Humbert’s Voice As An Artist Versus Lolita’s Essay

Nabokov brings egress Humberts phonation as a mixture of two extreme emotional impulses and an uncanny sense of highly complex intellectual. Humbert is persuasive and convincing in a representation that is unsettling, a little upsetting, scarce tricky enough to rob your mind and completely occupy it with its vile verbal exhortations. For instance, in his sustain description, Humbert though in extreme exaggeration manages to draw the proof subscriber into believing that he is an exceptionally handsome male slow-moving, tall, with soft dark hair and a gloomy exclusively all the more seductive tie of demeanor. with exceptional virility that could obtain at the snap of fingers, any adult female. Humbert take h out of date ofms to be so much self absorbed and overconfident, a trait which can also be noned in his incessant desire for Lolita. This voice of self-aggrandizement (qtd. in. in Meyer 93) In the aforementioned(prenominal) text, Humberts voice takes a dramatic shift to of cold and fiery brimstone coupled with a lighthearted sadistic tone. Humbert combines his intelligence with slovenliness, alacrity and alienation.His description of Lolitas crude body and the vivid count on of how he has sex with her when she is sick and how he thinks of raping her again are soul cringing. In contrast his erotic description of Lolitas brown, nakednarrow white buttocks.. sulky face image displays his soft sensual aspect. Its the voice that could be beautiful, if it were non for something rotten at its core (Meyer 98) Humberts romantic tragedy with Lo begins with the letter from Charlotte and dramatically ends with one from Lo.Humbert reveals himself as an obsessed lover who would do anything to be in control of the aliveness of their objects of obsession. His obsession is evident in many words he uses in the text specifically his description of Lolita as all rose and honey, dressed in her b right-hand(a)est gingham, with a pattern of little red apples wit h scratches like tiny dotted lines of coagulated rubies, and the ribbed cuffs of her white socks were turned down. This description, which is highly detailed, shows how Humberts mind and lyric was greatly inclined towards every inch of perfection or imperfection of his object of obsession, Lolita.Humbert tries to portray his sexual obsession with Lo as a relationship amidst the Artist and his piece. While his description of Charlotte as the poor lady in her middle thirties, she had a shiny forehead, plucked eyebrows and quite simple explains his attempt to try and first identify with her, revealing her susceptibility and areas of wornness before taking control of her. His voice of periphrastic linguistic process contrasts with Lolitas simple everyday speech.His rule and coinage of words such as nymphet, equanimity, cubistic, pacific, blood ripe and so forth makes him sound like a hold in When Lolitas speech is marked by normal everyday word usage full of slang such as Sunse t Motels, U-Beam Cottages, Hillcrest Courts objet dart Humberts speech was full of periphrastic tendencies such as You will dwell, my Lolita will dwell However, At times he tried to integrate his educative nomenclature with Lolitas street language for instance drop that moody nonsense. In former times, when I was still your dream maleyou swooned to records of the number one throb-and-sob i throne of your coevals Humbert would try to use Los tongue at times as a way of showing disdain for what he did not claim as a proper way of communicating.Lo in contrast would use Humberts tongue such as Was the corroboration satisfactory? when she wanted to be devious and French when she wanted to play an innocent good girl I choose? Cest entendu? Humberts use of his educated speech as a euphemistic tool reveals his modest but warped sense of sexuality. He describes fellatio as the hard and nauseous way or the aim theatrical program in reference to the time when Lolita had to beg for his p ermission in order to take part in the school play.Humbert used blackjack by giving his permission in exchange of sex with Lolita. He used emotional blackmail again when they got into an argument on the eve of the gap night forcing Lolita to throw in the towel and demanded that they leave town. In other instances, he calls his penis my animationspan and tries to coat the sexual encounters using Latin basis Venus Febriculosa while downplaying the fact that he had sex with Lolita while she was sick merely astemperature (qtd in Meyer 94)Through this, Humbert is able to transform himself into the bewitched traveller who has no complete control over what feelings that nymphets arouse in him and his reactions. Because Humbert is yearning for something more than life he tries to find it by transcending the mundane and launches the reader into a spat of imagination. His punishment can be seen as justice on one end but could truly be because of his perverted act of presenting an acco unt of his life as an artistic work.His voice assumes that there is no culpability in a work of art, which is true but his work is actually his life and not a general account of life. He tries to justify his actions as if they were only a game, thereby not making him responsible for his actions Lolitas voice Lolita, because she is so much used to the parlance on the streets compared to the educated periphrastic language that Humbert uses, for instance misunderstands him when he proposes that they run away together to other country forever you mean you will give us all that only if I go with you to a motel (qtd. n Meyer 95). This makes us see what a simple-minded girl Lolita is. Her speech which is filled with radio and TV language makes her seem naive and un hunchledgeable.Lolitas voice is that of desperation. Many a time in the text, she is forced to do Humberts bidding because she does not have anyone else to run to. An up to now when she finally runs away, her expectations are smothered when she lands herself in a far . worsened place than before- shooting porn videos with Quilty. Her letter, the last one she ever writes carries her vindictive yet desperate voice. Hows everything? I am married. I am passing game to have a baby. I guess he is going to be a big one. I guess he will come right for Christmas. This is a hard letter to write. I am going nuts because we do not have enough to pay our debts and get out of here. tool is promised a big job in Alaska in his very specialized corner of the mechanical field, that is all I know about it but it is really grand. Pardon me for withholding our home address but you whitethorn still be mad at me, and Dick must not know. This town is something. You cannot see the morons for the smog.Please do send us a check, dad. We could manage with three or four hundred or even less, anything is welcome, you might sell my old things, because once we get there the dough will just start rolling in. Write, please. I have gon e through much sadness and hardship. (Qtd. in Meyer 99) In this letter, she does not tell Humbert about Quilt (bitter) though she does so later when they meet. . The desperate note on the last sentence of the letter I have gone through so much sadness and hardship perhaps is what leads to Quilts murder by Humbert, when he finds out the truth.Lolitas voice in does not reciprocate the love in the affair she has with Humbert, rather, it borders more on duty and reciprocity than romantic love. While Humberts description of his relationship with Lolita may be taken to mean love by some, it may as well mean lust. His obsession with Lolita in itself shows us a dangerous side of him, which attempts to kill charlotte, and succeeds at killing Quilty, who was seen as obstacles to gaining control of Lolita. In trying to make us believe that he is truly in love with Lolita, he plays the part of a jilted lover in a crime of passion.His antics with the therapists show his calculating manipulative side discovered that there was an endless reference work of robust enjoyment in trifling with the psychiatrists cunningly leading them oninventing for them elaborate dreams, teasing them with fake primal scenes . His need to feel he was in control drove him to imagine he was not to blame in the murder he commits by manipulative persuasion Frigid gentlewomen of the jury I am going to tell you something very strange it was she who seduced me (qtd. n Meyer 97) Humberts usage of words in the text gives words that may have differently had a normal regular meaning, symbolism. In the letter he receives from charlotte (though we only get to learn of the contents through the verbatim recollection of the words from Humbert after(prenominal) he destroys the letter) there is sad genuine passion expressed by charlotte towards Humbert. You see, there is no alternative. I have loved you from the minute I cut you. I am a passionate and lonely woman and you are the love of my life. . . .Let me rave and ramble on for a teeny while more, my dearest, since I know this letter has been by now torn by you, and its pieces (illegible) in the vortex of the toilet. My dearest, mon tres, tres cher, what a world of love I have strengthened up for you during this miraculous June In this letter, Humbert is able to deliberately leave out some parts which to him do not matter but lets us know what (for instance the ending of Charlottes brother), those that he forgot genuinely and also questions some of the objects he thinks are his own importation, like the vortex of the toilet which he uses symbolically.He lets us wonder at the absurdity of such an importation and its significance. In other words, Humbert makes us trust him because of his immense ability to recall and even re-write his own pocket diary ( which was destroyed in a fire some 5 years before) and at the same time makes us doubt him for the same reasons he is a man of huge intellect capable of manipulating the truth. He ta kes us back and forth in games, which makes us not only unsure of ourselves in whatever judgment we make about him but also his victims.He succeeds in presenting his attraction to Delores (also Lolita, Lo, and Lol) and other nymphets as an inevitable action precipitated by circumstances and not governed by morality. His explanation for choosing to be a pedophile though shamelessly perverted is also convincing in a way that it takes an artistic twist. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers. reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymphic (that is, demoniac) and these elect creatures I propose to designate as nymphets.By banishing his subjects to the realm of the inhuman or supernatural, he therefore has transformed himself into a hero who is in flake with the nymphets. He goes on ahead to describe how a true nymphet is not easily noticeable. A normal man given a group rupture of school girls or Girl Scouts and a sked to point out the comeliest one will not necessarily choose the nymphet among them and completely refuses to acknowledge that these are actually children and not maidens the way he likes to refer to them. (qtd. in Meyers 101).By designating men who have desires for such fantasies as mad men or artists, he denigrates from the social expectation, which considers such kind of behavior not only criminal but also immoral. Lolitas voice is also stylistically as a symbol of money. Her incessant condition was that money would be an end in itself the means did not matter. That she writes to Humbert asking for money is no surprise. Even while in Paris, Humberts causal agent to obtain a nymphet backfires as he gets a monstrously plump, sallow, repulsively plain girl of at least fifteen . . . nursing a denudate doll, (qtd, in Meyers 112).His description of the girl is enough to get the reader on his side- no one likes to pay for something and a get a raw deal instead. Hoover whit is impo rtant is Humberts reaction which completely shows the complete objectization of women. There is a difference in the way Humbert uses his voice as a structurally effective tool compared to Lolita. His desire to express himself in his new country cannot escape the European influence in the way he even refers to the trees and buildings as Chateaubriandesque trees or Claude Lorrain clouds and a stern El Greco horizon.The use of language as a structural tool is also noticed in the juxtapositions of Humberts speech with Lolitas speech. The use of elevated language that is highly intellectual against the television and radio language. The shift from Europe to American is also captured in Humberts speeches, which cannot get rid of the French cliches. Lolita does well in her voice to present the practical utility of the ordinary everyday language compared to the elevated language, which dawdles the reader into a psychological roundabout.The two reveal the stylistic differences of the voice o f the television informed by the laymen in the streets and the voice of the cultured and the educated, informed by the pen language. Even though at some point in the novel, we feel very angry at Humbert, our anger is held back by his eloquent speech on his defense. It is this moving speech that makes us want to even forgive Humbert for his deeds because he seems not at fault. Humbert tries to convince us that his actions do not stem from a moral standpoint.We feel that his pursuit of Lolita was based on love that was intense but sadly turns tragic, something that was not under Humberts control. Humbert wants us to believe that his obsession stems from his failure to accomplish his affair with Lolita because she dies prematurely. His effort to keep Lolita on a leash using threats such as school reform, ostracism from taking part in school activities or hanging around boys, appear frantic and desperate. However, he even convinces neighbors that he is simply being the overprotective father- old fashioned.This face does not last for long. He resorts to bribing her with money in return for sex despite the fact that Lolita makes it clear she does not share his feelings. Humbert wants us to believe that he was the victim in his narration. While we might see him as a corrupt and cunning adult corrupting a weak and innocent child, we are able to see that it is the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child. He attempts to convince us that plenty rules and wins in the end, no matter how choosy we want to be.In summary the voice of Humbert cannot only be seen as a stylistic device that brings out the themes but also brings out the attack the attack the narrator is launching on our sensibilities. By playing games with our minds, the narrator is able to make us seek our human side that is rotten and immoral, by showing how it cuts across society regardless of education or social status. The narrator is able to bring into counseling the central themes of the text, which are psychological as well as grippingly real.Lolitas voice in the novel serves to substantiate and vilify the immoral wrong doer. By giving his psychological account, Humbert allows us to enter his mind and consequently pleads with us to understand his remorse and shame that he feels of his affair with Lolita. He realizes he has robbed Lolita of her childhood at some point when listening to the blabber of you children outside. Humbert not only makes us aware of the foundation of societys moral decadence but also explains why this is inevitable because young girls will always be there as sure as the pedophiles.The sad realization brought by the death of Humbert and Lolita is that both of them could just be a chip of a bigger iceberg in the grand scheme of things-the real face of human life which is often filled with shocking immoral degrading corrupt and rotten scheming which alienates and exploits not only the human as biological being but also as a spiritual being. His confe ssion becomes our confession and it does not address our minds but undresses our minds pouring out in the open, the kind of life a good number of us would not mind living if at all we are not doing so already.