm done reading it, (Yes, I am still only half way) I will be able to explore it better and understand what is going on with that. It just strikes me as strange.
The Character Narrator also changes how he refers to himself quite a bit! He goes from addressing himself in first person to third person. He refers to himself as :
I don't understand it yet but I am noticing it is strange and again, all I can hope is that at the end there will be a reveal that it all has more meaning.
Some things I questioned in the text:
"...Oh, that I were a lady writer who could have her pose naked in a naked light,"
He wishes to be able to reveal her with his words, in a way a woman could write them. He wished to see the nakedness, but I feel it is more. I feel that he is saying he is stuck with a man's explanation of Lolita, where a woman could reveal her more freely because of an intimacy that could be shared between woman and woman. I felt this was one of those "is not," moments, where he is expressing he is a writer who can describe her but that there is a place he is not able to get to because of his gender.
The Character Narrator also changes how he refers to himself quite a bit! He goes from addressing himself in first person to third person. He refers to himself as :
- Mr. Humbert
- Humbert Humbert
- Humbert the Cubus
- Edgar H. Humbert
- Humbert the Hound
- Dying Humbert
- Humbert the Hummer
- Humbert the Humble
- Humbert the Horse
I don't understand it yet but I am noticing it is strange and again, all I can hope is that at the end there will be a reveal that it all has more meaning.
Some things I questioned in the text:
"...Oh, that I were a lady writer who could have her pose naked in a naked light,"
He wishes to be able to reveal her with his words, in a way a woman could write them. He wished to see the nakedness, but I feel it is more. I feel that he is saying he is stuck with a man's explanation of Lolita, where a woman could reveal her more freely because of an intimacy that could be shared between woman and woman. I felt this was one of those "is not," moments, where he is expressing he is a writer who can describe her but that there is a place he is not able to get to because of his gender.
A second time he attempts to describe Lo: "Changeful, Bad-Tempered, cheerful, awkward, graceful with tart grace of her coltish subteens, excruciatingly desirable from head to foot (All New England for a lady writer's Pen" He is driving home his inadequacy to describe her. His longing is so great that he can't see past it. |
"Mr. Uterus [I quote from a girls' magazine] starts to build a thick soft wall on the chance that a possible baby may have to be bedded down there" The irony of the phrase, we know he is going to attempt to "bed down a baby" before that bed comes. He is interested in girls before menstruation begins. Which strikes me as odd the many of times he uses the image of a bed. He moves into the house and notices a Sears truck(he doesn't say Sears but I know the address) bringing a new bed to the neighborhood. When he leaves the neighborhood another new bed is being delivered, also from Philadelphia. |
So What of Controlling value/ Counter Value?
The Character Narrator, Humbert Hummer wants his reader to see the scene he describes as chaste.
He wants us to believe since he never physically became involved with her, he hadn't hurt her. That his thoughts were not damaging to her.
The Controlling idea would be something like "That which we don't know can not hurt us" and the Counter Idea would be something along the lines of "Objectifying the innocent will destroy their innocence"