Creating Comfort: Humbert's Anxious Search for Justification

As the joyriding continues, Humbert still constantly creates situations in his mind which justify his keeping Lolita captive. One passage which particularly stuck out to me is the long-winded explanation Humbert gives to Lolita about their relationship. Though the sole purpose of this speech, in Humbert's conscious mind, is to "terror[ize] Lo" into not forming any opinion of her own, it becomes so extensive that one is left to question whether Humbert is not also going on this tangent to instill confidence in himself. He goes on and on about how he "want[s] to protect [Lo]...from all the horrors that happen to little girls in coal sheds and alley ways"; how he, as both sexual partner and father, wants to keep Lolita from the horrors of the outside (and in H.H.'s mind, presumably, "vulgar") world. This is obviously delusion--if Humbert thinks he is really protecting Lolita from anything except for forces which may empower and sway her from his grasp, he is most certainly spraying this nonsense for himself more than for Lo. He wants to be confident that he really is, in no way, in the wrong. On the following page (150), Humbert goes on to state "I am not a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child." Has Dolores ever stopped and accused him of being a "sexual psychopath?" Maybe so, but her voice concerning for that subject is, for the most part, left completely out of the text, and so this statement rings more as self-confidence inducing blather. H.H. keeps with this lengthy monologue, stopping for more unnecessary statements--"I am your daddum, Lo"--along the way, though he will soon start citing justification from a book about the behavior of "normal girls," whom he assures Lolita that she is one of. Humbert reads to Lo from the book: "Among Sicilians sexual relations between a father and his daughter are accepted as a matter of course, and the girl who participates in such relationship is not looked upon with disapproval by the society of which she is part," following this with "I'm a great admirer of Sicilians" (150). Since when has Humbert mentioned Sicilians as a source of inspiration? Of admiration? Of anything? He absorbs facts from books, out of his own anxiety, and perceives them to ring true because they provide some logical justification to his actions. The close reader can see, then, that Humbert is not telling Lolita all of this to instill any confidence in the situation in her--it is  more or less for himself. Why else would he "advise" a thirteen year old not "to consider [her]self [his] cross-country slave," or declare conclusively (but not concluding his speech) "I am your father, and I am speaking English, and I love you?" These declarative occurrences appear so often in H.H.'s effort to "terrorize" Lo that it seems, in reality, he is trying to calm his anxieties with self-justification.

I think I may follow Humbert's patterns of justification to the book's conclusion, eventually developing my observations into a more precise essay topic.

H.H. in Ramsdale

Humbert Humbert's reasons for staying in a sleepy New England town, as he says in the text revolve around a slowing of pace--"I cast around for some place in the New England countryside or sleepy small town (elms, white church) where I could spend a studious summer subsisting on a compact boxful of notes I had accumulated and bathing in some nearby lake" (35). This makes some sense, as he thinks the outdoors "promise [him] some reflief"--he goes on an expedition with a doctor-friend before checking out of the sanatorium and finding his way to Ramsdale, and a "sleepy New England town" promises some sort of outdoors-y attraction and activities (33). However, as soon as he learns there is a twelve year old girl who resides at the McCoo's, the family he is to stay with, his mind largely fleets from thoughts of rural relaxation and is set on secretly "fondling her in Humbertish" (35).
So though Humbert's primary reason of picking a sleepy rural place to reside is his sudden desire to return to his studious ways, Nabokov's may be a bit different. I think there is some relation to this choosing of the setting to the sorts of people who will reside there--"middle class [Americans] in the '50s," as you say, Robin. Sleepy New England is precisely the place to find single mothers with wild-child daughters; a place where many women are, as Humbert describes, "those women whose polished words may reflect a book club or a bridge club, or any other deadly conventionality"--the northeast in the 1950's was surely a hot-bed for convention. Nabokov chose Ramsdale as the setting because small towns are so set on their own history and convention--placing a man like Humbert in the middle of small town American tradition may not seem like deep enough of a rift at first, but his arrogance and cynicism are something that directly conflict with the warmth the idea "American tradition" presents. The story's place in Ramsdale is also important because it is a place where a pedophile can lay low--a place where, as long H.H. keeps up appearances, there will be a miniscule amount of suspicion.

H.H. plays the role of millenial pop-star Shaggy: "It Wasn't Me"

Humbert is a character who will inevitably try to justify his attraction to Dolores. Though at the basest level it is against the law, but it is also a "sickness" which the public will ostracize any active participant of. Humbert is in (or would be in, if he had not died in jail) a position which requires him to make some kind of social appeal to the jury as to not be proven guilty. His explanations require logic, whimsy, and other traits which will trigger human empathy in those looking on. His attempts at triggering such empathy are various.
For one, he attempts to produce an empathy in the jury through sad recollection, in the passage on page 15, reminiscing on the "flurry of pale repetitive scraps" that was his youth. He tells the tale of his indirection as a student as if it is a tragedy worthy of public mourning--that, though his studies "were meticulous and intense," he was eventually plagued by "a peculiar exhaustion"; one which hindered him in some sort from pursuing his education to the fullest extent. Of course, in the bigger picture of human life, it may not come as a surprise that a young adult pursuing a college degree found themselves questioning their interests and motives, but Humbert talks of this time in such a way that the audience is made to think it is a great misfortune and he is at some kind of disadvantage because of it.
H.H. also attempts to create logic by explaining the rules of his attraction in a step-by-step fashion. The passage listed from pages 17-18 is a prime example of this: Humbert explains that "there must be a gap of several years, never less than ten ... 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." Of course, this is ridiculous--that there is a certain age boundary which the offender in a pedophilic relationship must adhere to in order for that relationship to be considered a nymphetic seduction; of course, it is just made up in Humbert's head to justify his actions to himself and to those looking on, but H.H. explains his attraction in such a precise and finite way--explaining more deeply that "it is...a certain distance that the inner eye thrills to surmount, and a certain contrast that the mind perceives" that triggers an attraction to a "nymphet"--that the reader, the jury, and the general bystander is likely to say "Well, maybe there is a science to his 'sickness.'"
One last passage that I found in which Humbert tries to justify his actions occurs when he meets Mr. McCoo on page 36 and learns that his house has burnt down:

"No, since the only reason for my coming had vanished, the aforesaid arrangement seemed preposterous...I was angry, disappointed and bored, but being a polite European, could not refuse to be sent off to Lawn Street in that funeral car, feeling that otherwise McCoo would devise an even more elaborate means of getting rid of me... I tipped the chauffer and hoped he would immediately drive away so that I might double back unnoticed to my hotel and bag; but the man merely crossed to the other side of the street where an old lady was calling to him from her porch. What could I do?"

Here, Humbert tries to appeal to the audience in a way which might not be expected: that he was stuck in a trap of unfortunate coincidence, a situation in which his manners conflicted with his real feeling and motives, forcing him to accept the offer of staying with the Hazes rather than going on his own way. One might be pretty suspicious that Humbert still had in mind that figure of an adolescent whom he wished to "fondle in Humbertish" (35) when he decided to stick around and see what happened, but he explains the situation in a way which justifies his actions to himself and his audience as an inescapable case of coincidence, which would eventually lead to his fatal attraction to Dolores.

Close Reading: Humbert's Flawed Sex

"Later, in his delightful debonair manner, my father gave me all the information he thought I needed about sex; this was just before sending me, in the autumn of 1923, to a lycèe in Lyon (where we were to spend three winters); but alas, in the summer of that year, he was touring Italy with Mme de R. and her daughter, and I had nobody to complain to, nobody to consult." [Lolita (online text pg. 5), Vladimir Nabokov]

Since the novel Lolita's main character is a child molester, and since the story is set up as an account of the narrator used in court, the tendency to psychoanalyze Humbert Humbert is not one that comes as surprise. By close reading his accounts, the reader may grasp at the reasons why Humbert is seduced so by the appearance and unconscious actions of adolescent females.
It should be known that Humbert can account for his father having "numerous" relationships with other women who were not or did not act as a mother figure to him, but simultaneously ogled over him as a young boy. He also describes his father as charming in various instances. The use of "debonair" in the first sentence of this section, then, is a use that Humbert (and certainly Nabokov) knows is quite excessive. This suggests that Humbert sees nothing but charm in his father, and, knowing that his only attention from women was that of the "cutesy" variety, suggests further that the only charm he really knows how to have is that which grants him cutesy attention--the kind which young girls give.
His father "gave [Humbert] all the information he thought [Humbert] needed about sex," and Humbert's immediate memory after this is his father sending him away. There is a clear spirit of isolation in Humbert's remembrance of this time--though his father may have given him "all he needed to know about sex," Humbert's memory suggests he did not give Humbert the proper support concerning sexuality an adolescent should have when transitioning into young adulthood. This does not suggest anything directly reflecting his attraction to young girls, but it is clear Humbert's psyche may have suffered because of his father's absence.
The final sentence (or half of the prior sentence) solidifies this observation further--Humbert was alone that summer, presumably a young boy with little to do, with newly learned feelings about sex. With "nobody to complain to, nobody to consult," Humbert was alone with his feelings which, at this point, probably began to twist and malign into a flawed idea of interrelations between genders. Surely these traits can be connected to his eventual strange fondness of the youth of preteens.

Lolita: Opening Sentiments

John Jay Jr. is the cousin of Clarence Choate Clark, Esq., who happens to be Humbert Humbert’s lawyer in the trial for his sex crimes. Clark chooses Jay to edit “Lolita” because Jay has some familiarity with writing about “morbid states and perversions”—in the context of the book, “Lolita” is the memoir of H.H. concerning his life immediately prior to, during, and after the course of his criminal actions.

            The foreword frames Lolita, the novel, as reality—by setting it up as a postscript to a man’s life, a man who has endured punishment for his vile actions, the reader is jabbed with some expectation of empathy before they hear what Humbert himself has to say of these matters. The continual framing of the story from different angles: as a cautionary tale of currently developing fissures in civilized society; as a great opportunity for case study and psychoanalysis—these angles of viewing Humbert’s criminality made me find myself taking a more sterile approach, looking not for striking emotional moments, but combing over the text more scientifically, appreciating facts of Humbert’s situation and their justifications in his mind. The foreword is a brace for what is to come, but it is also an attempt at socially contextualizing the book to make it seem less about the obscene and more about what the obscene can teach civilized society.

            As far as the balance of banality and originality goes, I did find that the text so far did not strike me as completely Nabokovian—aside from the up-front cynical sarcasm of our main character’s narration, the intricate language is not quite as intricate; there is not anything noticeably puzzle-like about the text, yet. It seems Nabokov, though certainly his own writer to an extent, is pulling from other texts of the time—the set-up of the foreword and the first chapter, for instance, (for some strange reason) reminds me of the beginning of The Immoralist by Andre Gide. Though I did not read past the first ten pages of that book (it isn’t very good), the tone of Lolita’s opening has a definite similarity in its direct address to the reader, a precautionary segment before the text itself, not completely similar but resembling in some sort the opening justifications of Edgar Allen Poe’s stories. The first chapter itself pulls from Poe’s “Annabel Lee,” going as far as to pull near-complete lines from the poem: “In a princedom by the sea” in the first chapter copies “In a kingdom by the sea” from “Annabel Lee.” The themes of the works are similar, too: love, madness, perversion. It is clear that Nabokov took these similarities with utmost purpose to frame the beginning of his novel.

            Either Nabokov wants to make parody of Freud’s psychoanalytic approaches, or he is consciously borrowing from but not wanting to be associated with the strict constraints of psychological thought. While one may not put it past Nabokov to make parody of well-known and somewhat respected social figures, it seems to me that he does find some treasure to be wrought for literature in psychoanalysis but wishes to discern himself on a higher level in his interviews by denying association and even slandering the work of Freud and the like. The precursors of The Enchanter and Lolita are, in many senses, pulling from figures ( I am thinking of Camus and Freud, specifically) that Nabokov has openly denied of seeing any intellectual prowess in. Since he has observed them closely enough to shit-talk them relentlessly, it is nearly certain that he is borrowing from their theories consciously, and it is hard to think of this borrowing as parody, as it contextualizes entire stories which have worked in Nabokov’s favor. Perhaps he is using the psychological approach as a means of making his stories relevant in circles that appreciate Freud and Camus.

            Like the use of psychoanalytic approaches, I believe that Nabokov is exploiting the exploitative and its appeal to the masses in order to characterize his main characters as troubled, sleazy, corrupted—in Lolita, especially, the foreword’s frame of justification followed by the vulgar perversions of Humbert’s account—his speaking of these matters matter-of-factly—creates a conflict in the reader as to whether or not they should feel empathy for him. It keeps the average reader interested and reading.

Enchanted by Control

In my continued pursuance of the Enchanter's lack of control, I want to draw attention to a particular passage on page 15-16 of the paperback edition:

"The girl's arrival, her breathing, her legs, her hair, everything she did, whether it was scratching a shin and leaving white marks on it, or throwing a small black ball high in the air, or brushing against him with a bare elbow as she seated herself on the bench--all of it (while he appeared engrossed in pleasant conversation) evoked an intolerable sensation of sanguine, dermal, multivascular communion with her, as if the monstrous bisector pumping all the juices from the depths of his being extended into her like a pulsating dotted line, as if this girl were growing out of him, as if, with every carefree movement, she tugged and shook her vital roots implanted in the bowels of his being, so that, when she abruptly changed position or rushed off, he felt a yank, a barbarous pluck, a momentary loss of equilibrium" (15-16)

Drawing attention to Nabokov's description of the Enchanter's feeling, it is clear to see that his connection with this small girl is based on his internal feeling of a lack of control. Though she is completely and entirely carefree, he attaches an extreme feeling of control over him to her actions; he feels her tugging and shaking him around; her actions completely govern his intuitive feelings; she is the "vital roots" of his being. There is a strong sense that the Enchanter does not seek out this girl in order to establish control right away--his attraction to her starts with a feeling of wanting to be controlled by someone whose actions and appearance he sees as untainted.

It is easy to see the stages of this process of attraction in this passage alone as they will develop for the duration of the story: he witnesses her actions and simply her being; the feeling of the attraction begins inside him as a governing source of unbiased and untainted feeling; she continues to "grow out" of him, becoming a separate entity in his eyes, one to be admired; and finally he understands the control she has over him, beginning to yearn for that control from this passage on. It is odd and certainly perverted, in a sense, but it reveals much about the background of the main character without Nabokov having to blatantly say that the Enchanter is "insecure," or something of the like. This ability to characterize so vividly with subtlety is admirable, to say the least.

The Enchanter's Lost Marbles

                The main character who we follow through Nabokov’s The Enchanter—he who assumes the title of the book—is a man whose perverse desires are driven by a lack of control of his life and the things that surround him. He is a nervous man whose actions seem to be chiefly derived from impulse; a man whose sexual want for a small child is driven by a want to mold and control something tangible—something that he knows he can build and destroy at even the subtlest pang of desire.

                It should be first noted that he is constantly feeling guilty—he knows the feelings he has are sinful and generally looked down upon, though he is constantly “seeking justification for [his] guilt” (6). He is obviously a man who is very hard on himself and aware of the judgments that are passed everyday by countless people around him; people whose judgments he has no control over. He, himself, is judgmental of others—“So what if I have had five or six normal affairs—how can one compare their insipid randomness with my unique flame?”—seemingly out of some lack of control over his own love life; one can only assume that these random affairs ended poorly when he values his brief encounters with a child over the relative experience they gave him. He ends up going ahead and marrying the young girl’s mother to get closer to her, of course with no desire for the woman herself, but when he has the subtle thought that she wants to have sex, his mind goes completely awry: “…he could not avoid the conclusion that that very night he was expected to be instrumental in the first infraction of [her] habit [of sleeping alone]” (36).  It is clear that he has some insecurity with his sexuality in general—not only in the instance of his attraction to an adolescent—as he cannot even face the idea of faking his way carnal love to get closer to the young girl.

                Then there is the edenic scene, where he begins to fully unfold his extremely elaborate plans for him and Cordelia’s future, where he will take her away to a remote location in the woods and raise her from a young age in an “eternal nursery,” one where “past, present and future would appear to her as a single radiance whose source had emanated…from her viviparous lover” (55-57). He wants to create a feeling in her that he is her creator; he is the sole reason for her joy and contentment. Feelings like these in a grown man who has any conscious grip on his confidence and the world around him seem bizarre—it is clear that the Enchanter himself is suffering from severe self-image issues. He feels the world slipping away from him quicker and quicker, resulting in his impulsive death in the end of the novella.