Lolita Defense

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A Confessional Defense Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is a novel that contains an unreliable narrator. The narrator is unreliable because he is telling a story to save himself from a worse punishment than what he would give himself. The narrator is a man named Humbert Humbert who is awaiting trial for a crime he has committed. Although Humbert Humbert confesses too many crimes, whether he explicitly states them or not, he ultimately confesses as a way of defending himself. His reasoning for what he has done and his confession serves as an evasive maneuver against the condemning punishment he is possibly going to receive. Humbert Humbert explicitly confesses he is a murderer at the beginning of Nabokov’s novel: “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.” (Nabokov 9) Humbert’s whole confession is written in this “fancy prose style” of writing. (9) Humbert uses pompous, big and overly exaggerated words when writing his confession. The obvious crimes Humbert confesses to are the crimes he commits against Lolita. Humbert toys with the idea of…show more content…
affect for any length of time a wary, albeit weary, nymphet.” (128) Luckily for the pedophile, Humbert, Lolita initiates the sex between the two by saying “here is where we start.” (133) Humbert explains that “it was [Lolita] who seduced [him]”…show more content…
The killing of Quilty is because of what Quilty has done to Lolita and to Humbert himself. Quilty rapes Lolita and takes her away from Humbert. Humbert explains the killing of Quilty by basically saying that Quilty was the worst of the two men between himself and Quilty: “And do not pity C. Q. One had to choose between him and H.H., and one wanted H.H. to exist.” (309) “Dolores Haze had been deprived of her childhood by a maniac” named Humbert Humbert but had also been victimized by Quilty. (283) To exercise justice for Lolita, Humbert kills Quilty, at least this is what he wants the reader to

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