Lolita By Vladimir Nabokov Controversy

The subject in the book Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov inherently incites controversy. Through his manipulation of the Haze family, Humbert Humbert gains access to the young daughter, whom he nicknames Lolita. His “love” for Lolita quickly becomes all-consuming and turns into an obsession with making her his own. Throughout the book, Humbert will go to great lengths and cross moral boundaries to obtain and keep control of Lolita. Humbert views Lolita as a beautiful object that he must protect at all costs, regardless of her need for a childhood. Nabokov uses his writing style to frame the relationship between Humbert and Lolita. Nabokov’s writing manipulates and distracts the reader from the inherent evil buried throughout the book. In Lolita,

As a character, Lolita exists to appease Humbert's senses. Throughout the book, Humbert obsesses over her beauty and appeal. His need for constant control over her comes from his fear that something would deprive him of her beauty. Annabel’s death at a young age shaped Humbert for the rest of his life. For him, “Lolita began with Annabel” (Nabokov 14) and would be a major factor in his fear that something would deny him of Lolita’s beauty. This fear accumulates into his obsession with “preventing the loss of beauty” (Maddox) through controlling Lolita. Nabokov uses this need to protect Lolita’s aesthetic value to transform her into a delicate work of art. Nabokov’s style distracts from the true horrors of Lolita as the reader gets lost in its beauty. The book becomes an intricate piece of art because of Nabokov’s writing. Nabokov admitted that he “seeks only ‘aesthetic bliss’ in a novel” (Bell). As the reader takes a deeper look at the absence of morality, the captivating artwork is put under threat. When looking at Lolita’s character she is not too different from the book itself. Without the biased view of Humbert, Lolita’s story becomes a timeless tragedy. Without Nabokov’s enchanting writing style, Lolita also becomes a tragedy. Once the reader acknowledges the evil behind Lolita’s abuse, the true story is revealed and the art is transformed into something deeper. Without recognizing the evil in Humbert’s actions, the layers of Nabokov’s beauty cannot be fully appreciated nor understood and are then put under threat of its loss. For “Nabokov's art to approach the complexity of life” (Benson), the reader must inevitably “come to terms with what actually happens when a father molests his daughter” (Benson). Without the acknowledgment of Humbert’s moral evil, Nabokov’s work of art is put in danger in the same way Humbert feared Lolita’s beauty would be