Critical Lens Close Reading

Text: Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov

Critical Lens: Psychoanalytical

You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of  hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs-the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate-the little deadly demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power. (Nabokov 17).

In the beginning of the novel Humbert states that before Lolita there was Annabel, and how in his younger years they would be in love but were not able to consummate their love since she died four months later. In this passage we are able to see that he accepts who he is in being attracted to nymphets and describes the type he is. In the following the passage he describes that nymphets are generally girls who are ages 9 to 14. But he also states that not all of the girls are nymphets.  He goes on stating that you have to be an artist, a mad man and so on. He acknowledges that he is different in the way that he is able to view young girls. But does not see the correlation between the way he sees nymphets and the way he saw Annabel. We are only told about the relationship between Annabel to Lolita.

You can tell that the author carefully chose his words in being able to describe who Humber Humbert was. By using phrases like “bubble of hot poison in your loins” and “little deadly demon” we are able to notice that the author wanted to make sure that the reader had an idea of the thought process of Humber Humbert. The author’s choice of words, like “hot poison in your loins” and other similar language in other passages could can been because of his great use of assassination as a theme that has been really common in his other written novels. Later in the novel he states that had reincarnated Annabel in Lolita. Meaning that he is trying to hold on to Annabel through Lolita.