Forward Summary:

John Ray, Jr., Ph.D. informs us that Humbert Humbert, author of the following manuscript, titled "Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male," died in jail of coronary thrombosis on Nov. 16, 1952, just before his trial was to start. Ray has changed a few minor details to protect the identity of the living. He reveals the fate of several personages, such as Vivian Darkbloom. He discusses the psychology surrounding Humbert's crime, and how Humbert's beautiful passion for Lolita can entrance us despite its moral abhorrence.

Analysis

The foreword introduces a number of themes Nabokov deploys throughout the remainder of the book. Immediately noticeable are the intriguing names he uses. "Humbert" recalls the Latin "umbra," or "shade." Indeed, the foreword hints at the many dark shadows in Humbert's tale. Moreover, "Humbert" is close to the Spanish "hombre" for man, and "ombre" is also a 17th-century European card game.

Humbert's association with a game is important, because Nabokov plays countless games with language. Humbert Humbert, of course, has a double name. John Ray, Jr. also has a double name of sorts (his initials are similar to his junior status). Nabokov parodies the German-influenced Doppelgänger tale throughout Lolita. The Doppelgänger tale pits one character against some kind of doubled version of himself; Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde is the premier example (and one greatly admired by Nabokov, who otherwise had great disdain for the Doppelgänger, calling it a "frightful bore"). One of his gripes is that the Doppelgänger makes moral divisions between the doubled pair absolutely clear; already we are subversively informed that the hero of Lolita is an immoral man.

Nabokov also teases the reader with word puzzles that are unnecessary to understand the book, but can add to one's enjoyment. Vivian Darkbloom, for instance, is an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov (which then marks another instance of a double, since his female counterpart is somewhere in the novel). Coronary thrombosis, the cause of Humbert's death, is highfalutin language for a "broken heart." While this may be humorous, it obscures the fact that Lolita is a book about sorrowful loss, something the tricky language often makes us forget.

The language also makes us forget Humbert's "diabolical cunning," as Ray puts it. Humbert's exquisite, charming, and ingenious turns of phrase get readers on his side while diverting us from the horror of his actions.

Another subject Nabokov parodies throughout the novel is psychology, especially Freudian psychology. Ray cites psychological statistics, attests that none of this would have happened had Humbert gone to a "competent psychologist," and maintains that the book will become a psychological "classic." Nabokov never believed Freud had any sound basis for his theories, and he loves mocking psychology's methodologies.

Part One:

Chapter 1:

Humbert narrates and reveals that Lolita had a "precursor," when he was younger, without whom he might not have loved Lolita. He calls himself a "murderer," and asks the "Ladies and gentleman of the jury" to look at his case.

Analysis:

Humbert implies that there was some psychological root for his love for Lolita in his childhood, suggesting Nabokov will soon parody this conventional explanation.

The many names for Lolita - Dolores, Lo, Dolly, etc. - remind us that though she is different people in different situations, we always see her as Humbert sees her "in my arms": as "Lolita."

Part of the reason for this is that Humbert is the consummate cajoling lawyer who makes us see the world through his highly subjective eyes. Accordingly, he refers to his readers as the "jury," acknowledging that we are making a moral judgment on him. It now becomes clear that the crime for which Humbert was imprisoned was murder, although the reader may have assumed from the foreword that it was pedophilia.

Chapter 2:

Humbert fills in his background. He was born in 1910 in Paris and has a mixed European background. His mother died when he was young. He alludes to his "little Annabel," his first real sexual experience.

Analysis:

Humbert is European, and his background will play a more important role once he enters America.

The famously parenthesized description of his mother's death - "(picnic, lightning)" - is humorous, but it also introduces the theme of coincidence and fate Nabokov will examine throughout the novel. Complementing the freak accident is his aunt's prophesy that she would die soon after Humbert's sixteenth birthday; perhaps chance and fate are one and the same.

Chapter 3:

Humbert describes his childhood memory of Annabel Leigh, the daughter of some of his aunt's friends. She was a few months younger than he was, and they were madly in love one summer. They would explore each other's body on the beach. On their last day together, they were interrupted before consummation. Annabel died four months later of typhus.

Analysis:

Annabel Leigh is an allusion to Edgar Allen Poe's poem "Annabel Lee," an ode to the speaker's young lover who has since died (it is generally credited to represent Poe's young wife, Virginia Clemm). Humbert frequently references the poem, changing several notable lines around and using certain words (such as "seraphs") to suit his designs.

Humbert's description of memory marks a contrast between recreating an image through the "laboratory of your mind" with language, and finding the "objective, absolutely optical replica" by closing one's eyes, which is the way he sees Lolita. He wants the reader to see Lolita in this manner, as well. Though he has only the laboratory of language at his disposal, Humbert uses it to remarkable effect in getting us inside his eyes.

Humbert provides the conventional exposition for his condition - pedophilia, although to label it simply that discredits Humbert's depth of desire - even including a traumatic moment of coitus interruptus and a more traumatic event of death. Though he genuinely seems to believe that Annabel is the cause for his love of Lolita, Nabokov mocks the reader's need for this psychological motivation.

Chapter 4:

Humbert questions whether Annabel provoked his condition, or whether it was simply early evidence of his condition. Her death stalled his romantic desires for a long time. He describes their first failed attempt at love-making, interrupted by a nearby sound and her parents' presence. Twenty-four years later, he was able to break free from her spell by "incarnating her in another."

Analysis:

Humbert believes fate somehow connects Annabel with Lolita, and the numerous links between Annabel and Lolita indicate this is the case. For instance, the sunglasses at their beach tryst will recur when Humbert first sees Lolita; the appearance of Annabel's mother during their garden tryst will bear relevance to Lolita's mother; and even Humbert's phrase "haze of stars" suggests some cosmic connection to Lolita, whose last name is Haze.

Humbert also uses the words "spell" and "incarnating" when describing Annabel's hold over him and his replacement of her with Lolita. These words have magical subtexts, and Nabokov believed that all stories should be, on some level, fairy tales. He uses many other strategies throughout the novel to turn Lolita into a sexualized, obsessive fairy tale of sorts. Like the fairy tale storyteller, Humbert is interested in enchanting the reader, partially to obscure the demonic impulses behind his magical language.

Chapter 5:

Humbert enjoyed the company of prostitutes as a college student. He received a degree in English literature and taught English. He describes the creature he calls a "nymphet," which is a girl between nine and fourteen who possesses some "fantastic power" unbeknownst to most her age. He maintains that there must be a gap of many years between the man and the nymphet for him to come under her spell.

While Humbert maintained relationships with loathsome adult women, he lusted after unattainable nymphets. He provides historical and cultural examples of relationships between men and young girls, and brings up cases in which he had close contact with nymphets, though he never did anything about it.

Analysis:

"Nymphet," a word Nabokov coined which is now part of the English language, resounds with fairy tale undertones, since it adapts the word "nymph," divinities from classical mythology usually represented as maidens in natural settings. (It makes sense, then, that Humbert's description of the nymphets in this chapter takes place in the park.) Nymph is also a term for the larva of an insect with incomplete metamorphosis, and the young nymphet can be seen in this larval, immature term. The larval connection will also become important, as Nabokov was a renowned lepidopterist (butterfly specialist).

Humbert gives us a closer look at his unremitting, ecstatic desire. Lolita is concerned with obsessive, unquenchable desires, sex being one of the major ones, and Humbert's gorgeous language takes desire to new places.

Chapter 6:

Humbert describes his sexual encounters with a French nymphet prostitute named Monique. However, she soon lost her nymphet qualities, and he stopped seeing her. He sought out another child prostitute, but she turned out not to be a nymphet at all, and he was coerced into paying anyway.

Analysis:

Monique's rapid change from a nymphet into a woman suggests the metamorphosis Humbert tries to make his nymphets resists. "Never grow up," he pleaded in Chapter 5, but the maturation of nymphets is out of Humbert's control. This is perhaps the one thing he cannot alter; otherwise, he is adept at getting what he wants and satisfying his carnal desires.

Monique's coarseness foreshadows Lolita's crudeness; though Humbert sees this vulgarity in Monique, he is unable to see through it with Lolita.

Chapter 7:

Soon after his encounter with the other prostitute, Humbert married, hoping it would cure him of his illicit desires. A small inheritance and his exceptional looks made the acquisition of Polish doctor's daughter very easy. However, Humbert says his choice was disastrous, which shows how "stupid" he is in "matters of sex."

Analysis:

Humbert's good looks not only make the events of Lolita plausible, they also certify that his attraction to young girls is not based on greater societal rejection. Much like Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment (who is also noted as being handsome), Humbert is fully accepted by society; he is the one who rejects it. Still, he makes foolish sexual choices, as he admits.

Chapter 8:

Valeria, Humbert's wife, initially reminded him of a little girl. The sheen quickly wore off after their wedding night, and she turned into a "brainless" woman. In 1939, four years into their marriage, she informed him she was seeing another man, a Russian taxi driver to whom she introduced Humbert. Humbert, deeply hurt, suggested she live with the man, and contemplated killing or hurting Valeria when they were alone. He never got the chance, since the Russian stayed by her side. He later learned Valeria died during childbirth in 1945.

Humbert switches topics and relates finding a startling coincidence in a prison library 1946 copy of Who's Who in the Limelight, a compendium of theatrical credits. He transcribes a page which includes the actress Dolores Quine, and marvels at how his love's first name still moves him. He also remarks "Guilty of killing Quilty," referring to the entry on the same page for children's (male) playwright Clare Quilty.

Analysis:

Humbert suggests that his murder victim was Clare Quilty, and many of the facts in Quilty's entry support a connection between the men (he has authored plays called The Little Nymph and Fatherly Love, and has collaborated with Vivian Darkbloom). Moreover, Humbert jokes that Lolita appeared in the play The Murdered Playwright.

Humbert accidentally transcribes that Quilty "Has disappeared since" in a number of plays. Lolita has a number of random disappearances and deaths (such as Humbert's mother's death), and they indicate the capriciousness of fate.

Humbert declares that he has "only words to play with," admitting he uses language as a toy, just as he manipulates people. However, he reveals his vulnerability here, as he does very occasionally throughout his narrative: in prison, Humbert has nothing else in the world at his disposal but language.

Chapter 9:

Humbert divorced Valeria and immigrated to New York, where he took a job creating and editing perfume ads. In the meantime, he completed his comparative history of French literature for English-speaking students. He had two nervous breakdowns and sanitarium stays. He landed a job on an arctic Canadian expedition recording the "'psychic reactions'" of himself and the group to the environment. He eventually wrote up and published a fictionalized report. Upon returning to civilization, Humbert had his second breakdown and found delight in toying with psychiatrists.

Analysis:

Nabokov continues to mock society's reverence for psychology. Humbert's arctic report fools scientists, and his false leads for the psychiatrists show how little they understand real psychology (they do not, after all, uncover his true perversion).

Humbert's history of madness, however, is crucial. We already know that he nearly went insane with rage when Valeria cheated on him; if the infidelity of a loathed wife had such an effect on him, we can only imagine what levels of insanity he has reached with Lolita. Humbert has previously called himself a "madman," and Nabokov shows how desire and madness often go hand in hand.

Chapter 10:

After leaving the mental institution, Humbert searches the New England countryside for a place to do his scholarly work. He gets a lead for an empty room in the town of Ramsdale. At the middle-class house, Charlotte Haze, a somewhat stupid widow who repulses Humbert, leads him around. He is reluctant to take it, aware that Haze will try to seduce him, until she leads him into the garden and he sees Lolita. She reminds him exactly of Annabel, and he takes the room.

Analysis:

Though Nabokov denied that Lolita was about Old Europe in conflict with Young America (specifically in the relationship of Humbert and Lolita), Haze undeniably exemplifies the middle-class American who strives, unsuccessfully, for a refined European sensibility. Her generic artwork, garish clothes, and pathetic attempts at French reinforce her bourgeois status, and Humbert correctly predicts that she will fall in love with him - not only for his physical appearance, but his European air of elegance and class.

A few throwaway notes here will assume importance later. 342, the number of Haze's house, will become a motif throughout the novel. Humbert's car nearly runs over a dog, and a dog will play an important role in a later accident. These coincidences suggest that they are not, in fact, coincidences or accidents, but checkpoints in fate.

Humbert believes, too, that Annabel and Lolita are connected by fate, and that everything in between has been a random series of events. Even the sunglasses she wears are reminders of the sunglasses in the cave where Humbert and Annabel almost made love.

Chapter 11:

Humbert relates, by memory, some of the entries from his destroyed diary from June, 1947. He watches Lolita closely, analyzing her qualities that make her the supreme nymphet. He has to be careful with Haze always around. He says that he resembles "some crooner or actor chap on whom Lolita has a crush." Humbert uses his tongue to get an eyelash out of Lolita's eye. Humbert happily agrees to stay in the house in the fall to tutor Lolita. Humbert writes in his diary that he sometimes dreams of murdering. A trip to "Our Glass Lake" keeps getting delayed. He copies out a list of her classmates' names and imagines what they are like. He longs for an accident to eliminate Haze, and continues to flirt with Lolita when he musters the courage.

Analysis

The diary is a convenient device for allowing us to see Lolita through Humbert's passionate eyes in an utterly subjective, supposedly private form. Alongside his increasing sexual desire, however, comes a growing desire for violence.

His dreams of murder aside, Humbert wishes an accident would befall Haze. Accidents and random acts of fate continue to preoccupy him. He believes "Fate" is intervening in their delayed trip to Our Glass Lake (which, it turns out later, is really Hourglass Lake, bringing up the idea of time and fate as well), and one of Lolita's classmates is called "Aubrey McFate." We learn in Chapter 12 that this is not an actual student, but his own addition; regardless, McFate is Humbert's own word for the randomness of life that somehow seems mapped out by fate.

He plays other mental games with names of the classmates, and demonstrates how words are more important than are people in his mind. The list also introduces other characters we meet at various points, and serves symbolic purposes; Mary Rose Hamilton and Rosaline Honeck, two "roses," surround Lolita (or "Dolores," as she is officially called) and remind us that "Dolores" also contains a "rose." Her association with the perfumed flower is logically appealing for Humbert, a former perfume adman.

Finally, the "actor chap" Humbert resembles is Clare Quilty. Since Quilty is rarely visible in the novel, Nabokov deploys many clues such as this to show how he doubles Humbert.

Chapter 12:

Haze makes plans for Humbert and Lolita to go the lake, but informs him, to his dismay, that Mary Rose Hamilton, one of Lolita's classmates, will come along. Humbert learns that an old woman from Georgia, Miss Phalen, was to have taken Humbert's room before he came, but she broke her hip.

Analysis:

Humbert introduces the idea of McFate here (see Chapter 11), and we see another quirky event that has allowed Humbert's meeting with Lolita, Miss Phalen's broken hip. Humbert's various schemes for Hourglass Lake are piling up, though he is continually thwarted. Likewise, Haze impedes his designs on Lolita around the house; Lolita is as much about repression as it is about release from desire.

Chapter 13:

On Sunday morning, Mary Rose Hamilton is sick and unable to go to the lake, so Haze calls off the trip. Upset, Lolita does not attend church with her mother. Left alone with her, Humbert has her sit on his lap while she eats a red delicious apple. Humbert jokes around and sings a song while covertly rubbing against her in ecstasy. She crawls off to pick up the phone, and Humbert believes she has not noticed anything.

Analysis:

The scene on Humbert's lap parodies the Garden of Eden story. Lolita, as Eve, devours the red apple, yet she remains ignorant of the calculated interior designs and exterior fondling of Humbert-as-Adam.

Perhaps more important than the Biblical associations to Nabokov is the sensual name of the apple - a red delicious. Humbert's description of his frenzied passion - which appears to include ejaculation - achieves its orgasmic build-up through an extended paragraph of gorgeous prose. Humbert's pedophiliac act, of course, offsets the beauty of the prose, as does his humorous rendition of the pop song - which also foreshadows his engagement with American culture through Lolita.

Chapter 14:

Humbert is proud of having had his erotic experience without "impairing the morals of a minor." He hopes to reenact the performance, though he wishes to protect her purity. He learns Lolita is going to leave for summer camp and stay until school starts. He hides his misery under a toothache, and Haze recommends he see their dentist, Ivor Quilty, the uncle or cousin "of the playwright."

Analysis:

Humbert's belief that Lolita is pure will prove one of his biggest blunders. In his romanticization of her image, he ignores her many vulgarities and decidedly impure nature.

The playwright Haze refers to is Clare Quilty, yet another clue. Adding to the air of mystery and detection, Nabokov names the summer camp director Shirley Holmes - a reference to Sherlock Holmes.

Chapter 15:

Humbert plans to go away and return in the fall when Lolita comes back. Lolita cries about going to camp, though her mother believes it is only because she is making Lolita return some expensive clothing she bought. Lolita is cold to Humbert at home. He fears losing her for two months in her nymphet prime. Before she is driven off to camp, Lolita runs into the house and up to Humbert's room, where she kisses him.

Analysis:

It is clear by now that Lolita has not only noticed Humbert's desire for her, but reciprocates at least some of his feelings. Humbert (and Nabokov) would probably not want the reader to make the too obvious connection that Humbert is a replacement father figure for Lolita. Rather, he continues to believe they are connected by fate. He says her running upstairs interrupts "the motion of fate," and in his "blood" he says she is the "eternal Lolita." Lolita steps out of time for Humbert as an ageless nymphet who returns to earth (and his touch) now and then at fated points.

Chapter 16:

Soon after Haze has left with Lolita, the maid, Louise, hands Humbert a letter from Haze. In it, Haze confesses her love for Humbert and tells him to leave her; otherwise, if he stays it means he wants to marry her. Humbert, reading it in Lolita's room, looks at a magazine ad on her wall of a man that resembles him and with Lolita's scrawl of "H.H." Under that ad, a playwright who also resembles Humbert smokes in another ad.

Analysis:

More examples of Haze's failed attempts at refinement emerge in her naïve, purple prose letter. Ironically, she unwittingly makes a few deadly accurate statements, including calling Humbert "worse than a kidnaper who rapes a child" if he decides to stay with her.

The playwright in the second ad is Clare Quilty again. The resemblance between the two men affirms their status as doubles.

Chapter 17:

Humbert admits to the jury that he has toyed with the idea of marrying a widow to have his way with her child, even Haze. He considers the idea more and thinks about giving sleeping pills to Haze and Lolita so he could fondle Lolita at night. He calls the summer camp, hoping to reach Haze, but gets Lolita instead. He informs her he is marrying her mother; she already seems to have forgotten Humbert, but he does not mind. Humbert drinks outside until Haze returns.

Analysis:

Humbert's diabolical schemes take shape, and he will eventually carry out the sleeping pill plan, though under different circumstances. More foreshadowing occurs with the dog that runs after a blue car.

Humbert reminds us that he has recreated this memoir in the style of his no longer existing journal. He calls himself an "artist" for doing so, and says he has "toyed" with the idea of marrying Haze. For him, writing is a toy, a game in which he has control over others, and it is possible that Humbert has been revising history in his memoir as an unreliable narrator, adjusting facts when it suits him.

Chapter 18:

Humbert and Haze quickly and quietly marry. Humbert is surprised by her adamant stance that if he did not believe in "Our Christian God," she would commit suicide. Haze tries to integrate herself and Humbert into Ramsdale society. Humbert steels himself for his "night duty" with the thought that Haze once looked like Lolita. Haze redecorates the house. They spend time with John and Jean Farlow.

Analysis:

Haze's sense of middle-class propriety is deepened once she remarries. Her activities (redecoration, socializing) are attempts to conform to bourgeois values, and even her religiousness is hypocritical; to commit suicide, even if her husband were atheistic, would be considered a sinful act under strict religious guidelines.

Chapter 19:

Humbert relates that Haze turns out to be incredibly jealous, especially of Humbert's past lovers. He invents some from his past to please her critical taste. He learns how much she hates Lolita.

Analysis:

Humbert proves himself able to fictionalize his past for Haze's benefit, and we have to question whether he has been doing the same for us.

Haze's jealousy over Humbert's lovers, combined with her hatred of her own daughter, will surely lead to disaster if Humbert goes through with his plan for Lolita.

Chapter 20:

Humbert and Haze take frequent trips to Hourglass Lake in July. On one trip, Haze reveals her plan to send Lolita to a religious boarding school in the fall. Afraid arguing with her would reveal his intentions with Lolita, he resolves the only option is to kill Haze somehow. They swim out into the lake, and Humbert thinks that the two witnesses on the shore are far enough away that he could drown Haze and make it look like an accident. However, he cannot go through with the act. He is not a cold-blooded murderer, he explains, despite his sexual perversion. Back on land, Jean Farlow surprises them, saying she had been painting the landscape and watching them swim.

Analysis:

As Humbert plots a murder that is to appear like an accident, fate intervenes yet again in the presence of Jean. It is clear that to pull off a murder cleanly, a constellation of events must be in place. Humbert has previously indicated that an "accident" will soon befall Haze, which rids him of the onus of planning and work. However, it almost seems as if he has worked so hard mentally at plotting her death that any chance accident is fated.

Jean mentions that she once saw two children making love on the beach, and her memory recalls Humbert and Annabel. As in that episode, two nearby men invade their privacy (though Humbert initially plans to make use of them for the drowning), and Humbert goes back for his sunglasses at the beginning of the chapter (which recalls Annabel's sunglasses).

Chapter 21:

When Haze states her plan for her and Humbert to go England in the fall, he argues vigorously against it. She acquiesces easily, and Humbert uses his newfound advantage to spend more time alone pretending to work. One day, Haze goes into his study and asks why he locks up the drawer of a small table. After she leaves, he wonders if the hiding place for his key is safe enough.

Analysis

Though Humbert claims "Locked up love letters" are in the drawer, he is not far off - it is where he keeps his diary. The repeated mentions of the destruction of the diary, and Haze's curiosity over the drawer's contents, suggest that she will soon discover it.

The hotel Haze brings up - she erroneously calls it "Enchanted Hunters" - will play an important role later.

Chapters 22-23:

Haze and Humbert learn that Lolita can enroll in boarding school only in January. From his doctor, Humbert acquires some strong, purple sleeping pills, supposedly for his own insomnia, to drug Haze and Lolita. He drives home and finds Haze tearfully writing a letter. She has read his diary, and she tells him she is leaving with Lolita. Humbert tries to calm her down and fixes her a drink. After he does this, he receives a phone call informing him Haze has been run over by a car.

Humbert rushes out and finds that a Packard automobile driven by a Frederick Beale, Jr. has run over Haze as she was about to mail three letters (which Humbert takes and tears up). John and Jean Farlow stay with Humbert, and he tells them he will devote himself to Lolita and find her a private school in New York. He fakes a phone call to Lolita's camp director and tells the Farlows he will pick her up after the funeral and take her on a trip somewhere. Beale visits and explains he was not at fault for the accident; he had to swerve to avoid a neighbor's dog. Humbert agrees. He thinks about the conditions leading up to Haze's fated demise, and his own role in the matter, and weeps.

Analysis:

Humbert crystallizes many of his ideas of fate he has previously brought up; such a momentous event as Haze's death, he believes, could only be determined by a number of factors. Humbert has acknowledged the presence of randomness in life before, however, as with his mother's freak death. What makes Haze's death particularly fated is not simply the constellation of necessary preconditions, as he outlines them, but the dog's role in the accident. Humbert almost hit the dog with a car not once, but twice - when he first arrived at the home, and just before Haze's accident. Nabokov's love for word games makes plausible the idea that he chose the fated animal to be a dog rather than a cat because "dog" backwards is "God."

Chapters 24-25:

Humbert leaves Ramsdale, but not before Jean can make her attraction to him known.

Humbert is afraid Lolita has been informed of her mother's death, and realizes that he has not become her legal guardian. He plans to pick her up, tell her Haze is sick in the hospital, and then drive around with her for a while until he says Haze has died. He calls the camp and learns Lolita will not be back from a hike for two more days. He buys a great deal of clothing for Lolita. Remembering Haze's mention of The Enchanted Hunter inn, he wires a double room for the next night.

Analysis:

As Humbert says, perhaps McFate has again intervened. He previously said Lolita was on a camping trip to rid the Farlows of suspicion, and he now learns she is on a real camping trip.

Humbert should know by now, though, that things have a way of reappearing in his universe. The Enchanted Hunter pops up again and will continue to be important, as much for its odd name as anything else.

Chapter 26:

Humbert despairs from his jail cell. He instructs the printer of his memoir to fill the page with Lolita's name.

Analysis:

In a rare moment of vulnerability, Humbert reverts to his tricky ways in his instruction for the printer. But the printer has not followed his request, so Humbert's power to play games from jail is now severely restricted.

Chapter 27:

Humbert arrives at the summer camp, and Lolita soon meets him. As they drive away, he tells her Haze is in the hospital in another town, and that they will make it there tomorrow. At Lolita's suggestion, they pull over and kiss. A patrol car stops and asks if they saw a blue car up ahead, then continues. Lolita alternates between flirting with and mocking Humbert.

After some difficulty, they locate The Enchanted Hunter and park, though a red convertible takes a sheltered space before they can. They receive a room, number 342, with a double bed. Humbert explains to her that they must sleep in the same bed to save money, but Lolita giggles and calls it "incest." She warms up when she discovers his gifts of clothing, and while they hug, she promises to show him how to kiss later.

At dinner, Lolita points out that a diner there looks exactly like Clare Quilty, the playwright from the cigarette ad. Humbert lures her into trying one of the purple pills. She is soon sleepy, and he takes her off to bed as she tries to confess to her "disgusting" behavior.

Analysis:

Quilty is clearly following them (his is the red convertible), and Humbert even asks himself, at one point, what "shadow of us" are the police after. (Remember that "Humbert" is close to the Latin for "shade," and that shadows often represent Doppelgängers.) Quilty's interest in Humbert or Lolita is not yet evident, but remember that he was a children's playwright.

Another doubling occurs in the hotel room; they have a double bed, and the room is filled with mirrors, making Humbert describe the room twice. The doubling and mirrors can also be seen as the characters', especially Humbert's, solipsistic entrapment. Humbert tries to evade this solipsism - the self's belief that it is the only thing that exists - through his obsessive love for Lolita, but as he writes the memoir, he is in solitary confinement.

The hotel room also throws another fated checkpoint Humbert's way through its number, 342, the same as their house address.

Chapter 28:

Humbert tells the jury he regrets having gone through with the act; he should have known that Lolita was different from Annabel, and that only pain would follow.

Humbert asks at the front desk if his wife has called. He musters his courage on the porch outside. An old, drunken man asks him questions that are full of suspicion about Lolita, but whenever Humbert asks what he said, the man provides a similar-sounding question. He invites them to lunch with him tomorrow, but Humbert says they will be gone by then.

Analysis:

Quilty is the man outside, and his verbal duplicity suggests his doubling of Humbert. His interest in Lolita now appears out of more than mere curiosity.

Chapter 29:

Humbert enters his hotel room. He changes into his pajamas. Lolita is deliriously half-awake in bed. He climbs into bed but is too afraid to make a move. He gets a drink of water from the bathroom for his heartburn, and when he returns Lolita gets up and asks for a drink, too. She drinks it and quickly falls asleep again. He stays awake the whole night. He informs the jury that by six o'clock in the morning, she was awake, and that by 6:15 they were lovers - and that Lolita seduced him.

He describes the seduction. When Lolita wakes up, he pretends to be asleep, then feigns waking up. They kiss. Lolita asks him if he knows about the game she and Charlie (a boy who works at the camp) played. He does not; she is shocked that he "never did it" when he was a kid, and she has sex with him.

Analysis:

Humbert has proved himself, at times, an unreliable narrator. He admits he does not always remember details perfectly, and sometimes adds to them retrospectively. Moreover, he may change details around, such as the usage of the number 342, to fit some authorial scheme. Do we believe, then, that Lolita truly seduced him? He spends a great deal of time in this chapter expressing his regret to the jury, so this claim may be a way of further exonerating himself. However, Lolita's behavior does fit with her coarse, flirtatious nature.

Nabokov refrains from describing the act of sex. As Humbert says, he is "not concerned with so-called 'sex' at all," and Nabokov has echoed this view. Sex, after all, is the release from desire; instead, Nabokov focuses on the tremendous build-up of Humbert's desire before the sex act. Desire lends itself much more easily to an exploration of emotions warped by madness.

Chapters 30-33:

Humbert describes how he would have repainted the dining room of The Enchanted Hunter with murals of a lake.

Humbert reminds the jury that he was not Lolita's first lover.

Lolita tells Humbert that she first experienced sex with another girl at another camp the previous summer. This summer, she had had sex with the brutish Charlie. At night, Humbert tells Lolita he will join her in the lobby, and admonishes her not to talk to strangers. In the lobby, Humbert sees a man about his age staring at Lolita reading a movie magazine in her red armchair.

They check out of the hotel and drive to Lepingville. Lolita is cold to Humbert, and she soon says she should call the police and tell them he raped her. Humbert, already feeling guilty, drives on anxiously until they stop at a gas station. He tells her Haze is dead.

Humbert lists all the things he bought her in Lepingville. They get separate rooms, but at night she comes into his and they make up "very gently."

Analysis:

Dolores Quine, the actress from Who's Who, debuted in the play "Never Talk to Strangers." Humbert gives this advice to Lolita, and the strange man who watches her, of course, is Quilty.

The town of Lepingville shares the first three letters with lepidoptery, the study of butterflies (remember that Nabokov was a renowned lepidopterist). Lolita is in many ways a butterfly to Humbert, a beautiful, fragile, and elusive creature. However, she is often vulgar and, at times, more resembles the larva that eventually becomes the butterfly. Humbert learns she is also not sexually innocent. He would like to believe he is witnessing her prior to her metamorphosis (recall his desire for nymphets never to grow up), but she already has sexually metamorphosed in impure ways. Still, he sees her only as an elevated butterfly and not as a debased larva.

Humbert also reveals his first monstrous feelings that are completely untouched by guilt when he describes his reunion with Lolita at the end of Chapter 33: "You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go." He has become a true predator, the lepidopterist who has finally ensnared his subject. Even her suggestion that she will expose him does not faze him at this point.

Part Two:

Chapter 1:

Humbert and Lolita begin their travel across the U.S., staying in motels and stone cottages. Lolita's bratty, vulgar, consumerist qualities bother Humbert more. To keep her in line when she throws a tantrum, he threatens to tutor her in French and Latin in a relative's Appalachian farmhouse for years. He also uses legal arguments, justifying his actions and warning her that if he goes to jail, she will be orphaned. Overall, they travel from New England through the South, to the West coast, near the Canadian border, and return to Beardsley.

Analysis

Nabokov adds another twist to complement his already subversive love story about a pedophile. He also writes the American road novel (even beating the best-known such novel, Jack Kerouac's On the Road, to publication) through European eyes. Future chapters will more explicitly comment on Humbert's approach to American culture on the road. It is clear, however, that Lolita's attraction to American consumerism will feature heavily in their travels, and Humbert even mentions a bribery system they later develop which we may assume has something to do with consumerism.

Chapter 2:

Humbert and Lolita go to a number of roadside restaurants, tourist traps, and landmarks. Wherever they go, Lolita arouses the attention of men, making Humbert jealous. Occasionally she wants to go to a roller-skating rink with boys she has met, and Humbert lets her so long as he can stay in the parking lot. Humbert encourages her to go to swimming pools so he can compare her to the other nymphets. He enlists her in tennis lessons in California. One time, he is unsure if he sees Lolita go into the bushes near the court with a tall man or with her tennis partner friend. Humbert has to keep Lolita from inquisitive adults they meet in their travels.

Analysis:

Humbert's description of their travel constitutes a travelogue of American kitsch. Though there is a definite tone of condescension in his report, he seems to have some measure of appreciation for both the places and their intriguing names. Nabokov, too, was known to revel in Americana; when he moved into a new house in the U.S. full of the previous owner's garish possessions, he specified that nothing be changed.

The tall man Humbert thinks he might see is the mirage of Quilty. The use of the Doppelgänger through ambiguous images is a conventional one, and Nabokov's parody of this technique on a tennis court - where, of course, doubles tennis is played - sharpens the parody.

Chapter 3:

Lolita remains indifferent to Humbert's adoration, but he is still blissfully happy. He admits that, as a psychologist might have predicted, he takes Lolita to a beach to recreate his interrupted childhood obsession with Annabel, but the experience is lackluster. He takes her more frequently to outdoorsy settings, which also prove mediocre for romance, until two children discover them one day. They see many movies.

Humbert admits he never fully learned about the legality of his guardianship of Lolita. John Farlow is too preoccupied with Jean's cancer and the upkeep of Haze's estate to intervene (furthermore, Humbert has convinced him that Lolita is his biological child, the product of an affair years ago).

Humbert decides to return to Beardsley, hoping to better himself as a father through a fixed routine and needing money. He thinks about getting a job through Gaston Godin in the French department of Beardsley College. He mentions that Lolita sobs every night once he pretends to be asleep.

Analysis:

Humbert shows the first strains of guilt over not being a good father to Lolita, though he also dreams of spawning with her another nymphet for him to have a truly incestuous relationship. Though he does not dwell on it, it is obvious that Lolita is unhappy being with Humbert and only the fear of orphanage, and the constant flow of bribery and treats coming her way, keeps her with him.

Lolita's attraction to movies is also noteworthy. Nabokov has written a novel that is so specific in its language, so dense with wordplay and allusion, so dependent on its narrative voice, that Lolita defies the objective images of cinema. (Two respected film versions of Lolita have been made, but even their most ardent admirers would admit the films' deference to the book.) The kinds of movies Lolita likes - musicals, underworlders, and westerners - are distinctly American, and relate to some of the themes and motifs of Lolita (popular music is frequently used in the novel, Humbert takes Lolita into his sexual underworld, and the clichéd western fight scene Humbert describes prefigures a fight at the end of the novel).

Chapters 4-5:

Humbert and Lolita moved into a house near Beardsley similar to Haze's. Humbert enrolls Lolita in the Beardsley School for girls, a day school that promotes itself as a finishing school.

Humbert maintains neutrality with his neighbors on Thayer Street. He is constantly worried one of them might find out about him and Lolita.

Analysis:

Humbert's phrase "west-door neighbor" plays off "next-door neighbor." While many of Humbert's previous word games have been to amuse himself or to distract from the gravity of his crime, here he revises American idiom as a European with a keen ear for language would. Why wouldn't we describe the neighbors by their direction? His phrase even captures the solipsistic way we view neighbors - they are important only in relation to us, so that we are the "center" while they are "west" or "east" of us - and reinforces the theme of solipsistic entrapment. Humbert has many inventive phrases that readjust American idiom-he has previously described "watering" the car, for instance.

Chapter 6:

Humbert describes Gaston Godin. He does not fear Godin's discovery of his relationship with Lolita, as Godin is too self-centered and abstract to become suspicious. Godin is a French bachelor, overweight, always wears black, a mediocre teacher, and is beloved by everyone. He knows and employs the small boys in the neighborhood. He and Humbert often play chess in Humbert's house. Humbert says he brings him up only because he needs him for his defense - Godin was disdainful of America, a poor teacher, and "fooling everybody," yet he was still adored.

Analysis:

Nabokov does not exercise much subtlety in dropping clues that Godin is a homosexual pedophile. Aside from his behavior with and snapshots of the young boys in the neighborhood, Godin has portraits of a number of homosexual writers. The portrait of Harold D. Doublename is an obvious joke, since Godin is a homosexual double of Humbert - even his doubled initials come just one step before Humbert's in the alphabet. Nabokov intended the comparison to be a red herring for Freudians who believe Humbert is a repressed homosexual, much as the psychiatric report of Humbert related in Part One, Chapter 9 suggested.

Chapters 7-10:

Lolita takes further advantage of Humbert's love for her. Over their time together at Beardsley, she multiplies by five her weekly allowance (paid for her sexual cooperation) from Humbert, in addition to all the other gifts she receives. Humbert sometimes spies in her room and discovers stashes of money. Humbert reduces the money he gives her, afraid she will use it to run away from him.

Humbert reads an advice column on how fathers should politely treat their daughters' boyfriends. However, Humbert forbids Lolita from dating and phone calls with boys. He does permit a chaperoned dance, and promises her she can throw a party at their house. Although he can not monitor her at all times, he feels confident Lolita has not betrayed him seriously, as high school boys bore her. Each night, Humbert reviews his day as a respected professor and father.

Humbert describes his disappointment in meeting Lolita's girlfriends, such as Mona Dahl, a sophisticated girl with whom she does theater at school. Humbert unsuccessfully interrogates Mona about Lolita one time when Lolita is late to practice a scene with her.

Sometimes Humbert begs at Lolita's feet for her affection while she tells him to leave her alone.

Analysis:

Lolita's burgeoning independence - and Humbert's ensuing jealousy and possessiveness - are described in a manner befitting the conventional father-daughter relationship. Of course, Humbert's bans on dating and phone calls have more urgency than the typical suburban dad's. His review of himself as a respected professor and father, then, takes on u Humbert's hold on Lolita is fast waning, and it is only a matter of time before she metamorphoses into adulthood. The butterfly-like elusiveness of the nymphet always appealed to Humbert, but now she may fully escape.

Chapters 11-12:

In December, the headmistress at Beardsley, Pratt, has a meeting with Humbert about Lolita. She believes Lolita's sexual maturation is interfering with her grades. She and all the other teachers are concerned that Lolita is uninterested in, and ignorant of, sexuality, and want Humbert to encourage her to socialize with boys. They also want him to allow her to participate in the play "The Hunted Enchanters," especially since the author will visit in the spring. Humbert agrees to the play.

Lolita gets sick, and after she recovers, Humbert throws her an unsuccessful party with boys. He buys her a bicycle and a history book of American painting.

Analysis

The true title of the play Pratt refers to is "The Enchanted Hunters," listed in the Who's Who guide under Clare Quilty. That Quilty will be visiting Beardsley in the spring, combined with his previous shadowing of Humbert and Lolita, suggests he has sinister intentions, though it remains unclear what exactly they are.

Chapter 13:

Humbert does not fully read "The Enchanted Hunters," the play Lolita is in, but he gathers the basic plot. Lolita plays a farmer's daughter who uses hypnotism to enchant six hunters into believing their lives were dreams from which she awoke them. A seventh hunter, a poet, played by Mona, insists that the fantastic backdrop of the play, and the farmer's daughter, are all creations of his imagination. Humbert and Lolita are both aware that the play has nearly the same name as the hotel where they first had sex.

Analysis:

The play's name is important not only for the reminder of the hotel and the suggestion that fate has again connected the dots in their lives. Much like the character she plays, Lolita is an enchanter who has hypnotized Humbert. Humbert the hunter also feels like his past life has been a dream, that his memories of Annabel are revived through Lolita. Moreover, Quilty also hunts Lolita.

The seventh hunter, on the other hand, is a stand-in for the author - and any of four authors, either Quilty (who wrote the play itself), Humbert (who has written this memoir), John Ray, Jr. (who has edited the manuscript), or even Nabokov. This merging of authority coincides with the play's "profound message," one that can be applied to Lolita as well: "mirage and reality merge in love." Humbert overlooks the often vulgar reality of Lolita and chooses to see her enchanting mirage, we have to question sometimes if he is relating true or illusory events, and even Humbert doubts his own sanity at times.

Chapters 14-15:

Lolita takes piano lessons twice a week with Miss Emperor, but one night while playing chess Humbert receives a call from her teacher saying that Lolita has missed the last two sessions. When confronted, Lolita says she has been practicing the play with Mona in a park. Humbert calls Mona, who corroborates the story. When he looks at Lolita again, she appears changed, coarser and older. He tells her he does not believe her story, and threatens to take her away. They fight and yell, and stop only when a neighbor calls to complain about the noise.

Lolita uses the disturbance to escape, and Humbert pursues her on foot. He finds her in a phone booth. She quickly hangs up, saying she tried to reach him at home. She says she hates school and wants to go away with him again. They have sex at home while Humbert cries.

Humbert makes an excuse and leaves Beardsley with Lolita. As they are driving away, Lolita's acting coach sees them and laments Lolita's departure from the play, especially since the author liked her so much. Humbert asks Lolita who the author is, and she says "Some old woman, Clare Something."

Analysis:

Miss Emperor is an allusion to the music teacher Mlle. Lempereur in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary (Nabokov makes this clear by accidentally calling Gaston "Gustave"). In it, Emma Bovary pretends to go to her for lessons while being unfaithful to her husband, suggesting that Lolita does the same to Humbert when she skips out on piano lessons.

The chess metaphor - Humbert's queen, or Lolita, is in danger - reinforces the infidelity allusion. Obviously, Lolita was not calling Humbert at home, as she claims. The only possibility, then, is that she is intimate with another man. The clue that it is Quilty comes out when Lolita pretends Quilty is a woman.

Chapter 16:

Humbert and Lolita drive westward, staying at motels along the way. Though he keeps a close watch on her during their journey, Humbert believes Lolita might be contacting a person he does not know while they stop at a gas station. In another town, Humbert goes and gets a haircut while Lolita stays in bed. He watches intently various cars and people as he returns to Lolita, suspicious that she has been out. He strips her naked, trying to discover her infidelity.

Analysis:

The red car that appeared at The Enchanted Hunter pops up again here, and Humbert describes Lolita's "diabolical glow." The allusions to the devil ("red" and "diabolical") connect the two instances and point to Lolita's sexual relationship with Quilty. Humbert's pursuit of the "shadow of infidelity" confirms Quilty's presence, since the Doppelgänger is frequently described as a shadow of the protagonist.

Chapters 17-18:

Humbert keeps a .32-caliber gun that used to belong to Haze's husband inside a small, lockable copper case Godin gave him.

As they drive further west, Humbert grows preoccupied by the red convertible lagging behind them. He believes the driver is a detective, and sees him for the first time at a gas station, when the man (who looks like a relative of Humbert's named Gustave Trapp) talks in a familiar manner to Lolita. Lolita denies knowing who he is. After more driving, Humbert finally loses the red convertible.

They attend a play in the town of Wace by authors Clare Quilty and Vivian Darkbloom. Afterward, Lolita seems dazed, and Humbert catches a glimpse of the authors. Humbert and Lolita briefly discuss them later; Lolita says Vivian was the male author and Clare was the female.

Analysis:

Lolita says "'I am not a lady and do not like lightning," and the play they see, as the Who's Who certifies, is "The Lady Who Loved Lightning." (The title also brings us back to the death of Humbert's mother by lightning.)

In keeping with the fantastical elements of the play, Lolita seems enchanted and hypnotized by the play, much as "The Enchanted Hunters" strives to do. It is becoming more obvious that Lolita knows Quilty intimately (who is not the female author, as she lies; also recall that Vivian Darkbloom is an anagram for Vladimir Nabokov).

Another reversal of the play's title is occuring - Lolita (and, by extension, Humbert) is now becoming the hunted, with Quilty as the hunter.

Chapter 19:

Humbert and Lolita pick up their forwarded mail. Humbert reads a letter from Mona to Lolita describing the play and her plans. By the time he has finished reading it, Lolita has left the post office, and he worries she has escaped for good. He eventually finds her outside. She says she had met a girl from the town of Beardsley, but further interrogation from Humbert catches a few lies. He reveals that he has copied down the red convertible's license plate number, but when he looks at the paper, he sees Lolita has changed around the letters and numbers. Once they have driven out of the town, Humbert slaps her.

Humbert figures out that the driver of the red convertible, whom he calls Trapp, keeps switching cars, often using gray cars. They get a flat tire, and Humbert gets out and decides to ask Trapp for a car jack. As he walks toward him, Humbert's car rolls forward - Humbert is sure Lolita started it to detain him - and in the confusion, Trapp drives away. Wary of growing insanity, Humbert decides to transfer his gun from his box to his pocket.

Analysis:

"Qu'il t'y," the French Mona repeats in her letter, is a knowing reference to Quilty, and reinforces the point that she knew about him earlier and probably helped cover for Lolita when she was supposed to have her piano lessons. (Humbert, however, does not decode this.)

Lolita is not the only one who metamorphoses; Quilty's ever-changing cars are like skins he sheds, and the predominant color of gray accentuates his shadowy qualities.

Humbert's growing insanity is leading him to murder, as he himself predicts. The motivating desire is shifting now from sex, which dictated Part One of the novel, to murder. The two are opposed: one gives life, the other takes it.

Chapters 20-21:

Humbert regrets allowing Lolita to take up acting, as it schooled her in deceit. He regrets not having filmed her as she played tennis so he could now see her. He describes her tennis playing in detail - beautiful form that did not necessarily lead to good playing.

They play one day in Colorado at a hotel where they are staying. Humbert leaves to return a phone call supposedly from Beardsley, but it turns out no one from the school called. Humbert looks outside and sees Lolita playing doubles. Her partner, a man, spots Humbert and runs away to his gray car. Lolita decides to swim at the pool.

Humbert watches Lolita play with a dog by the hotel. Humbert sees a man by the pool watch Lolita, and he can tell that Lolita is enjoying the attention. The man notices Humbert and returns to the pool. Humbert vomits, then drinks gin for a while. The next morning, they continue driving.

Analysis

Humbert's description of Lolita's tennis is a fair approximation of Nabokov's own feelings on what literature should do: "Her form was, indeed, an absolutely perfect imitation of absolutely top-notch tennis - without any utilitarian results." (It more conveniently fits under one of Oscar Wilde's defining epigrams, "All art is quite useless.") Literature should not be moral or didactic, but should plunge the reader in what Nabokov calls "aesthetic bliss." Lolita's game is aesthetically blissful without serving a useful purpose; she revels in the game, not in its outcome. It is only an approximation of Nabokov's art, though, since Lolita goes beyond game-like aesthetics and into profound questions about desire, fate, psychology, and even morality.

Lolita's doubles partner is Quilty; he is, in the Doppelgänger sense, Humbert's "double" partner as well. Quilty is also the man at the pool, prefigured by the red ball Lolita plays with and her "Aztec Red" bathing suit, the specific color of Quilty's convertible.

Chapter 22:

Humbert and Lolita get a motel room in the town of Elphinstone. He believes that Trapp's various incarnations were coincidental, and that no one is following him. Lolita has a fever, and Humbert takes her to a doctor, where she is taken away to another room. Humbert sits in the car for a while before driving back to the motel.

On Humbert's eighth visit to Lolita at the doctor's that week, he sees a crumpled envelope by her bed. The nurse says it is from her boyfriend, and Humbert believes she and Lolita are plotting together against him to allow her romance with another man.

The next day, Humbert is sick and delirious and is unable to visit Lolita. He calls and finds out that Lolita has already checked out with "her uncle, Mr. Gustave." Humbert drives to the doctor's, but he is unable to do anything. He resolves to track down the man who took Lolita.

Analysis:

The envelope by Lolita's bed is from Quilty, who has picked her up. He calls himself Gustave since Lolita has informed him that Humbert thinks he looks like his uncle, Gustave Trapp. The notion of their being related somehow is reinforced when Humbert calls him "my brother." They are doubles of one another, but it is still unclear if Quilty has only romantic intentions for Lolita, or if he somehow doubles Humbert's relationship with her in another way.

Chapter 23:

Humbert starts the thousand-mile stretch to Kasbeam, checking the registers of the 342 hotels and motels at which he and Lolita stayed. He discovers that Trapp stayed under aliases at nearby places, and once in the same motor court as them. He never reveals his identity through his aliases, but he does expose his sophisticated, literary personality. Humbert details and explains the games behind several of these aliases, though he does not understand some of them.

Analysis:

Quilty's trail of names is filled with allusions that reveal his identity to the highly diligent reader, if he has not already figured out who he is. For instance, "Ted Hunter, Cane, NH" is, as Humbert points out, an anagram for "The Enchanted Hunter." The word "Cane" recalls the Biblical Cain, and the two mentions of Quilty as Humbert's "brother" make his treachery all the more significant.

Other games indicate motifs only Nabokov could have arranged. The license plates - Q32888 and CU88322 - sound out Quilty's nickname, "Cue," but the numbers also add up to 52. Humbert and Lolita were on the road for one year, or 52 weeks, and the foreword informs us that all significant deaths in the novel occurred in 1952. There are also 52 cards in a deck, reminding the reader of the importance of chance and games in the novel.

Another significant number, 342, pops up again in the number of hotels Humbert and Lolita stayed at, adding another checkpoint of fate through which he must traverse.

Chapters 24-25:

Humbert returns to Beardsley and suspects a professor of being Trapp, but realizes he is wrong. Hiring a private detective also proves futile.

Three empty years pass. Lolita enters his dreams as Valeria or Haze. One day, Humbert destroys her collection of teen magazines. On her fifteenth birthday, he gives all her belongings to a home for orphaned girls. He spends some time in a sanitarium he has previously stayed in and composes a poem to Dolores Haze, which he reprints. Still, Humbert lusts after nymphets, and he says this is how Rita came into his life.

Analysis:

The 52 lines in Humbert's poem link to the 52 weeks he and Lolita spent on the road, as well as the year 1952 and 52 playing cards in a deck (see

Analysis:

for Chapter 23).

Humbert's hiring a private detective is the clichéd solution to a mystery. Not surprisingly, Nabokov has the snooping yield nothing productive, except for recalling the entry "Will Brown, Dolores, Colo." from Quilty's hotel register (Chapter 23) and Humbert's words "While brown Dolores" (Chapter 22). The detective's "answer" is only a verbal game of Nabokov, who likes to subvert the conventions of the mystery genre and provide unorthodox linguistic clues.

Chapters 26-27:

Humbert picks up Rita, a kind, slight divorcée near his age, at a bar one night and she soon becomes his constant companion as they drive around from 1950 to 1952, still searching for Lolita's kidnaper. An odd adventure in a hotel room inspires Humbert to write a paper on conceptual time, and lands him an appointment at a college. He considers revisiting The Enchanted Hunter hotel, but decides it is too painful.

Humbert receives a letter from John Farlow, informing him that Jean has died, he is living in South America, and since he is in charge of the Haze estate, he has learned that Lolita is missing. He suggests Humbert find Lolita. Humbert receives another letter from Lolita. Married to a man named Dick Schiller and pregnant, she asks Humbert for money.

Analysis:

Humbert mentions the unchanging stability of literary characters and how we want people in our lives to act consistently as well. This desire conforms with his previous wish for nymphets, and especially Lolita, not to grow up.

In addition, Humbert again pushes his notion of a determined fate from which we cannot deviate. Often, people who believe in fate do so at the expense of morality; if we do not have free will, then we can not be held responsible for our actions, and no morality can be attached to them. Humbert's insistence that fate governs our actions frees him from the immorality of his various actions.

Humbert also suggests that he has a hand in shaping the events retroactively, as an author. Since he admits that life occasionally throws in surprises which cannot be predicted (such as John Farlow's contradictory behavior), perhaps he has adjusted some events to conform to his vision of what should have been.

Chapters 28-29:

Planning to kill Dick Schiller with his gun, Humbert leaves Rita and drives to the small town Lolita lives in. He reaches the town and eventually finds their dilapidated home.

Lolita answers the door, pregnant and looking older. Her husband is not the kidnaper, but a naïve young man who does not know about Lolita's history. Humbert demands to know the name of the kidnaper, and when she tells him, he thinks about Hourglass Lake and feels that he always knew it. She tells him that the kidnaper was the only man she was ever crazy about and that he was an old friend of her mother. Humbert meets the friendly Dick, and does not harbor a grudge against him.

Alone with Lolita again, Humbert asks more about the kidnaper, Clare Quilty, whose nickname is "Cue." Quilty tried to enlist Lolita in his child pornography movies at a dude ranch, and when she refused since she loved him, he threw her out. Humbert still loves her and asks her to leave with him; he gives her $4000 no matter what her decision. Humbert cries, and she turns down his offer. He drives away tearfully.

Analysis:

After hearing the name of Lolita's kidnaper, Humbert echoes Haze's one-word dialogue of "Waterproof" at Hourglass Lake (Part One, Chapter 20). Rather than directly tell the reader who has not yet figured out that it is Quilty, Nabokov again forces us to piece together verbal links. After Haze said that, Jean Farlow nearly told a story about Quilty but was interrupted. Even in exposition, Nabokov refuses to conform to typical expectations of the mystery genre.

Another subversion here is Lolita's prudishness in describing (or not describing) Quilty's sexual demands of her. Lolita generally elides blunt sexual description, getting around it through elegant language, euphemisms, or even foreign words ("souffler" here, which means "to blow"). Lolita is not an erotic story, but a love story, and Nabokov teases the reader who desires graphic sexuality, much as Lolita teases Humbert.

We finally see how Quilty is a true double of Humbert: whereas Humbert is merely a pedophile, Quilty is a pedophile and a child pornographer. However, as Humbert himself admits, Quilty simply broke Lolita's heart; Humbert ruined her life.

More fated checkpoints emerge here. The Schiller home is on Hunter Road, which recalls The Enchanted Hunter motif. Lolita also owns a dog, an animal that pops up at important moments in the novel (Haze's death, notably).

Chapters 30-32:

Humbert drives on and reaches a town near The Enchanted Hunter.

Humbert thinks sadly that nothing will remove the stain of his actions with Lolita.

Humbert reflects upon his relationship with Lolita - how little he knew her mind, how she could be enchanting one moment and cruel the next, and how terrible a father he was.

Analysis:

Humbert is as honest as he has ever been in his reflections - honest both about Lolita and her capacity for cruelty and profundity, and honest about his terrible behavior which most likely forced her to be that way. After trying to shirk responsibility before with his notions of deterministic fate, he accepts that his own free will brought about his destruction of a young girl's life.

Chapters 33-34:

Humbert returns to Ramsdale and the Haze home, now up for sale, before taking a room at the hotel he had originally stayed at five years before. He informs various townspeople about Lolita's current events. He has an appointment with dentist Ivor Quilty and discovers where Clare Quilty lives. He readies his gun.

Humbert finds Quilty's manor on Grimm Road and decides to return in the morning. On the way back, he passes a drive-in movie and sees a character raising a gun.

Analysis:

Grimm Road may be an allusion to the Brothers Grimm, the prolific authors of fairy tales. Nabokov adored fairy tales and thought all stories should resemble them in some ways, and Lolita is shaping up for the climactic battle between good and evil most fairy tales address - except that it is unclear who is good or evil between Humbert and Quilty, an issue that take prominence in the final chapters.

The raised gun in the movie foreshadows the violence Humbert intends to inflict upon Quilty.

Chapter 35:

Humbert returns to Quilty's home in the morning. With no answer at the unlocked door, he opens it and enters. He inspects several rooms upstairs and takes the keys from their locks. Quilty emerges from a bathroom in a purple bathrombe and walks past Humbert without seeming to notice him. Humbert readies his gun and confronts Quilty, who is in a daze. Humbert tells him he is Dolores Haze's father, and warns Quilty that he will soon die. Humbert shoots at Quilty's foot, but the bullet hits the rug.

Quilty seems to wake up from this, and says he did not kidnap Lolita, but saved her from Humbert. Quilty attacks Humbert and knocks the gun under a chest of drawers. They wrestle and Humbert emerges with the gun. He makes Quilty read out loud a poem of his that accuses Quilty of taking advantage of him and stealing Lolita and states that Quilty must die for this. Quilty defends himself against these accusations and offers Humbert sex slaves and money if he will drop the gun.

Humbert fires his gun, but Quilty flees into the music room, where he briefly plays the piano. Humbert chases him in and shoots him in the side, but Quilty runs into the hall. Humbert shoots him several more times as they dash through the house, but the bullets only seem to energize Quilty. After an hour of the struggle, a point blank shot puts Quilty to rest.

Humbert goes downstairs and finds several people drinking liquor, among them two young sisters. He tells them he has killed Quilty, but they do not take him seriously. Quilty crawls out onto the landing of the stairs and stops, finally dead. Humbert leaves the house.

Analysis:

The fight scene, stretched out hilariously in an unending, frantic shootout (with such anomalous sights as Quilty playing the piano while being shot at), parodies the Doppelgänger tale to the extreme. Humbert uses the words "fairy tale" to describe the scene as he enters the house, and fairy tales are a major source of doubles. (Ironically, stepmothers are often the doubles - "Hansel and Gretel," "Cinderella" - while here a stepfather confronts another father figure.) Quilty, in a purple robe, the color of royalty, seems like the fairy tale equivalent of an evil king that Humbert is deposing. Mirrors in one room magnify the doubling, as they have throughout the novel.

However, the doubling here is intentionally murky. Humbert and Quilty are not that different from each other and do not represent the simple binary of good and evil, as literary doubles usually do: both have abused Lolita, both are pedophiles, both are literary men. Humbert seems to acknowledge this when he describes their wrestling match: "I rolled over him. We rolled over me. They rolled over him. We rolled over us." They are unified villains, not one hero and one villain.

Chapter 36:

Humbert drives away on the wrong side of the road, feeling that since he has disregarded laws of humanity, he might as well disregard traffic laws. To avoid some cars that block his path, he drives off the road, comes to a stop, and is arrested.

Humbert says that he is opposed to capital punishment, but that if he were a judge, he would sentence himself to thirty-five years for rape and dismiss the other charges. He wants his memoir published only after Lolita dies. He addresses Lolita, giving her advice and wishing her well. He says art is the only immortality he and she may share.

The foreword previously indicated that Humbert dies in jail soon after completion of his memoir from coronary thrombosis and that Lolita dies over Christmas during childbirth.

Analysis:

Ironically, Humbert is initially arrested for his bad driving, not for his murder. However, Humbert believes his only crime was raping Lolita. Though he has finally accepted full responsibility for his actions with her, he still marches to his own beat of morality. The reader understands (or perhaps has been persuaded by the silver-tongued narrator) that Humbert has been punished severely - by himself. His anguish over the loss of Lolita, and the destruction of her nymphet-ness, has destroyed his one true love.

However, Humbert has resurrected his nymphet, as he says, through the immortality of art. Enshrining her in eternal youth, he creates the stasis he longs for in nymphets. The symmetry of Lolita - the first words of the foreword and Humbert's narration and the last word of the novel are all "Lolita" - defines the boundaries of this locked case; Dolores Haze forever contains the memoir not as herself, but as Humbert Humbert's nymphet, Lolita.

• Biography of Vladimir Nabokov
• About Lolita
• Character List
• Major Themes
• Short Summary
• Full Summary and Analysis
• Summary and Analysis of Foreward - Part One, Chapters 1-10
• Summary and Analysis of Part One, Chapters 11-20
• Summary and Analysis of Part One, Chapters 21-33
• Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters 1-10
• Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters 11-19
• Summary and Analysis of Part Two, Chapters 20-36
• Related Links on Lolita
• Author of ClassicNote and Sources
• Purchase Lolita and Other Works
• Test Yourself! Quiz 1
• Test Yourself! Quiz 2
• Essays on Lolita
• Message Board on Lolita