Vladimir Nabokov's Lolit Sexual Deviance And Normality

I was warned that if I I went in to reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita expecting to bring out some deeper purpose, that I would be sorely disappointed; however, it is human nature to search for meaning. “‘Knowing’ Lolita: Sexual Deviance and Normality in Nabokov's Lolita,” may not bring a full meaning to Nabokov infamous novel, but Eric Goldman’s interpretation brings forth an important argument that the text makes. Goldman’s article addresses the way that Lolita challenges conservative ideas that American society holds in regards to female, particularly adolescent female, sexuality by discussing the representation of Dolores Haze in the novel, alongside the cultural setting caused by the “Kinsey Reports (87).” Specifically, Goldman zeroes in on the way, “Nabokov suggests that the concepts of ‘deviance’ and ‘normalcy’ are disturbingly fluid, contingent upon out social perspective, and shaped by our own prejudiced and desires (89).” This means that Nabokov wrote his novel as he did in order to show how “deviance” and “normalcy” are potentially a result or perspective, and through Humbert Humbert, we get a biased view of Dolores’ normal sexuality as deviant (88).
To demonstrate this, Goldman analyzes the way that Humbert’s narration represents Lolita versus the way that she is portrayed in other ways (95).
Additionally, the article discusses the “Kinsey Reports,” which disputed the concept of sexual innocence in adolescent girls and married women, to show the cultural context surrounding women’s sexualities at the time (Goldman 95). Ultimately, Goldman comes to the conclusion that Lolita, like the “Kinsey Reports”, aims to challenge societal notions of female innocence by positioning Dolores’ sexually behavior a normal part of development rather than a rather than a sign of amorality, as the unreliable
H.H. would have the reader believe (98). One of the major strengths of Goldman’s article is the way in which he proves that Lolita’s sexual behavior is normal for her age. In particular, Goldman points out how Humbert insists that Lolita’s sexual actions at such a young age are a sign of deviant behavior even though he recalls getting sexually intimate with his girlfriend at a similar age (95). Subsequently, after this argument proving Dolores’ sexual development is within the realm of normal, Goldman makes another interesting conclusion. The author writes, “The process of Lolita’s discovery of her sexuality, not nearly so perverse and unique as Humber would like to believe, is irreversibly warped by Humber’s exploitation of her (Goldman 96).” In saying this, Goldman is stating that the only abnormal part of Lolita’s development is her step-father’s abuse, a claim that works against the way that Humbert frames his narrative. Both of these aspects of the argument do a good job pulling on subtleties that are deeply hidden by Lolita’s unreliable narrator. While many of Goldman’s arguments are quite intriguing, there are still several flaws in his article. One section of the journal, titled “The Apple Trail in Lolita,” goes into depth on the ways in which Lolita’s narrator sets Dolores up as a modern Eve of Eden (Goldman 89). He does this by examining the use of apple imagery and allusions to the biblical Eden that are littered throughout the text (Goldman 90). While this investigation does shed light on an important metaphor used throughout Nabokov’s novel, it does seem to stray away from the primary point of the article. Lolita’s comparison to Eve does show the manner in which Humbert demonizes Dolores’ sexuality, but it could have been done briefly rather than in the four pages that Goldman devotes to it. The other primary fault in Goldman’s article is the conclusion that Goldman comes to about Lolita being a feminist novel. Goldman explains, "the novel questions the ability of myth to assess modern female sexuality and morality, essentially interrogating the line drawn between the “deviant” behavior of dangerous women and the “normal” behavior of “good” ones. In this sense, the novel is as much a part of feminism as it is of modernism (101).” While this claim is based in sound logic surrounding the way that Lolita addressed female sexuality, the conclusion that it is a completely feminist novel is questionable (Goldman 101). Also, It comes as a shock in the article as Goldman barely references feminist criticism prior to this point, and he never mentions postmodernism outside of this quote. Due to the sudden addition of the concepts, it appears to be rather forced in the article. One of the hardest parts to read in Lolita is the point in which Humbert Humbert tracks Lolita to the home of her and her husband and begs for her to return to him (Nabokov 278). After he eventually bursts into tears and pleads for her back she replies, “‘No, honey, no (Nabokov 279).’” This show of tenderness expresses the depth of Humbert’s abuse, that, despite everything, he could still put himself in a place that forced her to care for him. Goldman doesn’t see this scene so negatively. By becoming an ordinary housewife, Goldman argues, she is challenging what society expects from Dolores. Goldman explains it as, “A deviation from the expected corruption or downfall of the deviant woman, was more than enough to disturb American audiences—unaccustomed, perhaps, in the 1950s, to see the hitherto clear boundary between deviance and normalcy dissolved (Goldman 100).” Goldman suggests that, by having a normal life, Lolita serves to challenge expectation about what she would become after the experiences in her childhood. In this way, Lolita combats the lines between sexual morality and amorality from her first appearance all the way to her last.