Lolita By Vladimir Nabokov Essay Nabokov's "Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" Is Perhaps. Nabokov's "Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" is perhaps one Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Specifically. It is very clear that he can be much more dark and scheming than he seems to Humbert's Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews and Letters to the Editor, by Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy, Penguin Classics, RRP£25/Knopf, RRP$30 Estimated Reading Time: 5 mins ular, I thank Mrs. Vera Nabokov (for comments on the essay that eventually became Chapter 2), Helena Goscilo of the University of Pittsburgh, Gerald Bruns of the University of Notre Dame, and my Hebrew University Colleagues Shuli Barzilai, Lawrence Besserman, Baruch Hochman, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, and H. M. Daleski
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Sontag suggests that art is better understood as something that "enliven[s] our sensibility and consciousness" rather than as a blanket statement of moral code. In other words, genuine works of art operate within the aesthetic sphere of experience and do not aim at antagonizing consciousness or action, nabokov essays. However, while my reading of Lolita was enjoyable and moral, it was not without its challenges.
In fact, nabokov essays, several times I had to wonder at the character of Humbert and his perspective and whether his thoughts and actions revealed anything to me about myself, nabokov essays. In this paper I will examine the meaning of my experience reading Lolita in light of Sontag's assertions about morality and aesthetic pleasure and show why Nabokov's book may be viewed as a genuine work of art that is moral and promotes the awakening of consciousness.
The first reason I believe Nabokov's book is moral is the fact that it is written in such a splendid poetic style. Nabokov uses poetic prose to illuminate scenes and elevate language. Reading it is like nabokov essays to music. It nabokov essays an engaging exercise of the mind simply to follow along with the author's use of language. Ta" Nabokov 9. This sudden and surprising revelation may be why some readers are so shocked and so quickly call the book immoral.
They are unused to finding themselves in such unapologetic company. Yet, to me, nabokov essays, it appears that Humbert nabokov essays that he is diseased -- even if he attempts to place the responsibility of that disease on Lolita rather than on himself.
But Sontag appears to have the answer for those who doubt whether keeping company with such a villain can be morally acceptable.
Sontag states that "it is sensibility that nourishes our capacity for moral choice. Humbert is one who lacks the necessary sensibility to see that he himself is misguided. His use of nabokov essays is so seductive that it is easy for the reader nabokov essays suddenly see Humbert as their "tragic" hero and Lolita as the seductress. However, the characters are unfit for either nabokov essays. The moral reader is the one who allows his consciousness to process the information that Nabokov presents to him in the book and not to be fooled by any poetic devices Humbert might employ to tell his strange tale of obsession.
The engagement of the mind with the work is what enables the moral process to occur, nabokov essays. Lolita, after all, offers the clues to how I came to understand Humbert, nabokov essays. Humbert recalls Lolita's resistance of his advances: "You would give me one look -- a gray furry question nabokov essays of a look: 'Oh no, not again'…for you never deigned to believe that I could, nabokov essays, without any specific designs, ever crave to bury my face in your plaid skirt…" Nabokov What I see in scenes like this is the sensual longing of Humbert for the girl-child Lolita, who does not quite understand his longing or what he desires of her.
She is only now coming of age and awakening to her sexuality. Like any great work of art, nabokov essays, Lolita acts as a mirror, a satire: it reflects the world around it. What Nabokov does with Lolita is hold the nabokov essays up nabokov essays a culture that is as obsessed with seeming prudish as it is with consuming that which is pornographic, nabokov essays.
It is not the theme that disturbs us -- it is the fact that it touches a nerve in us: we fear that Humbert represents us, nabokov essays. Thus, Nabokov challenged me to assess Humbert and myself. As Sontag asserts happens when the mind is engaged in aesthetic experience, nabokov essays, my consciousness began to awaken and I needed to understand these characters and their choices and how I was being affected by them. Could I sympathize, nabokov essays, empathize?
Should I condemn? Was that the moral thing to do? Sontag implies that morality is not the act of condemning but rather the act of understanding. Therefore, for me to explain why I found the experience of reading the novel to be morally meaningful, I should explain what I understood about the novel, nabokov essays.
Lolita at times appears as the personification of a mythologized sexuality -- at least to Humbert. Or, a better description of the way in which Humbert and even I myself, I must admit, saw her was as Eros. But this was a mistake on my part, nabokov essays. I would begin to see things the way Humbert saw them, and then there would be scenes that would remind me of the reality of Lolita -- that she was not a goddess or a temptress but a girl-child, nabokov essays, the sudden obsession of a man with a penchant for young girls.
As I read, it seemed that this was what she appeared to be to Nabokov as well: she is a human girl -- no goddess, no temptress, and surely no deviant -- merely a girl, whose sexual awakening happens to draw the attention of a man who has submitted his intellect to his passions, nabokov essays. Humbert's appeal to poetic devices disguises this fact and is an attempt by him to view his actions as moral and pure. But the reader is in a better position to judge.
That is what I realized in light of Sontag's "On Style" -- I am in a better position to judge simply because I know I do not have to judge: I neither need to accept nor reject Humbert and his tale, nabokov essays. All I must do is understand it. If the novel Lolita performs, as Sontag suggests, a "moral task," it may be found in the nabokov essays experience" -- "the awakening nabokov essays the feelings," as Sontag describes them. Aristotle similarly described the task of drama : he asserted that drama should produce a cathartic effect.
This appears to be the conclusion that Sontag wishes to express. Through an aesthetic experience, works of art like Lolita can help bring "grace" and " intelligence " to the reader and enable the reader to develop nabokov essays better "moral response to life " Sontag.
The moral response that the reader might develop from the meaning of Lolita may be understood in light of Nabokov's object in writing it: he viewed Lolita as a heroine, not as a temptress. The novel was written from the murderer Humbert's perspective not because Nabokov sympathized most with his perspective -- but because it was the one nabokov essays which he simply chose to approach the story.
To better understand the meaning of the novel, therefore, it certainly helps to better understand Humbert. I view Humbert as he views himself: as a kind of second Nabokov essays in other words, as pure as Christ.
Thinking himself a second Adam free of nabokov essays is as dangerous for Humbert as it would be for me were I to follow in Humbert's thinking. To see such a position manifested on the page, with all its gruesome consequences realistically and psychologically depicted, does shock -- as Nabokov intended. I see…, nabokov essays. Works Cited Nabokov, nabokov essays, Vladimir. NY: Vintage, Sontag, Susan. Nabokov's "Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" is perhaps one of the most famous novels of the Twentieth Century.
For not only did Nabokov dare to explore the forbidden subject of an older man's obsessive love and lustful desire for a young girl, he did so with sheer poetry and language mastery. Joyce Carol Oates once said that "Lolita is one of our finest American novels, nabokov essays, a triumph of style and vision" Oates Pp.
Humbert In Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov creates the character of a clear anti-hero in Humbert, a man who has is guilty of pedophilia, possibly rape and murder. The bulk of the book, however, is devoted to Humbert's narration of his affair with his stepdaughter, a "nymphet" named Dolores Haze or, nabokov essays, in Humbert's mind, nabokov essays, Lolita.
For Humbert, the various forms of love he feels for the young girl are inextricably linked with his. It is very clear that he can be much more dark and scheming than he seems to be.
That is illustrated by just how far he will go to possess Lolita - marrying her mother and then literally abducting her after her mother dies. In addition, nabokov essays, they both are tragic figures who never get what they really want. Humbert discovers he is capable of love, and that he loves Lolita. Humbert's Metamorphosis In Lolita In Vladimir Nabokov's famous novel, Lolita, the character of Hubert Humbert gradually changes from a man who refuses to accept responsibility for his own actions to someone who begins to understand the implications of his own free will.
Humbert is a clever, articulate man who uses his many wiles to manipulate the lives of those around them, largely to fulfill his desire for the nymphet Lolita. Lolita An Analysis of the Repulsive in Nabokov's Lolita This paper will show why Vladimir Nabokov chose to illustrate a theme that is considered by many to be repulsive: it was a theme through which he could hold the mirror up to society and reflect what he saw happening in the world around him.
When Nabokov's Lolita debuted first in Paris and then in America in the s, it provoked one of. She is ten and very tired. Language breaks free, and Humbert lets himself be carried away into a maze of Latin nabokov essays English and linguistic inversions: "What's the katter with misses? Learning Tools Study Documents Writing Guides About us FAQs Our Blog Citation Generator Flash Card Generator Login SignUp, nabokov essays. Download this Essay in word format.
Excerpt from Essay : ¶ … Lolita in Light of Sontag's "Morality" My experience reading Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was a pleasant one, an aesthetic experience that, as Susan Nabokov essays states, appealed to my consciousness. Read Full Essay. Nabokov's "Lolita" Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita" Is Perhaps Words: Length: 7 Pages Topic: Literature Paper : Humbert in Lolita, nabokov essays, Vladimir Nabokov Creates the Words: Length: 12 Pages Topic: Literature Paper : Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
Specifically Words: Length: 3 Pages Topic: Literature Paper : Humbert's Metamorphosis in Lolita in Vladimir Nabokov's Words: Length: 1 Nabokov essays Topic: Literature Paper : Lolita an Analysis of the Repulsive in Words: Length: 4 Pages Topic: Literature Paper : Power of Words: Nabokov's Lolita Words: Length: 7 Pages Topic: Literature Paper :
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov Essay Words | 9 Pages. If someone asked the average American, “What genre was Vladimir Nabokov's hit novel, Lolita?”, what would they say? What would be their justification? Although Lolita includes drugging, pedophilia, incest, and murder, many Americans would say that the novel would be classified as romantic ular, I thank Mrs. Vera Nabokov (for comments on the essay that eventually became Chapter 2), Helena Goscilo of the University of Pittsburgh, Gerald Bruns of the University of Notre Dame, and my Hebrew University Colleagues Shuli Barzilai, Lawrence Besserman, Baruch Hochman, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, and H. M. Daleski Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews and Letters to the Editor, by Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Brian Boyd and Anastasia Tolstoy, Penguin Classics, RRP£25/Knopf, RRP$30 Estimated Reading Time: 5 mins
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