Response #4: Close Reading of Chapter 1

        Vladimir Nabokov appeals to the empathetic side of his audience in the first chapter of Lolita. Through the way he longingly and lovingly describes her name Nabokov is trying to remind us how strong a hold love can have on us. He even blames his love for Lolita on her predecessor. Nabokov attempts manipulating his audience into believing he was so powerless over his love for Lolita, because of how intense a yearning it was, he couldn't help but act on those emotions, "In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl-child" (9). Nabokov utilizes a few different tools to seduce his audience into seeing through his eyes, such as writing with diction that softens the blow of their age difference, and tries to minimize his crime. 

         But at the same time he does not hesitate to address the situation, another manipulation technique by shaking his head at this mess he's in, and speaks to the jury head-on, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns" (9). The manipulation and minimization is obvious and continues as themes throughout the rest of Lolita.