Sunday, May 26, 2013
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.
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Jessie, I could not agree with you more. In the beginning of the novel we could not help but point out and notice every disgusting and perverted thing Humbert did. As readers, we had this horrible image of Humbert, as this shallow and perverted man. Then, towards the middle of the play we saw Lolita become the aggressor. Lolita became the character who was pursuing the sex, not Humbert. I feel Lolita perhaps led Humbert on. She manipulated Humbert into believing she truly loved him. This is why I would have to say that both Humbert and Lolita were abusers and victims at some point. They both at some point in the play manipulated each other into getting what they wanted. In Humbert’s case, he wanted sex and for Lolita, she wanted gifts. Therefore, I believe there is no clear cut abuser and victim; they both constantly change throughout the story, which is one of the reasons why Lolita is such a great novel.
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