the novel and what happens, I want to quickly discuss an interesting connection that
Nabokov’s most well known work shares with Edgar Allen Poe. I’m sure proper papers
have been written on this subject, but I’m just interested in pointing this out for any
readers to think about. Both of these works are huge in the literary world, and it’s always
fun to find links between one work and another, so just make up your mind for yourself,
is there a connection, or am I reading too much into this?
Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita begins with obsession and death. Humbert
Humbert, the novel’s protagonist, introduces his narrative conflict with a soulful
admission of lost and unrequited love. “There might have been no Lolita at all,” he
says, “had I not loved, one summer, a certain initial girl child,” . Humbert’s aged regret
and admission of guilt opens into a world where he has long ago lost his youthful love,
Annabel Leigh. From this admission to the point where the actual reflection of the events
that transpired begins, Nabokov draws obvious parallels between Humbert Humbert and
the narrator of Edger Allen Poe’s poem, “Annabel Lee.” Poe writes his poem in anguish
of loss and youth, and Lolita structures its narrative on a foundation almost identical
to “Annabel Lee.”
Nabokov peppers the first four chapters with allusion to the poem, using several
direct images and phrases to dramatize the impact that losing an early love has had on
Humbert. Chapter one closes with an echo of Poe’s poem, “exhibit number one is what
the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied,”, a paraphrase of the
ending of “Annabel Lee’s” second stanza. Humbert begins his defense in Earthly court
by pleading that his love was envied by even the Heavenly Host.
Humbert explains his normal and sane life prior to meeting young Annabel
Leigh, but then dives into passionate words and feverish thought at the memory.
Speaking of their mad and anguished love, he recounts how they met at “the kingdom by
the sea,” and later separated at the pulling of her “high-born kinsmen”. Nabokov writes
that Annabel Leigh was drawn away by the sea and his brother, lending an even greater
mystical justification for his loss and his obsession with Lolita. His tale ends with his
statement about her death, a simple sentence, “four months later she died of Typhus in
Corfu.”
Finally, in chapter 4, Humbert concludes his history and begins to focus on his
craving for and fixation with Lolita. He says that the whole of his tryst with Lolita begins
with Annabel, and even refers to his lust as his “Annabel” phase. He dives into a flurry of
mixed images revolving around the sensual imagery of Annabel Leigh, and the sexual
imagery of Lolita, intertwining and confusing the two, closing his observation with the
lines, “I broke her [Annabel’s] spell by incarnating her in another [Lolita].”
There can be no doubt that Nabokov intended this thematic parallel, and in fact
he likely uses Poe’s poem to help justify Humbert’s actions, making him seem innocent
to true evil and just a victim to loss and love.
and
No comments:
Post a Comment