It took a drive home from class listening to Lana Del Rey’s premiere album “Born to Die” to realize how the ideas of “Lolita,” the 1995 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, has infiltrated the youth of today.
In short, and of course not giving any justice in terms of plot to the book, Nabokov creates a world in which Humbert Humbert, a European literary scholar, stays in America with Charlotte Haze and her 12-year-old daughter Dolores, better known as Lolita. He falls in love with this “nymphet” and after a series of events, which of course I won’t dive into too deeply for the sake of a spoiler safe evaluation, Humbert and Lolita are cemented together in their tumultuous relationship.
The entire novel is based solely on Humbert’s perspective. He is obviously a pedophile. With an attraction to young girls, aged between 9 and 13, which he explicitly states in the first passaged as something he knows is odd and that he must hide, and a drive to seduce and take advantage of these young girls, we aren’t even seeing red flags but rather we are touring a factory of red flags.
He is not in love with Lolita in the same way that we consider love and I think that is something that is forgotten beneath all of the rhetoric that Humbert uses to justify his actions and feelings.
It is from his perspective. Of course, he believes that he loves Lolita and is doing everything that is best for her. His lust for her is never satisfied and he uses what she wants as leverage to gain these sexual favors countless times. She just knows that if carrying out these acts means a better situation for her, of course, she will do them.
Whether the advances Lolita makes are real or not, there is not way, a 12-year-old girl could rationally make these kinds of sexual decisions. There is a reason why statutory rape as a term and concept even exists.
Again, “Lolita” is based on Humbert’s perspective. He is willing to take advantage of a child for his own pleasure, in a sick way he very well could be manifesting these advances that Lolita makes. Or, if his accounts are factual, she is in no position, maturity-wise, to make these choices.
Young girls have an infatuation with older men. Of course, this perception is not new, but the heightened connectedness is. Communities of young girls are forming that base themselves on an infatuation of older men. There is not many healthy ways in which a considerably older man can be in a relationship with a young girl.
“Lolita” demonstrates manipulation well. It isn’t a love story. It was never meant to be a love story. That is precisely what it seems to be perceived as.
You aren’t missing some big idea when finishing “Lolita.” It is exactly as it sounds. You aren’t supposed to feel any better closing the book as you did opening it.
It’s not a healthy relationship and rather is glamorizing rape and molestation. It shows this love story-esque basis, but with dark undertones. Dark, in this case, is an understatement.
Rape culture is already such an issue for the times, glamorizing another area of it will never help the cause.
It’s unhealthy for “Lolita” to become a norm for relationships. Rape is abuse. Manipulation is abuse. Abusive relationships are not relationships to aspire for.
