Lolita

Humbert comes back to the room and finds Lolita sleeping. All night he stays awake, and in the morning, he pretends to be asleep. When Lolita wakes up, she asks whether Humbert has ever done it before, to which Humbert denies. After that, much to my surprise and horror, Lolita consents to having sex with Humbert.

Considering Humbert’s deceitfulness, I can’t find myself believing that Humbert is telling the truth; I think this is one of his manipulations to trick Lolita into having sex with him. He says Lolita was the one who seduced him, but I think otherwise. Although it might be probable that Lolita did seduce him considering her flirtatious nature, I am still placing the blame on Humbert.

I wonder why Nabokov did not go into detail on the gritty details between Humbert and Lolita? I mean, he shamelessly did so when Humbert told his story about Annabel. Why not Lolita, when that was the one thing that the readers have been anticipating all along?

Lolita

The Enchanted Hunter is the name of the hotel at which Humbert and Lolita are staying. Is this some wordplay on Nabokov’s part? Symbolism? Humbert is, after all, a predator.

There is a lot of doubling and parallelism in Chapters 25-28. First, the number of the hotel room they are staying at is Room 342, which is the same as the number of Charlotte’s house. Second, Humbert finds that the room is full of mirrors (suggestive of reflection, doubling). Third, Humbert and Lolita share a double bed. Fourth, there is again parallelism between Annabel and Lolita.

What does the doubling mean? Could it be that It merely symbolizes Humbert’s deceitful nature, or does it symbolize something else in the story?

There is something suspicious about the man Humbert meets when he exits his hotel room. It seems that this man knows what Humbert and Lolita have been up to. Whenever Humbert asks him a question he seems to be circumspect about it. Who on earth is this man, why and what does he know about Humbert and Lolita?

Lolita

Humbert picks Dolores up from summer camp and lies that her mother is in a hospital in another area. As they drive away, Lolita teases Humbert along the way, and eventually they pull over at the side of the road and she kisses him. A policeman interrupts their kiss, but merely asks if they have seen a blue car pass by, to which they deny.

This scene raises a couple of questions: why did the policeman not reprehend Humbert after seeing what he has been doing to her? What does this symbolize, if any? I also wonder how Lolita turned out to be the lewd girl that she is now. Seeing a twelve-year-old girl act like this makes me shake my head and say, "There is something inherently wrong with this girl."

Lolita

The tension heightens.

When Humbert comes home from his doctor’s appointment to procure stronger sleeping pills for Lolita and Charlotte, he finds that Charlotte has broken into Humbert’s table and has read his diary detailing his sordid lust for her daughter Lolita. What happens next disproves my earlier hypothesis; Charlotte doesn’t die from her own hands or that of Humbert’s—she dies in an accident, getting run over by a car near her house, which proves all too convenient for Humbert.

I am surprised that when Charlotte found out about Humbert’s proclivities, she was mad at him not because he is a pedophile, but because he preferred Lolita over her! I couldn’t help but yell out loud, “Oh my God! This woman has completely lost it! Does she even care for her daughter?!” I feel like Charlotte is one of those mothers—like Daisy from The Great Gatsby—who only care about their children on the surface.

More importantly, now that Humbert has Lolita all to himself...what does he intend to do?

Lolita

When Charlotte asks Humbert about his past, Humbert makes up some stories in order to placate her. Sometimes I wonder if Humbert has been telling the truth all along, or if he has been fabricating some of his past along the way. Humbert, after all, is a very deceitful and controlling person, so this is highly plausible. I don’t know which of his stories to believe and to be honest, I can’t sympathize with this messed-up individual.

Charlotte seems incredibly jealous of Humbert’s past lovers. I wonder what would happen if Charlotte found out that Humbert is obsessed with Lolita? No secret can be buried forever. Oddly, I can only imagine this character to die a tragic death—either in her own hands or that of Humbert’s.

Lolita

In Chapter 16, Humbert receives a letter from Charlotte. In the letter, Charlotte confessed her love to him and basically proposes to him. She orders him (quite dramatically) to leave unless he agrees to marry her. I see an eerie parallelism between Charlotte’s obsession with Humbert and Humbert’s obsession with Lolita. Charlotte also warns him that if he tries to seduce her without returning her feelings with real love, he would be like a kidnapper raping a child. Ironically, this is what Humbert will probably become.

Once again, Humbert’s decision to marrying Charlotte shows Humbert’s cold, manipulative nature; he is using Charlotte like he used Valeria. The only reason why he decided to marry Charlotte was so that he can stay close to Lolita. Particularly disturbing is a scene in Chapter 17, where Humbert contemplates on giving Lolita and Charlotte a dose of sleeping pills so he can have his way with Lolita. In Chapter 18, when Humbert sleeps with Charlotte, he bears through it by imagining that Charlotte was once like Lolita.

When Charlotte married Humbert, she compels him to believe in Christianity, or else she would commit suicide. This is a paradox: to commit suicide would be in itself a violation of Christian values. I’m not sure what to think of Charlotte’s character, except that she comes off to me as feeble and ridiculous.