A Roadmap to Lolita

Author:

Haas, Stephanie Laila

Area of Honors:

English

Degree:

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type:

Thesis

Thesis Supervisors:

Lisa Ruth Sternlieb, Thesis Supervisor
Lisa Ruth Sternlieb, Thesis Honors Advisor
Linda Furgerson Selzer, Faculty Reader

Keywords:

Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov
roadmap
dream
maze
game
Vivian Darkbloom
dogs
clues
Clare Quilty
Edgar Allan Poe
allusions

Abstract:

Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita has been dismissed by readers, educators, and literary scholars as a perverse account of a pedophiliac man’s obsession with a young girl. This categorization ignores the ingenious design of the novel itself, and falls prey to the Foreword’s warning against a stagnant reading of Lolita. In this paper, I provide a roadmap to the novel which guides the reader through its maze-like design. I explore the ways in which both author and narrator implant clues throughout the text, which could easily be ignored by the careless reader. However, I argue that these clues signify a fateful design of Lolita, controlled somewhat by Humbert himself. I then direct the reader to take part in the game of the novel by following the paths these clues create. The paths begin with Lolita’s Ramsdale class list, appearing on the backside of a United States map, and end with the implications of the seemingly infinite literary allusions and generic parodies this list contains. Arriving at our destination suggests that the solution to the game rests with Humbert’s invention of his confessional tale – as the ultimate element of a parodied confession must be neglecting to confess to anything truthful at all. I provide evidence for this reading through Nabokov’s creation of an impossible timeline in the final pages of Lolita and Humbert’s continuous tampering with the purported evidence throughout his narrative. Finally, I conclude that Humbert’s manuscript is actually his transcription of an embellished dream which comprises very little truth.