Lolita Final Reflection

A summary of Lolita is that there is a man named Humbert. He is very manipulative and selfish. The tragic event of the girl he is talking to dying as a child causes his life to spiral. He mentally stagnates in that immature 13 year old sexual maturity. This causes him to only be attracted to girls of that age which makes him go for a 13 year old girl named Lolita. He does many things in his effort to get her and ends up in a court hearing in which the story takes places. To the court he explains the tragedy and the events that occur with Lolita. He takes blames for what he's done, but explains how he could not control his attraction and how his past made him the way he is. There are many things in the story like how he marries her mom and runs away with her in the story, but the central theme is how his issues have caused him to become who he is. Going into the story I was not expecting much more than a creepy story about a pedophile who falls in love with a girl, but this story showed me a lot of things. It showed me that things are not always black and white or just right and wrong. The book opened me up to remembering that while people have misguided intentions many times it is events in their past that make them who they are. In Humbert's case for example he seemed to be fine until Annabel's death seemed to cause him to snap. Literature-wise this novel taught me to not take everything I see as fact. Until Ms.Richey pointed out that Humbert could have biased intentions when talking to the jury I never thought of it as a factor and took his words as the truth. I learned to pick and choose what I believe and what could be skewed. I was not only able to use this skill not only in the reading of this book, but I will be able to use it to get deeper into my reading and analysis of other novels and written pieces. Additionally I learned that through the psychoanalytical lens I can learn about the author and his intentions like the message he is trying to deliver through the reading. Vice-versa I have learned that by learning about the author and his background and motivations I can see why he did things in the book and what he is trying to say. That why overall I was thankful for reading this novel because it opened my mind up to many viewpoints that I would not have thought of looking at. Additionally I am happy about the lens I chose because it was very interesting to me and I learned new ways to analyze the meanings and themes of a novel.