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.