The Book Lolita Essay example -- Literary Analysis, Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita The track record Lolita is a highly controversial novel written by Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita tells the story of a man, Humbert Humbert, and his utter infatuation with a young nymphet named Lolita. The book and subsequent motion picture allowances, specifically Stanley Kubricks 1962 adaptation and Adrian Lynes 1997 adaptation aim to create a feeling of sympathy for the protagonist, Humbert Humbert. Through the expend of first person narration, Humbert Humbert is able to manipulate readers with simple inaccuracies, making him an treacherous fabricator.The term unreliable narrator was famously coined by Wayne Booth in Rhetoric of Fiction. Booth defines the reliable and unreliable narrator in the side by side(p) way I have called a narrator reliable when he speaks for or acts in accordance with the norms of the work (which is to say the implied authors norms), unreliable when he does not (158-59). In other words, when a narrator expresses values and percepts that strikingly d iverge from those of the implied author he is deemed unreliable. Moreover, once a narrator is deemed unreliable, then this unreliability will be consistent passim the work, according to Booth (158).When a narrator is unreliable, there is a booking between the narrators presentation and the rest of the narrative, which makes readers suspect his sincerity. at that place ar three sources of unreliability the narrators limited knowledge, his face-to-face involvement, and his questionable morals. When narrators display a personal involvement the story, they portray characters or events in a subjective way Lastly, if the implied author does not piece the narrators moral values then his morals are considered questionable. If they do share moral values then the narrator is un... ...asserting his claims of illness. The concept of an unreliable narrator can also be seen in Kubricks 1962 Lolita. There are ways in which Kubrick plays with the gap between perception and reality. There i s a quite masterful moment when Charlotte, Lolitas overprotect and recently Humberts wife, discovers Humberts true desires upon reading his journal. Humbert, believing Charlotte to be upstairs, yells bald-faced lies at the ceiling while he prepares his wife a conciliative martini. He then receives a phone call telling him that Mrs. Humbert has been struck by a car. The timing is set up so absolutely that it seems ridiculous to us, too, that Charlotte, who was last seen fleeing into her room, could have just been killed, yet she was. However, Kubricks film provides an objective view of the events occurring in the novel by refusing to rely intemperately upon voiceover.