Vladimir Nabokov's Symbolism In Lolita, Pale Fire

Symbols Vladimir Nabokov: Symbolism while some authors create laden with symbolism, others, like Vladimir Nabokov, abhor the use of such a basic literary tool. In his poetic masterpiece, Pale Fire, Nabokov’s fictional poet and professor, John shade, whom Nabokov most definitely speaks through to some degree, wrote, “On students’ papers: ‘I am generally very benevolent. But there are certain trifles I do not forgive. Not having read the required book. Having read it like an idiot. Looking in it for symbols” (156). In will do just that: look through and examine three of Nabokov’s, Lolita, Pale Fire, and Speak, Memory, for their symbolic elements. Nabokov did not use beautiful symbolism to advance his novels, he used beautiful language;

Speak, Memory presents a twisted one. In his autobiography, Nabokov talks about the love he has for his parents and his wife, but he also writes about his “reckless romance” (234) with a girl when he was very young. This romance was innocent, however, unlike the romance presented in Lolita. It is so twisted, in fact, that when a psychiatrist tells Humbert that the girl is sexually immature, the man can not help but laugh, considering the relationship he has created with her. Love, to Humbert Humbert, is a “localized lust for every passing nymphet (girl-child)” (18). With such noticeable contrasts, Nabokov leaves yet another ambiguous message. Perhaps he is trying to prove that true love is different to different people. Either way, the idea o love and analyzing what it truly is infiltrates his work as a major theme. He does not only analyze the love between a man and a woman, no matter how old each of them may be, however. In Pale Fire, for example, Charles Xavier, the king of Zembla, had homosexual experiences as a prince, further proving that love is not a constant, measurable concept- it takes different forms. In this way he is almost defending Humbert Humbert in Lolia, and Nabokov brings the readers along with him. Readers, although initially horrified, at least in some ways warm up the pedophile, recognizing that he has a different idea of love than “sane” people do. Thus it becomes hard to wish him the total imprisonment that he eventually