Then there is the butterfly-or is it a moth? Humbert's inability to differentiate between the two,his indifference, implies a moral carelessness. This blind indifference echoes his callous attitude towards Lolita's nightly sobs. Those who tell us Lolita is a little vixen who deserved what she got should remember her nightly sobs in the arms of her rapist and jailer, because you see, as Humbert reminds us with a mixture of relish and pathos,
"she had absolutely nowhere else to go."
This came to mind when we were discussing in our class Humbert's confiscation of Lolita's life.
The first thing that struck us in reading Lolita-in fact it was on the very first page-was how Lolita
was given to us as Humbert's creature. We only see her in passing glimpses. "What I had madly
possessed," he informs us, "was not she, but my own creation, another fanciful Lolita-perhaps,
more real than Lolita . . . having no will, no consciousness-indeed no real life of her own."
Humbert pins Lolita by first naming her, a name that becomes the echo of his desires. To reinvent her, Humbert must take from Lolita her own real history and replace it with his own,
turning Lolita into a reincarnation of his lost, unfulfilled young love. Humbert's solipsization of Lolita.
Yet she does have a past. Despite Humbert's attempts to orphan Lolita by robbing her of her
history. Lolita has a tragic past, with a dead father and a dead two-year-old brother. And now also a dead mother. Like my students, Lolita's past comes to her not so much as a loss but as a lack, and like my students, she becomes a figment in someone else's dream.
When I think of Lolita, I think of that half-alive butterfly pinned to the wall. The butterfly is not
an obvious symbol, but it does suggest that Humbert fixes Lolita in the same manner that the
butterfly is fixed; he wants her, a living breathing human being, to become stationary, to give up
her life for the still life he offers her in return. Lolita's image is forever associated in the minds of her readers with that of her jailer. Lolita on her own has no meaning; she can only come to life
through her prison bars.
This is how I read Lolita. Again and again as we discussed Lolita in that class. And more and more I thought of that butterfly; what linked us so closely was this perverse intimacy of victim
and jailer.
"she had absolutely nowhere else to go."
This came to mind when we were discussing in our class Humbert's confiscation of Lolita's life.
The first thing that struck us in reading Lolita-in fact it was on the very first page-was how Lolita
was given to us as Humbert's creature. We only see her in passing glimpses. "What I had madly
possessed," he informs us, "was not she, but my own creation, another fanciful Lolita-perhaps,
more real than Lolita . . . having no will, no consciousness-indeed no real life of her own."
Humbert pins Lolita by first naming her, a name that becomes the echo of his desires. To reinvent her, Humbert must take from Lolita her own real history and replace it with his own,
turning Lolita into a reincarnation of his lost, unfulfilled young love. Humbert's solipsization of Lolita.
Yet she does have a past. Despite Humbert's attempts to orphan Lolita by robbing her of her
history. Lolita has a tragic past, with a dead father and a dead two-year-old brother. And now also a dead mother. Like my students, Lolita's past comes to her not so much as a loss but as a lack, and like my students, she becomes a figment in someone else's dream.
When I think of Lolita, I think of that half-alive butterfly pinned to the wall. The butterfly is not
an obvious symbol, but it does suggest that Humbert fixes Lolita in the same manner that the
butterfly is fixed; he wants her, a living breathing human being, to become stationary, to give up
her life for the still life he offers her in return. Lolita's image is forever associated in the minds of her readers with that of her jailer. Lolita on her own has no meaning; she can only come to life
through her prison bars.
This is how I read Lolita. Again and again as we discussed Lolita in that class. And more and more I thought of that butterfly; what linked us so closely was this perverse intimacy of victim
and jailer.
( Azar Nafisi )
[ Reading Lolita in Tehran: A ]
www.QuoteSweet.com