Lolita Obsessive Love

Lolita: The Glamorization of Obsessive Love

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins...Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.” (Nabokov 1). So begins the infamous and deeply sorrowing novel “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian - American novelist and entomologist. Regarded as one of the most controversial novels of the 20th century, it tells the story of Humbert Humbert, a forty something literature professor, who desperately falls in love with a Dolores Haze, a 12 year old nymphet. In an attempt to demonstrate the tragedy of obsessive love, Nabokov weaves an incredibly sentimental and heartfelt story.

The story

In truth, Humbert falls in love with Lolita not because of her looks or her personality, but simply because she embodies the traits of a nymphet. In his urge to seduce and possess her, Humbert’s love falls short of madness. In his will to satisfy his passions, he conjures up an obsession:“I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita." (Nabokov, 309). In these final lines Humbert accepts the doomed star crossed love he feels, he acknowledges that his love can only live through art, for this is how it becomes everlasting, Humbert is a tragic protagonist, the quintessence of a man distraught by his own devotion. However let the reader not forget of the demise of Dolores Haze; while only 12, she is sexualy promiscous and an utterly ignorant child. At 16, pregant and the wife of a laborer she looks back at her years with Humbert in dispassion. The reader should point out that Dolores is not Lolita, Lolita is not Dolores, Lolita exists as nothing more than the object of Humbert’s desire. She lacks humanity and emotion. This romance is doomed from the very beginning because it is one sided, perhaps this why Humbert’s desire and love for Lolita is best described as

Contrary to the opinions of other readers, I never saw Humbert as an antagonist, nor did I see him as a pedophile, neither a demented lover. He was an artist, lost within his need for fulfilling and fanatical love, the one so glamorized. I both pitied and admired him. Nabokov is able to create three dimensional characters that come to life. Humbert Humbert and his Lolita, Dolores Haze, are incomparable characters that toy with the reader’s emotions and are the basis of this story. While questioning the author’s intention in creating such a wretched tale, I discovered that Vladimir Nabokov, himself states that the novel has no intended moral, it was just something he had to get off his chest. And that is perhaps the best evaluation I can offer, one should read Lolita not for is sexual and emotional rawness, the beautiful prose, or a good and honest cry, but because it is book without an intended moral. Books like these have no gray zone, no middle ground, the reader is forced to love it or hate