Resembling John Keats in, Ode on a Grecian Urn, Humbert Humbert, from Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, envies the past innocence and youth that transforms overtime into a relationship of disenchantment, disillusion and destruction with a child. Through textual evidence, one can see that Humbert’s desires for the past love affair with Annabel, his young counterpart who dies before their consummation, manifests into a relationship with Dolores Haze, a young girl who resembles his young past lover. Time and experience wears on their relationship and Humbert devouring passion destroys his young nymphet.
Humbert is fixated on every enchanting detail of the past and the desire to finish the relationship he had started with Annabel. Annabel was the start …show more content…
Romance and love blind Humbert and he can only initially see Lolita as a young nymphet. The relationship is formed on Humbert’s self -centered desire for the past and youth. He is blinded by the haze that covers his eyes from seeing outside the realm of fantasy with Lolita. He fantasizes his, “Quest for the Glasses” (Nabokov 54) in, “the woods” (Nabokov 54) The woods symbolize the experience that he would gain by seeing clearly through the glasses. But Humbert does not realize what entering the world of experience and time past does to a relationship. After experience and disillusion set in and Lolita ages the haze only clears. When he sees, “her pale-freckled cheeks were hollowed, and her bare shins and arms had lost all their tan…” (Nabokov 296) and he can no longer envision his young Annabel like Lolita. As the illusion of this girl child fades from vision innocent nymphet to a grown average. Humbert says, "I had fallen in love with Lolita forever, but she would not be Lolita forever."(Nabokov) The façade of the little girl by the sea is ephemeral. She can only be immortalized within the confines of thoughts and …show more content…
The over-romanticism of his relationship with Lolita is seen through his obsession and desire for her which leads to her destruction. Lolita’s life has been shattered by Humbert’s actions, she says, “He broke my heart. You merely broke my life.” (Nabokov 279) She has now grown up and aged out of her nymphet stage and realized how horrible he treated her. When he finds her married and older he pleads for her to come back to re-experience the past.“ ‘…I want you to leave your incidental Dick, and this awful hole, and come live with me, die with me and everything with me’… ‘You’re crazy’.” (Nabokov 278) Lolita and time have kept moving on through life without Humbert. When reality rears its ugly head, Humbert realizes that he can’t prevent time from slipping through the hourglass of fate where a relationships can change as fast as the seasons. Keats emphasizes this when he says, “When old age shall this generation waste.”(Keats 46) The urn has turned to the other side and the seasons are changing from lustful spring and summer to cold and unfeeling fall and winter. The relationship initially is youthful, passionate and innocent, but once it becomes more than that it becomes stale and dies out. The urn contains the ashes of the dead, and in Lolita, it contains the ashes of youth and innocence. This is
Humbert is fixated on every enchanting detail of the past and the desire to finish the relationship he had started with Annabel. Annabel was the start …show more content…
Romance and love blind Humbert and he can only initially see Lolita as a young nymphet. The relationship is formed on Humbert’s self -centered desire for the past and youth. He is blinded by the haze that covers his eyes from seeing outside the realm of fantasy with Lolita. He fantasizes his, “Quest for the Glasses” (Nabokov 54) in, “the woods” (Nabokov 54) The woods symbolize the experience that he would gain by seeing clearly through the glasses. But Humbert does not realize what entering the world of experience and time past does to a relationship. After experience and disillusion set in and Lolita ages the haze only clears. When he sees, “her pale-freckled cheeks were hollowed, and her bare shins and arms had lost all their tan…” (Nabokov 296) and he can no longer envision his young Annabel like Lolita. As the illusion of this girl child fades from vision innocent nymphet to a grown average. Humbert says, "I had fallen in love with Lolita forever, but she would not be Lolita forever."(Nabokov) The façade of the little girl by the sea is ephemeral. She can only be immortalized within the confines of thoughts and …show more content…
The over-romanticism of his relationship with Lolita is seen through his obsession and desire for her which leads to her destruction. Lolita’s life has been shattered by Humbert’s actions, she says, “He broke my heart. You merely broke my life.” (Nabokov 279) She has now grown up and aged out of her nymphet stage and realized how horrible he treated her. When he finds her married and older he pleads for her to come back to re-experience the past.“ ‘…I want you to leave your incidental Dick, and this awful hole, and come live with me, die with me and everything with me’… ‘You’re crazy’.” (Nabokov 278) Lolita and time have kept moving on through life without Humbert. When reality rears its ugly head, Humbert realizes that he can’t prevent time from slipping through the hourglass of fate where a relationships can change as fast as the seasons. Keats emphasizes this when he says, “When old age shall this generation waste.”(Keats 46) The urn has turned to the other side and the seasons are changing from lustful spring and summer to cold and unfeeling fall and winter. The relationship initially is youthful, passionate and innocent, but once it becomes more than that it becomes stale and dies out. The urn contains the ashes of the dead, and in Lolita, it contains the ashes of youth and innocence. This is