Quilty's love of Lolita

 As one reads then end of Lolita and they discover that Clare Quilty has been following Humbert and Lolita, it makes me wonder why he would follow them?  If Lolita in only a sex toy for Quilty than why would  he go to such extensive lengths to follow Humbert and Lolita in secret.  If he considers Lolita only as an object of entertainment, then why would he stalk her and Humbert across America and wait so long to steal her from Humbert.  As mentioned by Lolita he has numerous other means of entertainment with girls and boys that he could use to forget Lolita, so why does he not let her go? Is it possible he had a love for Lolita that had worn off as he pursued her and Humbert?  If not then why would he go to such extreme lengths to ensure that she remained his.  The other part of Quilty and Lolita’s relationship that puzzles me is that after the years he spent tracking her and Humbert down, he eventually kicks Lolita out of his ranch.  He essentially wasted all the time he spent trying to find Lolita, to evict her from his house.  Quilty as a character, I feel, does not act rationally, but instead acts with disregard to other people’s feeling, and only for his own temporary entertainment.  

A Love Story?

 Throughout our time reading Lolita I kept thinking to myself how is this novel a love story? For much of the novel I would say no, this is not a love story. For example, this is not a love story because if Humbert truly loved Lolita he would not have had sex with his daughter. Also, he would not have been obsessed with Lolita to the point where he memorized how many weeks they spent together. Humbert’s disgusting and perverted actions are not the actions of someone who loves another person. I believe in order to love someone you need to care about their well-being and you have to want to help them grow as a person. I believe Humbert failed to do so.

 But, as we approached the end of the novel I realized how Lolita can be considered a love story. It can possibly be a love story between Lolita and her husband Dick Schiller. Can that be the love story in this novel? Also I concluded that the way Humbert acts when he receives the letter from Lolita shows that Humbert truly loves her. Humbert says to the audience that if Dick Schiller ever hurt Lolita then Humbert would virtually kill him. This shows that if Humbert did not love Lolita than he would not have said this; therefore, the novel can be considered a love story.   

Never Loved Her

While reading “Lolita” my biggest question throughout the entire novel is whether or not Humbert Humbert actually loves Lolita. I question if Humbert loves Lolita for her personality or if he is only obsessed with her as a nymphet. Obsession is an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind. Many times it seems he actually loves her, but often it seems as if he only loves a false image he has created of Lolita. In this book it can be seen that Humbert’s love and lust for Lolita is motivated by his adolescent relationship with Annabel; consequently, this love forms and obsessive characteristic about Humbert. One fatal flaw in Humbert Humbert is that he dwells on the past. In the beginning of the story Humbert tells the reader about his childhood love Annabel. Humbert uses Lolita to get over Annabel which I feel never makes their relationship true love. Despite the fact that Lolita never really loves Humbert, Humbert never loves Lolita. He may think he does but he actually just has an obsessive nature about himself. He does not like to be left and obsesses over everything. At the end of the story it may seem like Humbert actually loves Lolita but I do not believe him. I think Humbert is just stuck on the past and does not like the idea of anyone leaving him.

Murder of Quilty

The murdering of Quilty is an interesting scene in the novel Lolita. When Humbet is killing Quilty, Nabokov creates a scenario that the reader would not necessarily expect. Humbert states, "I fired three or four times in quick succession, wounding him at every blaze…his face would twitch in an absurd clownish manner, as if he were exaggerating the pain; and he shivered every time a bullet hit him as if I were tickling him, and every time I got him with those slow, clumsy, blind bullets of mine, he would say under his breath, with a phony British accent – all the while dreadfully twitching, shivering, smirking…ah, that hurts, sir, enough!" (Nabokov 303). Nabokov creates a long, drawn out murder scene where Quilty has been shot multiple times and continues to cry out in pain. I found the murder of Quilty to be an unexpected end to the novel.

I think the reason that Nabokov makes the death of Quilty unexpected is because the whole idea behind story is unexpected. We would never expect Humbert and Lolita to be in a relationship or to be in love because of their age gap. I think the unexpectedness of the murder of Quilty relates to the unexpectedness of the novel in general. 

Change of Opinion

     After finishing Lolita by Nabokov, I realized that my opinion of the characters Lolita and Humbert completely changed from when I began reading the novel. In the beginning of the novel I saw Humbert as a pedophile and I felt bad for Lolita because I saw Lolita as a victim of Humbert's pedophilia. I did not understand why an adult man would be pursuing a young girl. The whole situation did not make much sense to me. I started to develop a dislike of Humbert. As the novel went on, I started to see Lolita's "true colors." She turned out to be pursuing Humbert just as aggressively as he was pursuing her. After seeing the way Lolita acted with Humbert my dislike of Humbert was a little less than it was initially. Even later in the novel, my opinion of the two characters was completely different from when I started the novel. I started to see Lolita as a shallow person because she was only having sex with Humbert in exchange for clothes and other gifts. I started to feel bad for Humbert because he really did love Lolita, and Lolita started not to care. 

From Love to Insanity

After finishing the novel Lolita, I cannot help but think about how Humbert’s love for Lolita basically made him insane. Throughout the novel, Humbert is constantly plotting to get Lolita alone, and shortly after he does she gets away from him. I feel that Lolita leaving Humbert was so traumatic to him that it actually made him crazy. If we think about the whole story, the novel Lolita is based off of Humbert’s love, lust, and obsession with one person and that person is Lolita. His love for Lolita was so intense that he killed Clare Quilty for taking it away with him. Although the story of Humbert and Lolita’s relationship is morally wrong I can’t help but feel distraught about the ending of the story. There was one point when I felt so bad about Humbert’s broken heart that I wanted Lolita to come back to him. With these feelings, I wondered how it was possible for Humbert to ever make a relationship like his and Lolita’s seem okay. I do however, find it tragic how the amount of love Humbert had for and gave to Lolita, without looking at the immoral aspects of the relationship; can bring such a tragic ending. And this is all because someone fell in love?

A Broken Heart

After completing Lolita I could not help but wonder if Lolita ever did love Humbert. When we first began to read the novel I did not think Lolita felt any love toward Humbert, but throughout the novel my opinion changed. She began to show interest in Humbert. However, at the end of the novel Lolita writes to Humbert saying, “I’m married. I’m going to have a baby” (Nabokov 266). Throughout the letter, Lolita seems happy and does not seem to miss Humbert at all. This makes me question Lolita’s feeling throughout most of the novel. Did Lolita ever love Humbert? Was she hoping for someone to steal her away all along? Personally after reading the outcome of the novel I do not believe Lolita loved Humbert. If she did she would not have went off to marry another man and write Humbert about it. It is as if she is gloating. However, I do believe that Humbert loved Lolita. Humbert became distraught once Lolita left and it led him to murder and, ultimately, his arrest. If Humbert did not love Lolita would he have murdered the man who took her? Would he have emotionally spiraled out of control? Although Humbert started off as a disturbing man, he has become a man that any one of us can relate to. Someone who got their heart broken.