In this short essay, I will draw on Lolita to demonstrate how Vladimir says no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayNabokov uses the techniques of rhetoric to create an explanation of the female body, encapsulated in the characters of both the adolescent Lolita and the older, less unmarried mother, Charlotte. In the novel, we readers are presented with the spectacle of a man facing the terrible truth of his existence: that he has reached a point of no return in his life and has no one but himself. thank you for this problem. It is his fascination with women as sexual objects and with his own sexuality that has brought him to this point. Nabokov is said to work hard to purge his narrator's voice of all commitments except that which is omnipotent, as well as troubling in the extreme. Nabokov makes his narrators both commentators and participants in the plot and action of the story. The central omnipotent commitment in Lolita is Humbert Humbert's commitment to his own sexual and erotic passions and drives. In the name of these passions and drives he is ready to sacrifice everything, even financial security. Nabokov believes in the ironic interest and intensity of a man's fatal self-destruction. So, what we see in the character of Humbert Humbert is a sense of detachment from the action around him; even the discovery of his infidelity and his passion for a teenager by his wife (who happens to be the mother of the child in question) fails to penetrate the shell created by his self-centered determination to have what he wants. While we know that he has done and will continue to do everything to secure the physical and emotional attention of his Lolita, we also recognize that even as he tells us the story he is distancing himself from its uglier and more sordid ramifications. Lolita is a story of how a man's sexual preoccupation with a teenage nymphet destroys his self-esteem and his life. Stories of this kind can be thought of as allegories. Allegories are inherently analytical stories that preserve conventional distinctions between the real and the imaginary and that also demonstrate that the line dividing these two constructs may be much less well-defined than we would like it to be. We know from the beginning of Lolita that Humbert Humbert is a man dedicated to self-preservation. He married a rude and uncouth woman only because as a husband he will be financially secure. He tolerates this woman's abuse and contempt because, in a strange way, she gives him control; she recognizes that there is something superior in this husband of hers and, even if she treats him badly, she also flatters his self-image. When he realizes that his attraction to his daughter Lolita has become a reality and not an abstract, she must die and he must be free. Humbert was encouraged by Lolita, who no doubt feels that the attention of her mother's lover is a form of coming of age. Lolita, who also rejects her mother, allows Humbert to express his fantasy because it suits her; like her mother, she sees this man as a means to an end. However, unlike her mother, she will not always be willing to put up with his demands, and will eventually reject him, caring little about his pain. Humbert is, for the most part, a man who considers himself an actor, but in reality a member of the audience. Nabokov himself made this point about his character. He didn't like Humbert, nor did he respect him. Instead, he felt he had created in this character a model of all men who allow passion to become more important than self-awareness. Nabokov was also interested increate a character who could become a symbol of man's attention to his sexuality; and in this he was very successful. Indeed, as much as he wanted to present Humbert as an aging Don Juan with a weakness for little girls, he also managed to create in the character of Lolita a stereotype of young girls who know they are attractive to older men and take advantage of that attractiveness (Nabokov 312). It is interesting that Nabokov claimed that he wrote this novel to literally "get rid of it" (Nabokov 311). One suspects that this is indeed the case for many writers, who find themselves creating characters from some experience in their own life and then writing a book to place those characters in their imaginary rightful place. In Lolita, Nabokov has Humbert reveal that he, despite the intolerable nature of his marriage and the pain of losing Lolita, had managed to be happy. Indeed, in all the suffering and humiliation of his relationship with Lolita, Humbert claims to have placed himself "beyond happiness" and on a plane where sensual experience is the only reality. This is a state of “ocular paradise” (Nabokov 163). Heaven, then, may well mean that all standards of proper and dignified behavior must be abandoned. Humbert also tells his reader (once he has lost Lolita and his "heaven" is an empty house) that he has no regrets. He states, for example, “I see nothing else for the treatment of my misery but the very local melancholy and palliative of articulate art” (Nabokov 283). One of the most enjoyable aspects of Lolita is seeing Humbert almost defend himself. Throughout the boom we continually hear that the passion of his involvement with Lolita is so strong that he could not resist its attractions. He chooses, very deliberately, to risk everything in the hope that a nymphet will remain a child, remain attractive as only a young woman can be attractive, and continue to be interested in him. When he sees Lolita, now pregnant and unkempt, after an absence, his attraction ends. He may feel remorse, but in no way does he feel he should be held responsible for stealing her childhood and innocence. Even then, he makes it seem like she was as much a partner in their escapades as he was himself. Both Lolita and her mother seem almost incidental to the male stories or characters. We could argue, of course, that Lolita, as the fixed object of Humbert's somewhat inexplicable passion for a young girl, is very important in the story and in the development of Humbert's egocentric analysis. In reality, however, what emerges from a careful reading of the novel is the sensation that Lolita is more a symbol than a reality. We noted above that once she is no longer a nubile nymphet, in Humbert's opinion, much of her attraction is lost. We must suspect that what made her attractive in the first place – pure sexual response aside – was the fact that it was forbidden to her; there's the suggestion that the relationship borders on the incestuous, and that's very forbidden fruit. There is also the fact that Lolita manages to put her mother in her place and gain some control over the marriage. In any case, in the end one must conclude that Lolita meant very little to Humbert. What mattered was his sense of fulfillment and pleasure. In Humbert's case, he managed to escape an unhappy, loveless marriage with an unattractive and domineering woman, find temporary passion with a desirable young girl, and escape that relationship as well. He has suffered some pain from the loss, but has little remorse for any harm he might have inflicted on the girl. In fact, he resents her transition from nymphet to young woman and her.