Response # 6 Justifications

2. Justifications

In my reading for writers journalism class we were assigned to read Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody written by Ian Frazier. On the third page of the profile there's an allusion to Lolita, "In Illinois, I passed a motor home with a large metal nameplate on the back saying 'The Humberts'" (92). This isn't a pop culture reference; however, I thought it was ironic that there was an allusion to Lolita in my other class's reading. 

What is a "Lolita" in the popular imagination?
 "Lolita" in the popular imagination is like jailbait. Perhaps a little like toddlers in tiaras, a popular t.v show about crazy mothers dressing up their very young daughters and entering them in beauty pageants. These young girls know there is something special about them from the attention they're receiving, but they're too young to understand why they're getting the attention. Their moms are dressing them in dresses designed for a slutty senior prom, with pounds of make-up caked on their faces, and sticking them in mini stilettos. The young girls are being sexualized by their moms in order to win the pageant. The connection to Lolita comes from the mom putting their daughters in this sexualized position. Similar to a mix of Humbert's forcing and his late wife putting her daughter in his care.    

Response # 5 Humbert's methods of self-justification

Issue: Humbert's methods of self-justification

Passage 1:
pp. 17-18:
Furthermore, since the idea of time plays such a magic part in the

matter, the student should not be surprised to learn that there must be a

gap of several years, never less than ten I should say, generally thirty or

forty, and as many as ninety in a few known cases, between maiden and man to

enable the latter to come under a nymphet's spell. It is a question of focal

adjustment, of a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount,

and a certain contrast that the mind perceives with a gasp of perverse

delight. When I was a child and she was a child, my little Annabel was no

nymphet to me; I was her equal, a faunlet in my own right, on that same

enchanted island of time; but today, in September 1952, after twenty-nine

years have elapsed, I think I can distinguish in her the initial fateful elf

in my life.


Passage 2:
pp. 19-20
But let us be prim and civilized. Humbert Humbert tried hard to be

good. Really and truly, he did. He had the utmost respect for ordinary

children, with their purity and vulnerability, and under no circumstances

would he have interfered with the innocence of a child, if there was the

least risk of a row. But how his heart beat when, among the innocent throng,

he espied a demon child, "enfant charmante et fourbe," dim eyes,

bright lips, ten years in jail if you only show her you are looking at her.

So life went. Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it

was Lilith he longed for. The bud-stage of breast development appears early

(10.7 years) in the sequence of somatic changes accompanying pubescence. And

the next maturational item available is the first appearance of pigmented

pubic hair (11.2 years). My little cup brims with tiddles.

Passage 3:
pp. 18-19
All this I rationalize now. In my twenties and early thirties, I did not understand my throes quite so clearly. While my body knew what it craved for, my mind rejected my body's every plea. One moment I was ashamed and frightened, another recklessly optimistic. Taboos strangled me. Psychoanalysts wooed me with pseudoliberations of pseudolibidoes. The fact to me the only objects of amorous tremor were sisters of Annabel's, her handmaids and girl-pages, appeared to me at times as a fore-runner of insanity. At other times I would tell myself that it was all a question of attitude, that there was really nothing wrong in being moved to distraction by girl-children.

All three of these passages demonstrate Humbert justifying his overwhelming lust for girl-children, or as he would call them, nymphets. In the first passage he minimizes his perverted lusting by saying it's just a matter of altering one's "focal adjustment". Humbert consistently rationalizes his sickness by bringing his audience's attention to how hard he tried to not molest little girls. In the second passage he tries to gain sympathy from his audience by focusing on how he would have sex with age appropriate women instead of "nymphets". He tries to gain sympathy and kudos for not molesting little girls- which is just head-shakingly shamelessly pitiful, like we are really going to pat you on the back for normal sexual relations. The third passage Humbert lays his fault all out on the table, but still justifies his emotional fight as an inevitable effect of which Annabel is to blame.

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.

Response #3 Introduction/ Opening Chapter

        Through the introduction and chapters 1-10 Humbert illustrates his childhood and hypothesizes why he has such an impenetrable lust for , as he refers to them, "nymphets". Fighting guilt and his relentless lust Humbert tries to understand the root of his "sickness". Humbert's justifications are sound, if he was born in a previous time period, and pulls various examples. For instance, "Marriage and cohabitation before the age of puberty are still not uncommon in certain East Indian provinces. Lepcha old men of eighty copulate with girls of eight, and nobody minds. After all, Dante fell madly in love with his Beatrice when she was nine, a sparkling girleen, painted lovely, and bejeweled, in a crimson frock, and this was in 1274, in Florence, at a private feast in the merry month of May" (19). 

        I think his infatuation with these nymphets stems from the crippling love he experienced with Annabel, at the age of 9, because of the intensity he experienced as a boy, he chased that intensity as an adult, believing his craving could only be assuaged by another girl the same age as Annabel.
        His sexual sights did not mature as a result of this. Only achieving the same intensity with a prostitute, a matured nymphet, one can understand by Humbert's description why she was the only young woman to satisfy his hunger. Nabokov writes, "She came hardly up to my chest hair and had the kind of dimpled round little face French girls so often have, and I liked her long lashes and tight fitting tailored dress sheathing in pearl-gray her young body which still retained-and that was the nymphic echo, the chill of delight, the leap in my loins-a childish something mingling with the professional frétillement of her small agile rump" (21).
       This set up affects the reader in many ways; however, one in particular is most prominent. It allows the reader to humanize Humbert, regardless of his predatory instinct, and even allows the audience to root for him in his battle against these taboo feelings.

Response # 2 "yearnings of a bachelor..."

44: "yearnings of a bachelor..." plausible? his proposal

       In order to tell a successful lie it needs to be sewn together with bits of truth. That's exactly what the protagonist is doing while "courting" the widow. He is harboring the emotions he has for her daughter and transferring them onto her mother.
       His manipulation skills come alive within this passage. By admitting his, "yearnings of a bachelor who looks with envy at the tailcoat and misty aura of another's wedding and thinks involuntarily of the lonely grave at the end of his lonely road, he concluded the time had come to call the packers" (26). By showing so much vulnerability to the widow the predator has gained her trust by tricking her into pitying him.
       This was a vital move in the protagonist's chess game; gaining the widow's trust and proposing to her was check mate. All the man has to do from this point is wait patiently before he can reap the benefits. The girl's mother was her last defense against this predator, and she was so easily fooled. As soon as the widow let her defenses rest and allowed this wolf into the hen house my stomach dropped.

Response #1 "normal paternal zeal"

65: thinks of her body (again)...

"normal paternal zeal" - comic juxtaposition between normal and deviant

       The nameless protagonist, often referred to as "The man", repeatedly rationalizes his behavior by assuming a father figure. After all in his eyes his late wife had given him the responsibility of raising the young girl as his own daughter. On page 47 the man justifies his actions to himself, "... although what could be more natural than bringing home my little stepdaughter, deciding on it after all—they're cutting open her mother, aren't they?" Throughout the entire novel his internal conflict, between acting on his predatory impulses and being utterly disgusted with himself, dictates his actions.

       His most convincing justifications lay within the "normal paternal zeal". The juxtaposition between normal and deviant also reflect his state of mind, his psyche is split into predator and a sick helpless man. The man utilizes his normal stepfather responsibilities to complete his steps towards his goal of fondling the little girl. He must continue lying to himself to allow himself to carry out his next move towards his endgame without his conscious flooding his mind with disgust.

       This juxtaposition is the chess game embedded in his mind, the normal half of him is the white side of the board, while his deviant self is the black half of the board. It seems for every action, influenced by the black team, moving toward his endgame, for example, marrying the widow, is accompanied by a mirrored move by the white team, i.e. bringing the widow happiness in her final days. I find this juxtaposition has me rooting for him when his guilt dominates his actions and we see him for what he really is, a helpless man powerless over this mental illness. However, while he is lost in his self deception I find myself wishing him ill.