Lolita-Quilty And Humbert Similarities
The novel Lolita, written by Vladimir Nabokov, allows the reader to see the world through the eyes of Humbert Humbert, the handsome, nympholept artist, on his journey across America with his Lolita. The reader becomes very familiar with Humbert and his perspective of the world. On his journey, Humbert encounters many different characters including Clare Quilty, a character who bares a strong resemblance to Humbert, and yet, despite their apparent similarities, Lolita falls for Clare Quilty instead of Humbert Humbert because he is able to comply with American standards.
Clare Quilty and Humbert Humbert have a lot in common. Not only do they look alike, but they are also both artists and they are both nympholepts. From the beginning of the novel, …show more content…
the reader is informed of Humbert’s good looks, which bare a resemblance to those of Clare Quilty. “I have all the characteristics which, according to writers on the sex interests of children, start the responses stirring in a little girl… Moreover, I am said to resemble some crooner or actor chap on whom Lo has a crush on” (p 43). The actor he looks like is Quilty. Humbert even finds a picture of Clare Quilty from magazine in Lolita’s room on which she had written, in block letters, “H.H.” on Quilty’s face. Lolita is drawn to Humbert at first because he looks like an actor. Not only are the both attractive men, but, according to Humbert, they have a specific look that is desirable to children, which, conveniently, is the age group they are both attracted to. They look so much alike that Humbert can pose as Quilty, “I passed [Lolita] in my disguise (a great big handsome hunk of movieland manhood)” (39). A “great big handsome hunk of movieland manhood” is how Humbert sees Clare Quilty, very superficial and very mainstream.
Humbert considers himself an artist. To Humbert, being an artist is more than making artwork, although that is part of it, but it is more how one sees the world. Prior to his confession, he had only published essays, but his confession is the only piece of art Humbert has ever created, John Ray Jr. calls it a “work of art” (p 5). Humbert sees the world differently than most people. While stopped at a gas station, his eyes wander to the different objects around him and he notes:
“I stared in such dull discomfort of mind at those stationary trivialities that look almost surprised, like staring rustics, to find themselves in the stranded traveler’s field of vision… Radio music was coming from its open door, and because the rhythm was not synchronized with the heave and flutter and other gestures of wind-animated vegetation, one had the impression of an old scenic film living its own life while piano or fiddle followed a line of music quite outside the shivering flower, the swaying branch” (211).
Humbert notices the “stationary trivialities” that most people, if stopped at a gas station, probably would not pay much attention to. He sees the crossword puzzles and a garbage can, cans of oil, an ice box, and tires and he feels like he is in a film. He prides himself in his artistic abilities.
Clare Quilty is also an artist, but he is a different kind of artist. He is an “American dramatist [who] started on a commercial career but turned to playwriting” (31). His published plays include Little Nymph and Fatherly Love, and he has acted in movies as well. He is “a playwright. [He has] written tragedied, comedies, fantasies. [He has] made private movies out of Justine and other eighteenth-century sexpades. [He is] the author of fifty-two successful sceneries. [He] knows all the ropes” (p 298). In the eyes of the American public, Clare Quilty is a successful artist, but to Humbert, his ‘art’ (movies and plays) is commercial and therefore not true art. When talking about Lolita’s interests, he writes, “Mentally, I found her to be a disgustingly conventional little girl. Sweet hot jazz, square dancing, gooey fudge sundaes, musicals, movie magazines and so forth—these were the obvious items in her list of beloved things” (148). Humbert considers movies “conventional” Art is supposed to be original because artists have a unique perspective, therefore Humbert would not consider movies to be works of art. In regards to plays, Humbert remarks, “I detest the theatre as being a primitive and putrid form, historically speaking” (200). Humbert disdains the type of art that Quilty produces. Even though American society would consider Quilty’s works to be art, Humbert does not.
Even Humbert’s nympholeptic way of seeing the world is artistic.
“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs… the little deadly demon among the wholesome children,” he explains (p 17). Since nymphets are not necessarily the prettiest girls, a nympholept has to be able to see what others cannot. Humbert prides himself in being able to see nymphets, but he keeps it to himself. “Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in the mossy garden. Let them play around me forever” (p 21). Until Lolita, Humbert enjoyed admiring nymphets from a distance. He stays hidden. Quilty is impotent, so he too can only watch from a distance. However, he is much more public about it. That is where he and Quilty differ the …show more content…
most.
Despite the fact that they are both nympholpts, Quilty does not conceal it the way Humbert believes it is supposed to be concealed. In fact, Quilty is very public with his attraction to nymphets. He has almost been to jail because of it. Lolita’s friend, Edusa, warns her that “Cue liked little girls” (275). Many people are aware of it. He even makes pornographic movies with young girls. When he meets Lolita, she is still a young girl. She falls in love with him and he takes her to the ranch where he tries to convince her to be in one of his films. Nympholepts are supposed to “cringe and hide,” but Clare Quilty does not (p 17). It is this difference that makes losing Lolita to Humbert even harder for him.
Humbert is always second to Quilty.
While on a drive with Lolita, he is looking for somewhere to park his car in when he sees a Quilty’s “resplendent, rubious” convertible backing out of a spot (p 117). He “gratefully” slips into the gap left by Quilty (p 117). He then writes, “I immediately regretted my haste for I noticed that my predecessor had now taken advantage of a garage-like shelter nearby where there was ample space for another car; but I was too impatient to follow his example” (117). Humbert thinks he is getting a good spot, but Quilty has found a better one. This incident with the parking spot is a symbol for their relationship. Until the end, Humbert thinks he has won Lolita. He thinks he has it figured out, but throughout their journey, Quilty is always a step ahead. Lolita is secretly having a relationship with Quilty for most of their drive across the
country.
In a similar way, Humbert thinks he is above the commercial ways of Americans, but Clare Quilty plays into those ways with his commercial art and his popularity and is successful in doing so. By doing so, he was able to win Lolita’s love. “He broke my heart. You merely broke my life,” Lolita implies when speaking to Humbert (p 279). In order for Quilty to have broken Lolita’s heart, she had to have been in love with him. Even though Quilty and Humbert are so similar, Lolita is able to fall in love with Quilty because of the ways in which he is different from Humbert. Clare Quilty is not only Humbert’s shadow, but he also represents an American Humbert Humbert, what Humbert could be if he were to abide by the American societal norms that Humbert disdains. Clare Quilty is more popular and more open than Humbert is. Both men are well-read, but Quilty does not seem to be as obnoxious as Humbert is. While on the road, Humbert is constantly boring Lolita. Since she is such a “disgustingly conventional little girl,” she was easily bored by Humbert and their journey (148). He mentions her “her fits of disorganized boredom” (148). He later realizes that she used her boredom as a defense mechanism: “She would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge, provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible” (p 284). They created their own routine over the course of their travels. He caused her boredom to which she would react rudely. Lolita was bored by the long days of driving as well as Humbert’s “detached comments.” She also used it to hide her helplessness. However, Quilty and his American ways did not bore her. He “saw -- smiling-- through everything and everybody, because he was not like [Humbert] or [Lolita] but a genius. A great guy. Full of fun” (275). Lolita is able to fall in love with Quilty because he is not like Humbert and she enjoys his energy and his lively facade.
In the end of the novel, Humbert goes to Quilty’s house to seek revenge for his wrongdoings towards Lolita. Their confrontation is supposed to be Humbert’s heroic moment but it turns out to be dramatic and comedic. Quilty mocks the poetic sentence Humbert had written him. They then wrestle on the ground and Humbert drops his gun. Quilty plays piano and Humbert keeps shooting Quilty but he will not die. Eventually, Humbert thinks he has killed him and he goes downstairs to find Quilty’s friends gathered in his livingroom. Humbert tells them what he has just done and they go along with it but they do not believe him. In the end, Quilty dies and “the ingenious play staged for [Humbert] by Quilty” is over (p 305). Their interaction is very significant. Humbert notes that it was Quilty’s play which gives him the power in a situation that Humbert went into thinking he would possess the power. Since Quilty’s writing is much more commercial, it might also explain why their confrontation is so comedic and seems so unlike Humbert’s writing, since Quilty’s writing is much more commercial.
When Quilty reads the poem Humbert wrote aloud, he ridicules it with comments like “A little repetitious, what?” and “Getting smutty, eh?” (p 300) Clare Quilty, as mainstream and popularized as he is, is able to mock a poem, a work of art, Humbert has written. In a sense, Clare Quilty represents the American society mocking Humbert Humbert for a piece of art he has created. Humbert cannot win. “You will wound me hideously and then rot in jail while I recuperate in a tropical setting,” Quilty warns Humbert (p 301). If Quilty survives, then he will still be in a much better situation than Humbert will be in.
Clare Quilty and Humbert Humbert have a lot in common. Not only do they look alike, but they are also both artists and they are both nympholepts. From the beginning of the novel, …show more content…
the reader is informed of Humbert’s good looks, which bare a resemblance to those of Clare Quilty. “I have all the characteristics which, according to writers on the sex interests of children, start the responses stirring in a little girl… Moreover, I am said to resemble some crooner or actor chap on whom Lo has a crush on” (p 43). The actor he looks like is Quilty. Humbert even finds a picture of Clare Quilty from magazine in Lolita’s room on which she had written, in block letters, “H.H.” on Quilty’s face. Lolita is drawn to Humbert at first because he looks like an actor. Not only are the both attractive men, but, according to Humbert, they have a specific look that is desirable to children, which, conveniently, is the age group they are both attracted to. They look so much alike that Humbert can pose as Quilty, “I passed [Lolita] in my disguise (a great big handsome hunk of movieland manhood)” (39). A “great big handsome hunk of movieland manhood” is how Humbert sees Clare Quilty, very superficial and very mainstream.
Humbert considers himself an artist. To Humbert, being an artist is more than making artwork, although that is part of it, but it is more how one sees the world. Prior to his confession, he had only published essays, but his confession is the only piece of art Humbert has ever created, John Ray Jr. calls it a “work of art” (p 5). Humbert sees the world differently than most people. While stopped at a gas station, his eyes wander to the different objects around him and he notes:
“I stared in such dull discomfort of mind at those stationary trivialities that look almost surprised, like staring rustics, to find themselves in the stranded traveler’s field of vision… Radio music was coming from its open door, and because the rhythm was not synchronized with the heave and flutter and other gestures of wind-animated vegetation, one had the impression of an old scenic film living its own life while piano or fiddle followed a line of music quite outside the shivering flower, the swaying branch” (211).
Humbert notices the “stationary trivialities” that most people, if stopped at a gas station, probably would not pay much attention to. He sees the crossword puzzles and a garbage can, cans of oil, an ice box, and tires and he feels like he is in a film. He prides himself in his artistic abilities.
Clare Quilty is also an artist, but he is a different kind of artist. He is an “American dramatist [who] started on a commercial career but turned to playwriting” (31). His published plays include Little Nymph and Fatherly Love, and he has acted in movies as well. He is “a playwright. [He has] written tragedied, comedies, fantasies. [He has] made private movies out of Justine and other eighteenth-century sexpades. [He is] the author of fifty-two successful sceneries. [He] knows all the ropes” (p 298). In the eyes of the American public, Clare Quilty is a successful artist, but to Humbert, his ‘art’ (movies and plays) is commercial and therefore not true art. When talking about Lolita’s interests, he writes, “Mentally, I found her to be a disgustingly conventional little girl. Sweet hot jazz, square dancing, gooey fudge sundaes, musicals, movie magazines and so forth—these were the obvious items in her list of beloved things” (148). Humbert considers movies “conventional” Art is supposed to be original because artists have a unique perspective, therefore Humbert would not consider movies to be works of art. In regards to plays, Humbert remarks, “I detest the theatre as being a primitive and putrid form, historically speaking” (200). Humbert disdains the type of art that Quilty produces. Even though American society would consider Quilty’s works to be art, Humbert does not.
Even Humbert’s nympholeptic way of seeing the world is artistic.
“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine (oh, how you have to cringe and hide!), in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs… the little deadly demon among the wholesome children,” he explains (p 17). Since nymphets are not necessarily the prettiest girls, a nympholept has to be able to see what others cannot. Humbert prides himself in being able to see nymphets, but he keeps it to himself. “Ah, leave me alone in my pubescent park, in the mossy garden. Let them play around me forever” (p 21). Until Lolita, Humbert enjoyed admiring nymphets from a distance. He stays hidden. Quilty is impotent, so he too can only watch from a distance. However, he is much more public about it. That is where he and Quilty differ the …show more content…
most.
Despite the fact that they are both nympholpts, Quilty does not conceal it the way Humbert believes it is supposed to be concealed. In fact, Quilty is very public with his attraction to nymphets. He has almost been to jail because of it. Lolita’s friend, Edusa, warns her that “Cue liked little girls” (275). Many people are aware of it. He even makes pornographic movies with young girls. When he meets Lolita, she is still a young girl. She falls in love with him and he takes her to the ranch where he tries to convince her to be in one of his films. Nympholepts are supposed to “cringe and hide,” but Clare Quilty does not (p 17). It is this difference that makes losing Lolita to Humbert even harder for him.
Humbert is always second to Quilty.
While on a drive with Lolita, he is looking for somewhere to park his car in when he sees a Quilty’s “resplendent, rubious” convertible backing out of a spot (p 117). He “gratefully” slips into the gap left by Quilty (p 117). He then writes, “I immediately regretted my haste for I noticed that my predecessor had now taken advantage of a garage-like shelter nearby where there was ample space for another car; but I was too impatient to follow his example” (117). Humbert thinks he is getting a good spot, but Quilty has found a better one. This incident with the parking spot is a symbol for their relationship. Until the end, Humbert thinks he has won Lolita. He thinks he has it figured out, but throughout their journey, Quilty is always a step ahead. Lolita is secretly having a relationship with Quilty for most of their drive across the
country.
In a similar way, Humbert thinks he is above the commercial ways of Americans, but Clare Quilty plays into those ways with his commercial art and his popularity and is successful in doing so. By doing so, he was able to win Lolita’s love. “He broke my heart. You merely broke my life,” Lolita implies when speaking to Humbert (p 279). In order for Quilty to have broken Lolita’s heart, she had to have been in love with him. Even though Quilty and Humbert are so similar, Lolita is able to fall in love with Quilty because of the ways in which he is different from Humbert. Clare Quilty is not only Humbert’s shadow, but he also represents an American Humbert Humbert, what Humbert could be if he were to abide by the American societal norms that Humbert disdains. Clare Quilty is more popular and more open than Humbert is. Both men are well-read, but Quilty does not seem to be as obnoxious as Humbert is. While on the road, Humbert is constantly boring Lolita. Since she is such a “disgustingly conventional little girl,” she was easily bored by Humbert and their journey (148). He mentions her “her fits of disorganized boredom” (148). He later realizes that she used her boredom as a defense mechanism: “She would mail her vulnerability in trite brashness and boredom, whereas I, using for my desperately detached comments an artificial tone of voice that set my own last teeth on edge, provoked my audience to such outbursts of rudeness as made any further conversation impossible” (p 284). They created their own routine over the course of their travels. He caused her boredom to which she would react rudely. Lolita was bored by the long days of driving as well as Humbert’s “detached comments.” She also used it to hide her helplessness. However, Quilty and his American ways did not bore her. He “saw -- smiling-- through everything and everybody, because he was not like [Humbert] or [Lolita] but a genius. A great guy. Full of fun” (275). Lolita is able to fall in love with Quilty because he is not like Humbert and she enjoys his energy and his lively facade.
In the end of the novel, Humbert goes to Quilty’s house to seek revenge for his wrongdoings towards Lolita. Their confrontation is supposed to be Humbert’s heroic moment but it turns out to be dramatic and comedic. Quilty mocks the poetic sentence Humbert had written him. They then wrestle on the ground and Humbert drops his gun. Quilty plays piano and Humbert keeps shooting Quilty but he will not die. Eventually, Humbert thinks he has killed him and he goes downstairs to find Quilty’s friends gathered in his livingroom. Humbert tells them what he has just done and they go along with it but they do not believe him. In the end, Quilty dies and “the ingenious play staged for [Humbert] by Quilty” is over (p 305). Their interaction is very significant. Humbert notes that it was Quilty’s play which gives him the power in a situation that Humbert went into thinking he would possess the power. Since Quilty’s writing is much more commercial, it might also explain why their confrontation is so comedic and seems so unlike Humbert’s writing, since Quilty’s writing is much more commercial.
When Quilty reads the poem Humbert wrote aloud, he ridicules it with comments like “A little repetitious, what?” and “Getting smutty, eh?” (p 300) Clare Quilty, as mainstream and popularized as he is, is able to mock a poem, a work of art, Humbert has written. In a sense, Clare Quilty represents the American society mocking Humbert Humbert for a piece of art he has created. Humbert cannot win. “You will wound me hideously and then rot in jail while I recuperate in a tropical setting,” Quilty warns Humbert (p 301). If Quilty survives, then he will still be in a much better situation than Humbert will be in.