Can Lolita be read as a story about redemption?

Question

Besides being disturbing in so many ways, is it possible that this novel is about Humbert's redemption?

Please explain why you think it can be or cannot be. Also if you can provide examples that would be great.

Much thanks,
S

Answer 1

Nabokov LOATHED books that existed to give moral lessons about issues like redemption. He said so many times. His whole artistic life aimed to discredit prepackaged moral lessons. His fiction is about paying close attention to reality, with its contradictions and dead ends and ambiguities as well as its transgressive pleasures.

"Lolita" is NOT about Humbert's redemption, or anyone's. Humbert has done a dreadful thing that has destroyed Dolores Haze and destroyed him...and, at the same time, let him into a world of experience that I don't think he'd give up if threatened with hellfire. Many people have been disturbed by the book's sexual element, but if you pay attention to the ending, you'll see that the basic premise is really scarier than the sex.

"I am thinking of aurochs and angels, the secret of durable pigments, prophetic sonnets, the refuge of art. And this is the only immortality you and I may share, my Lolita." No promises, no guarantees. Immortality...maybe. Not redemption.

Answer 2

I think that Nabokov's characters can be defined more by their amoralism. Humbert is in love with Lolita, but is in love with his idea of her ("light of my life, fire of my loins. Lo-lee-ta...') and he is in some respects an unreliable narrator and we should not take all that he says at face value. It's a story about love and obsession. Nabokov himself said that he was adverse to writing moral novels and I don't think that Lolita shouild be dissected for any moral lesson.

Answer 3

i think so. think of karma.