Considering how multifaceted Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is, it is possible to apply to it a variety of literary theories, all more or less fruitfully. In this paper, I will consider the postmodern and the psychoanalytic approach. We will find that Lolita is very much a postmodern text, despite having certain tendencies that direct the reader towards liberal humanism. Psychoanalytic theory will demonstrate the wealth of interpretations that this approach offers.
Postmodernism, which could also be named cultural and intellectual structuralism, eschews the belief in any concrete meaning or truth beyond the very subjective, and both the language and the narration of Lolita are such that there does not seem to be any specific concrete truth or message that the novel is presenting. Instead, the reader is invited to see Humbert's life through his eyes and his eyes only. Nabokov's poetic language is, to a significant degree, what makes the subjectivity so much more convincing and paradoxically realistic than novels written in a superficially more direct and objective style.
We can observe postmodern and structuralist tendencies in Lolita in the frequent occurrences of wordplay. Wordplay is most often encountered in reference to Lolita's name, such as in the following examples: “I had only to turn away for a moment… and Lo and Behold, upon returning, I would find the former…” (Nabokov, 161-2) and “buy this very Lo a lollipop.” (159) It is difficult to discern the specific meanings that instances of wordplay have in the novel, but they do entice the reader to try to understand.
[...] Interpreting some of the characters and events in Lolita figuratively as opposed to literally reveals more possibilities for interpretation of Humbert Humbert's condition. The primary character to be analyzed figuratively is Quilty who, in multiple ways, is a puzzling figure. Quilty could either be interpreted as Humbert's subconscious or as the image which Humbert, still in the mirror-stage, sees in the mirror. Throughout the second half of the novel, Humbert and Lolita are followed by an unknown individual, whose identity Humbert tries, but is incapable of, discovering. [...]
[...] What attracts him in girl-children is characteristic of an attitude in which, according to Lacan, one lives in the imaginary with no separation between self and other: “Neither are good looks any criterion soul-shattering, insidious charm that separates the nymphet from such coevals of hers as are incomparably more dependent on the spatial world of synchronous phenomena than on that intangible island of entranced time where Lolita plays with her likes.” (Nabokov, 17). Before forming an ego which is defined by it not being the other, the individual lives in what Lacan calls the ‘Imaginary,' a phase during which there is no separation between self and other, during which one exists solely for the immediate gratification of ones basic needs, as opposed to being a conscious interactive participant in space, time, and society. [...]
[...] Through Quilty, both Humbert and the reader have the chance to see the contemptibility of the latter's actions. Having solely negative traits in the novel (which is narrated by Humbert), Quilty could be seen as the figure that embodies all the aspects that are opposite to the ideal ego, that is, the aspects of himself that Humbert does not want to recognize. Admitting to the extreme divergence between his ideal self, which is positive, and what his actions clearly demonstrate to be his more objective self, causes a split in the ego which Humbert struggles against. [...]
[...] As David Andrews points out in his book Aestheticism, Nabokov and Lolita, the difficulty of finding meaning in Lolita does not necessarily mean that Nabokov wrote with the mindset that there was no meaning to be attained. Nothing in the novel is outside of the direct influence of the narrator, putting even the reality of physical events into question. The result is a reality that is more real that a realistic novel could create, because we are allowed to see events not through an omniscient and/or completely rational narrator that no individual can be in real life, but through the eyes of another human being, the way that he saw the events in his life. [...]
[...] Another postmodern aspect of Lolita to be considered is the variety of levels of reality that it presents in the form of narrative, dialogue, personal letters, a play, and the names of people who have stayed at motels, to name only a few. The portions of reality letter's and people's names that are not, it is to be supposed, direct productions of Humbert Humbert's imagination, and are therefore to be seen as the most objective portions of the novel, are integrated entirely into his subjective world. [...]
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