Critical Lens Expert #7

Book: Lolita
Lens: Feminist


In Elizabeth Patnoe's Lolita Misrepresented, Lolita Reclaimed: Disclosing the Doubles we see her bringing up various points that the average reader would not have noticed. An important speculation to note is that according to Google's definition, Lolita is a "sexually precocious young girl" while this is accurate, it gives readers and people who have read the book a misinterpretation of what it actually means. Patnoe questions why definitions like this aren't things like" a molested adolescent girl", but rather suggest words such as seductive and sexual in the definitions.

 She believes that most readers fall into these traps because their ignorance and lack of perspective. She believes that although interpretations of Lolita are established with predetermined ideas, it does not help that they fall anymore victim to it. Patnoe blames Humbert's manipulative character and rhetoric as the key to why it is constantly misinterpreted. She tells readers not to fall victim to the ways in which he tries to convince the readers that Lolita is sexual or that any of the sexual encounters were her idea, because again he is a sociopath and will do anything to get his way or have people think how he wants them too. A big concept that she mentions is the idea of consent in the novel. She states that because Lolita and Humbert are not on the same page intellectually it would be harder to get her consent on the acts they performed as she is still young and does not know what many things are until she experiences them. One example is when they are first starting to have sex and although she does not explicitly state that she wants to have sex with him, she tiptoes around the idea but asking Humbert if he has ever done "this" as a kid. What "this" is- is left unclear and leads us to believe that she might be talking about something sexual like sex itself, but because Humbert is the narrator we do not know what she was referring to.

   Because of this lack of perspective and how the readers fall victim to Humbert and his acts for sympathy sometimes it makes it harder to realize that she is still a child and it makes it harder to relate this back to our own lives. She mentions that she's asked fathers about Lolita and they use the excuse that she was sexually-experienced or that she was a sexual girl to excuse Humbert's behavior. But when asked what they would do if their 12-year old daughter was having sex with Humbert or someone like him, their responses immediately changed and they then understood more about where Patnoe was coming from with this.
   In relation to the book, a big difference is the way the events are perceived. I can confidently say that many of the readers would have taken Humbert's unreliability lightly and believed every story that he has told. For example, the instance where he says that them having sex was her idea, many readers might believe that to be so, but thinking back to when one was 12, it is hard to believe her wanting to have sex. Patnoe's interpretation has helped me further my reading by putting many things into perspective in terms of consent and how Humbert is manipulative. By having these two factors in mind, it will help the reader understand the view with a clear mind.