Critical Lens Close Reading 2

Text: Lolita Vladimir Nabokov

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytical

Now, my dearest, dearest, mon cher, cher monsieur, you have read this; now you know. So, will you please at once, pack and leave. This is a landlady’s order. I am dismissing a lodger. I am kicking you out. Go! Scram! Departez! I shall be back by dinnertime, if I do eighty both ways and don’t have an accident (but what would it matter?), and I do not wish to find you in this house. Please, please, leave at once, now do not even read this absurd note to the end. Go. Adieu. (Nabokov 67).

The following passage is a continuation of the note that Lolita had written to Humbert when she was on her way to camp. In the note she had written, it stated that she had fallen in love with him and how she was a “lonely woman”. In the note she stated that he was the love of her life. The reaction that Humbert had to was “repulsion and retreat”. He later on explains that his second reaction was like “a friend’s clam hand falling up” on his shoulder “and blinding [him] at the time”. In being able to respond to the letter Humber Humbert was happy that she was able to see him the way she does. But Lolita’s love toward Humbert can be questionable since she states that he had similar traits to an actor that she was also in love with. In the passage we are able to see the type of person in how her vocabulary how she is very debatable in her feelings. She also shows signs of regret in confessing her emotions toward Humbert. But when she states that if he stays she will assume that he likes her as much as she does. She goes on to say that Humbert will be the father of her daughter and in general going deep about her emotions when she talks about the possibility that he would stay with her. It is interesting because later on she is the one that ends up leaving him, while he still has these strong emotions towards her.