Conflicting Feelings about "Lolita" essay

If you ask different people about what the word “love” means for them, you can get a variety of responses; some of them will be unimaginable and possibly quite shocking. Simple and clear, at first glance, the intertwining of letters and sounds conceals a huge amount of meanings, ironies, tragedies, and destinies. The central theme of the novel "Lolita" is the theme of the fate of the heroes, tragedy expressed in painful love of adult male and girl nymphet. They both oppose each other. Feelings of the characters are ambiguous which creates an atmosphere of unhappiness. However, there is a tender love in vices and madness. Feelings of Lolita and Humbert are different. They change throughout the novel. Humbert loves her from the beginning, but in the end, Lolita becomes for him an ordinary girl. On the other side, she loves him at the beginning but hates in the end.

For many people, love appears in light, radiant, and bright image. However, there are those for whom this feeling becomes killing, ruining, vile, and even disgusting. A popular writer and poet Vladimir Nabokov showed us this term from a different angle, which can be considered as “wild and strange". His controversial book "Lolita" shows the reader how dangerous, painful and at the same time sweet could be the feeling of love.

 

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The story of Dolores Haze and Humbert Humbert includes manic passion, love sickness, and destructive lust, which the heroes have failed to stop being mired in a web of fatal events. This is a book about the love of a forty-year old men to a twelve-year-old girl nymphet, a novel about the disastrous love, which is passionate and tender.

The story appears to us as a confession of the sinner who has lost hope. Humbert’s remorse cannot leave us behind. There are different opinions about the heroes and one-sided considering of the situation. Many of the comments are often monotonous: Lolita is a victim and Humbert is a sick maniac. Considering "Lolita" as a pornographic novel about a pedophile means misunderstanding the full meaning of the reading. After all, the easiest way is to focus on the simplest. Moreover, not everyone will be able to distinguish between two very different, but so close and even interpenetrating concepts used in the book as the feeling of love and sin. Understanding that depends on the proximity and awareness charm of Nabokov’s novel.

I understand the book "Lolita" a little differently. The scandalous novel about the vicissitudes of love between totally different but kindred souls cannot leave anyone aside. The only question is what kind of "destiny" will see every reader of this story. I gave "Lolita" its unique life. Everyone will understand it differently and leave a mark on the fate of the heroes. Indeed, the fact is that novel is a masterpiece that has been simmering in the hearts of readers, giving rise to new feelings and moods.

"Lolita" is the confession of a sinner, a widower who repents of his actions, but he does it punctually, consistently, and thoroughly. This book is less suited for a private clinical case with criminal overtones. Only those can who know the work surface and are not able to look deeper can give such an assessment. To say that this is just a story about a sick and perverted love means to say nothing. That is the feature of "Lolita": a novel is multi-faceted. Complication of heroes’ feelings, craze, and obsession of Humbert, the desire to tame and claim nymphet – all this fills the novel. That is the creative metaphor. Today, many people put "Lolita" on the same level with Freudian psychoanalysis, because simiilar notes can be traced in the novel of Nabokov.

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In the novel, Lolita appears to us in two ways: as an ordinary girl loving jazz and ice cream who grew up with the vulgar mother– and as a vicious and deceitful one who seduces a man deceiving and mocking and then wishes to leave him colluding with Quilty. Lolita realizes that she is popular among men and does not know to whom to run. She "chases two rabbits" and catches none in the end.

"Lolita" is a novel, tragedy, romance, confession, and a love story trap. The protagonists could be condemned and blamed, which is easier. However, it is better to understand what is happening around and try to explain such a tragic set of circumstances in their lives. I believe that the central theme of the book "Lolita" is the fate of the heroes of the tragedy expressed in painful love between a male adult and a nymphet girl.

Throughout the story, Nabokov elevates Lolita and Humbert up to heaven and then throws them into the abyss causing suffering. The novel is full of the unexpected events and unpredictable interchanges. Nabokov keeps us in constant tension. The feelings of the characters are ambiguous that creates an atmosphere of unhappiness. Tender love stands for the vices and madness. Humbert’s feelings to Lolita can be confidently called amorous, however sick and malicious.

Thirty-seven-year-old Humbert becomes dependent on a small Dolores; he loses his head and starts behaving like a maniac. In the beginning, it feels ugly, and many readers will think of his as a "negative" character. However, keeping on reading the novel, you feel sorry for the man and his tragic love. It is quite obvious that "Lolita" is a book about painful, but still love. It is the failure of Humbert to "release" Dolores and his obsession with her is like a sin, and the tragedy is passing like a red thread through the whole novel.