Playground Love
During childhood, love and care is paramount to all children so they can grow up nurtured, however those who lack compassion at an early age can cause problems in the future. In the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator of the story, Humbert Humbert, typifies the effects of neglect and ignorance on childhood. The love that was lost in his childhood evolved into an obsession with childhood love, causing Humbert to become attached to Lolita, a prepubescent young girl that would ultimately lead to a life of false dreams that had been long gone. Through the use of literary devices and figurative language, Nabokov reveals that the love that Humbert never experienced as a child, leading to the pursual of a relationship with Lolita, ultimately leaves him
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At the beginning of the novel, Humbert uses sarcasm and irony to describe the events of his childhood, revealing the lack of nurture he received, causing him to obtain a liking for young girls. Humbert acknowledges his childhood without a mother’s love along with a motherly figure. Because his father owned a hotel, he was often times raised by the maids who worked there. Although there were some women who trying to help provide and support Humbert, they made him “shed precious tears over [his] cheerful motherlessness” (11). With the lack of guidance and parental support, Humbert uses irony to confess to the reader about his undisclosed internal sufferings growing up by using the word “cheerful” to give the reader a humorous like tone when talking about his motherless childhood. Humbert not only lacked love from his