the magnitude of those for Lolita.Writing from the confines of a jail cell, Humbert Humbert tells us this story of his sex-capade across the country with little Dolores Haze. He fills his pages with incredible detail, often wandering on certain subjects seeming unimportant, but written as if crucial to understanding his point. An example of this is Humbert’s recollection of the lake and its splendor, being more than just a place to swim and relax; but also an opportunity to be alone with Lolita. The lake, to Mrs. Haze, was ironically a place to be alone with Humbert. The reason Lolita was such a revolutionary novel is because Nabokov has so much control over everything that is going on through Humbert’s eyes. He manipulates the story to twist the reader’s opinion. By incorporating such rich detail and full imagery through scholarly grammar and vocabulary, he somehow tries to escape fault for his sins against an innocent girl. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the majority of sex offenders that hanker for some throbbing, sweet-moaning, physical but not necessarily coital, relation with a girl-child, are innocuous, inadequate, passive, timid strangers who merely ask the community to allow them to pursue their practically harmless, so-called aberrant behavior, their little hot wet private acts of sexual deviation without the police and society cracking down upon them…. We are unhappy, mild, dog-eyed gentlemen, sufficiently well integrated to control our urge in the presence of adults, but ready to give years and years of life for one chance to touch a nymphet” (Nabokov 87-88). I think most are able to see through this smoke screen, and realize that although Humbert is not deranged or psychotic, his obsession for and actions against young girls is horrifying and wrong.As we progress through the novel, we learn just how much of a game it is for Humbert to have Lolita. Before the death of Charlotte Haze,...
