Like many other authors Nabokov uses colors to describe emotions or depict feelings or incite sentiments in the reader. The three main colors used in this section are black, blue, and white. White typically represents innocence and is often used to describe things Lolita is wearing or Lolita herself. Humbert describes the attire she wears: "the white wide little-boy shorts", " the white breast-kerchief", and "Her cap had a white peak" (232). He then goes on to describe how the tennis ball "becomes whiter" and more resilient when it is in her presence. This I believe parallels to the fact that Humbert views Lolita as becoming more innocent and resilient when she plays tennis and it is something that she can do that makes her more like a normal person or having the "very geometry of basic reality" and less just like an object of his (233) but also he feels something he can be proud of. The color white also represents woe as Humbert describes the white stones he sees on the road to finding Lolita after she has run away, or course looking back on it and asking "why she did not go away forever" but saying that he whites stones "seemed the very initial of woe" not his woe for leaving her but his recognition that the poor child had the opportunity to run away from him but didn't take it. He asked himself later if it was because of the "quality of her new summer clothes" he had bought her, or just her impish and rebellious nature.
While he perceives Lolita as innocent and naive he often describes himself as "dark" and in one part calls him and Lolita a "black sock and sloppy white sock" (170) and calls himself "a blackmailer" (226). He again contrasts another color with black, blue. He uses black to describe things that he views as malign such as himself and the detective who he notices to be following and investigating him and he is suspicious of. Blue is used to describe Humbert's emotions of views of things. An example that shows the blue as it describes beauty and bliss in contrast to the "dark reality" is when he says that he knew when he was with Lolita what he was doing was "atrocious, unbelievable, unbearable", and that it was a "dot of blackness in the blue of my bliss" (171). This quote shows Humbert's conflicting emotions and hints he might feel guilty about having the aberrant relationship with her and after realization it knocked his "poor heart out of its groove" (171). Blue is also used often to describe the scenery and demonstrates that as he is writing about what happened in the past and recounting all of the things he sees along the way as blue. When describing the scenery, looking back on things he describes everything in color, he especially focuses on the description of things that are blue like " bluish beauties" to describe the mountains, "blue flowers", the "hazy blue view", and then describes the lake as "Blue, blue Crater Lake" (188, 160). I believe this is symbolic to the fact that he regrets what he has done or indicates the underlying feeling that he should have enjoyed things when he could and he writes about the little details he thinks he remembers to try and preserve their memory.
Besides the clever remarks made by Humbert like " Lo and Behold", Nabokov frequently uses irony throughout this section (163). The use of irony implies that he offers criticisms of the world, which introduces the underlying theme in the novel about how society influences some of the negativity described in the novel and the oppression of certain groups.The Headmaster of an all girls school called Beardsley, the name also being ironic in itself, makes many ironic quotes that Humbert reflects on. One of the quotes "We live not only in a world of thoughts, but also in a world of things. Words without experience are meaningless" (180) describes the materialistic nature of humans.
Another quote that introduces problems in society is when the school outlines their interests and states that "we are more interested in communication than in composition. That is, with due respect to Shakespeare and others, we want our girls to communicate freely with the live world around them rather than plunge into musty old books (179), and that that the school aims at "preparing students for mutually satisfactory mating". It is ironic that it says they are not trying to offend Shakespeare but later refers to his work and other great authors work as "musty old books". This quote introduces and discusses the flaws in social standards for women, and how at the time women were being taught that their duty was not to learn and be intelligent but to be able to look pretty and serve the needs of men. A newspaper from the school addressed to the parents also states that fathers should stop being "old ogres" and "to be happy in the admiration and company of boys she likes" and "have wholesome fun together" (187). Humbert disgusted by hearing the school promoting relationships in young children recounts to himself that high school boys are "self-sufficient rapists" which is ironic because he is one himself (188).
Humbert interrupts the vivid description he gives of the stunningly beautiful mountainous area him and Lolita are traveling through to describe one of the town they stopped in. He states ""A zoo in Indiana where a large troop of monkeys lived on concrete replica of Christopher Columbus' flagship. Billions of dead, of half dead, fish-smelling Mayflies in every window of every eating place all among a dreary sandy shore. Fat gulls on big stones as seen from the ferry City of Cheboygan, whose ventilator pipe passed under the city sewer. Lincoln's home, largely spurious, with parlor books and period furniture that most visitors reverently accepted as personal belongings" (160). This shift in tone and topic presents the idea that this town offers the reality of the world: that people do not care about the past or their heritage, as referenced by the ideas that people built zoos for profit,on top of historical monuments. It also alludes to the fact that humans are dirty and disgusting as we live among billions of foul smelling creatures and the air we breathe is polluted by waste.This I believe is symbolic to the true nature of people, through we may seem like we are full of good intentions and prospects of creating a better future, we forget about our mistakes and confuse our past, as presented by the idea of the confusion about the use of President's Lincoln's belongings- likely alluding to his life's work and involvement in the Civil War. This shows again that people really only care about themselves and often fail to see their own faults, this is one theme presented in the novel and is supported by what I have mentioned in my previous posts how Humbert neglected to admit his wrongdoings.
Humbert also uses irony purposely to describe his life and Lolita's situation. Humbert refers to himself as a "dark-and-handsome, not un-Celtic, probably high-church, possibly very high-church" man. When he states that he is "high church" he is referring to his faithfulness to God and his priestliness, this of course is ironic because of the immortality of his relationship with Lolita, and it is clear here that he is mocking his own vulgarity. Humbert also in one part of the story refers to Lolita's world or life as "Humberland" which is an allusion or analogy to Alice in Wonderland in which Lolita is Alice and is trying to find her way in a strange world in which she reacts "with rash curiosity, she surveyed it with a shrug of amused distaste; and it seemed to me now that she was ready to turn away from it with something akin to plain repulsion" (168). This shows how Humbert as uncompassionate and inconsiderate as he knows the psychological adversity she is experiencing but wished only to fulfill his own needs and so he continues to keep her as his possession his "slave child"(190), or "his little concubine" (210) .
Besides using language to paint a picture or depict specific characters Nabokov also uses names intelligently. Humbert comes up with nicknames for most of the people he meets for example, he briefly describes the names of two criminals he sees the adds for their capture, "Bryan Bryanski" or Sullen Sullivan" (224). Those names of course are not their actual names but pseudonyms he has given them, however they make them seem more similar to his own name Humbert Humbert, and states "have one of these faces melt into my own" in order to tell his life story (224). This introduces the idea that Humbert might be starting to view himself as a criminal and has realized that he will be held accountable for his actions, yet at this point in the novel he is still not acting on these feelings of guilt and continues in his relationship with Lolita. At one point he also says " Annabel Haze, alias Dolores Lee, alias Loleeta", of course paralleling to his young love, Annabel Lee, who initiated his interest and amusement in young girls, where Lolita was simply a diversion (169). This comparison shows through rearranging their names how Humbert considers them the same person in his mind and sees no issue in having a relationship with her.
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