US-China Foreign Language, ISSN 1539-8080
September 2014, Vol. 12, No. 9, 774-778
Humbert’s Confession in Lolita∗
LI Ying, XIAO Bin
Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China热带气旋
Lolita, the Confession of a White Widow (2005) is a postmodern masterpiece by the Russian-American author
Vladimir Nabokov. The novel follows the tradition of confession in Western literature is alleged to be a
confession made by a middle-aged white man, Humbert Humbert, in the prison before his death about his hideous
crime against an innocent girl—Lolita. The whole story fits into the U-type structure of biblical stories and is also
characterized of a loss-and-return pattern. While the first part of the novel is no more than a pudo-confession
since Humbert keeps trying to vindicate himlf and exonerate him from the conviction of rape, the cond part
rves as the real confession in that the character admits his crime and is eventually forgiven by and reconciled
with his victim. In this thesis, the author intends to interpret Humbert’s confession in terms of the changes in the
addres in the narrative, and changes in Humbert’s attitude toward Lolita and himlf with the biblical
references.
Keywords: Lolita, Humbert, confession, Bible
All Rights Rerved.
Introduction
In Lolita, the Confession of a White Widow (2005), Nabokov prents the change of the protagonist, Humbert, from a solipsistic and lf-indulgent pedophile to a remorful and generous lover. The whole story fits
into the U-type structure of biblical stories and is also characterized of a loss-and-return pattern. The prodigal son,
Humbert falls from innocence when his ideal paradi is frozen as his premature love is abolished. He solipsizes
a nymphet land where actually he is entrapped and Lolita is victimized. Not until Lolita runs away from his
surveillance does he realize that he los Lolita forever, or, she has never been his nymphet in fact. After his
健康教育主题班会sincere penitence he learns to respect Lolita as an independent person and then obtains her forgiveness. He is
redeemed as he kills his double, Quilty, who percutes Lolita as he does, and dies before his final conviction.
The tradition of confession in English literature dates back to Augustine with a biblical significance as “the expression of true penitence and the condition of divine forgiveness” (Jeffrey, 1992, pp. 185-186). However,
the first part of the story is a pudo-confession in that it is full of Humbert’s emingly lf-defending
vindication for himlf before the jury and misleading narrative about his crime. The readers cannot feel his
sincere penitence until the cond part of the novel, which is directed to the readers and reinterprets many
details about Lolita for her own sake. In this paper, the author will contrast the changes in the addres
es in the
∗ The paper is sponsored by “The Importation and Development of High-Caliber Talents Project of Beijing Municipal
Institutions” (基金项目：北京市属高校青年拔尖人才项目（CIT&TCD201404119），英国维多利亚文化中的道德体系研究).
LI Ying, lecturer, Ph.D., School of Foreign Studies, Beijing Information Science and Technology University.
XIAO Bin, associate professor, Ph.D., School of Foreign Studies, Beijing Information Science and Technology University.
HUMBERT’S CONFESSION IN LOLITA775
narrative, and changes in Humbert’s attitude toward Lolita and himlf so as to illustrate that Humbert, in spite of
his hideous crimes, is sincere in his repentance and is qualified for Lolita’s forgiveness and his reconciliation to
her in the end.
Change in Addres
As is conformed to the linear quential structure of the Bible, the novel ends in a trial, though unfinished.
Humbert is confronted with a jury who rve as God in the Last Judgment. He claims that he writes the
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confession first in order to defen himlf in the court but finally to repent. In Part I, Humbert address for
most of the time the ladies and gentlemen of the jury to convince them of his alleged innocence. At the
beginning of Part I which recounts the period through Humbert’s first rape of Lolita, Humbert’s lf-accusations
are largely lf-rving. He claims to be plagued with guilt becau of his actions. With great skill, Humbert
manipulates the reader. Throughout Part I his narratees remain primarily the intratextual “ladies and gentlemen
of the jury”, rather than the general extratextual “reader” he usually address in Part II (Lynd, 1990, p. 236).
The motivation for the narration is apparent in the narrating character’s ideological or pudo-ideological
explanations for his behavior and in his tendency to blame Dolores at least partially, thereby diminishing his
own responsibility (Marcus, 2005, p. 198).
He claimed after his first rape of her that it was she who duced him like “some immortal demon is disguid as a female child”. Hence he turns the victim into a victimizer, the pathological into the healthy, and the
destructive into the harmless. According to the hypothesis of “the lying narrating character”, Humbert is a cynic,
well aware of the gravity of his deeds, employing any rhetorical strategy at his disposal in order to prove his All Rights Rerved.
ostensible innocence. Humbert imagines that the fictional readers he appeals to and the jury are willing to listen
and reexamine their positions. Therefore, they are convincible. Humbert is interested in changing the attitudes of
his narratees regarding x offenders. He claims that the beliefs the narratees hold are fal, founded on a
misunderstanding on the part of society, which judges such offenders without knowing their true nature. Again,
Humbert tries to alleviate the gravity of his crime and clarify its meaning by imputing it to a group of people.
Here Humbert does not regard his sin as a prototype for the sins of the whole of humanity but as a sin that
characterizes a specific group—the perverts (Marcus, 2005, pp. 198-199).
In the first part of the novel, Humbert address the jury on the first page with the largeness of rhetoric, desiring us to give him absolution, forgiveness, or some acknowledgment of understanding. He does not desire
acceptance into the moral community after death, but a certain acknowledgement that he has a moral claim to his
actions (Ch’ien, 2000, p. 67).
But in Part II, Humbert’s narratees change as he, for the most part, address only his “readers”, a move that shifts his audience outside the text, extradiegetic discour thus displacing the largely intradiegetic discour of
Part I. He address the reader directly no less than 29 times. He begins also to refer to his writings as confessions,
increasingly turns his satirical wrath against himlf, and is no longer careful to hide from the reader the
desperation of Lolita’s situation or his own cruelty in maintaining it (Lynd, 1990, p. 240). As the story progress,
another motivation of his confession grows more pronounced in its last part—the admission of error and the
expression of guilt. As his n of guilt grows even more acute, he decides to turn the account of defen for
himlf into a work of art. The contrasting motivations for Humbert’s narration—lf-justification, on one hand,
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HUMBERT’S CONFESSION IN LOLITA
and confession of his faults, on the other—sometimes rve the same goal. The two motivations are equally
helpful to someone who does not know how to save his lost and desperate soul from the abyss into which it has
fallen (Marcus, 2005, p. 201). Confession becomes the way through which he saves his soul and achieves his
moral purification and redemption.
Changes in Humbert the Protagonist
Humbert undergoes progressive but dramatic changes from the beginning to the end of the story. He moves from lf-indulgent pedophile to tragic protagonist. He moves beyond his obssional passion to a not altogether
straightforward declaration of genuine love and, finally, to a realization of the loss suffered not by him but by
Lolita (Appel, 1993, p. lxiv). The Humbert who is prented to us at the beginning of the text does not merge with
the Humbert who is writing until the final pages of the book. Similarly, in the famous opening passage, Lolita is
introduced as a purely aesthetic/xual object (Lynd, 1990, p. 231). The opening paragraph is marked by
Humbert’s luxurious celebration of the linguistic glory of her name: “Lo-lee-ta. The tip of the tongue taking a trip
of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta”(Phelan, 2007, p. 233). Not until the final
pages of the text does Humbert give us a subjective Lolita, desolipsized at last. Until almost the end of Lolita,
Humbert express his deepest n of guilt and grief.
Many times throughout the text Humbert attempts to justify his behavior towards Dolores, claiming that, contrary to his own expectations and tho of his narratees, the child with whom he had xual intercour was
not innocent at all, but rather corrupt, licentious, and vulgar. He did not render her impure, since her “purity” had
already been decrated by previous xual experience (Marcus, 2005, p. 194). From Humbert’s view point, All Rights Rerved.
Lolita is nothing but an object of his contemplation and a work of art without her own feelings and thoughts.
Sometimes we are appalled by his morbid appreciation of Lolita, the girl who body Humbert attempts to
conquer: “My only grudge against nature was that I could not turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips
to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her nacreous liver, the a-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys”
(Nabokov, 2005, p. 174; pt. 2, ch. 32).
In Part I, Humbert declares his repulsion to doctors and rejects any help by them. Dia, as a metaphor of sin in the Bible, dwells in human beings as sin does. Jesus’ healing of dias is considered as both physical and
spiritual. Humbert’s rejection of healing reflects his refusal of salvation and blocks the way of his soul to
redemption. In contrast, after he los Lolita in Elphinstone, he is bet by desperation. At the moment, he
decides to turn to religion for help. Although the priest’s consolation cannot completely relieve Humbert from his
acute n of guilt, his willing to at least accept the healing power incarnated as the divine help shows the
emerging signs of his repentance and is the first step which leads to his ultimate redemption.
Biblically, to repent means “to change one’s mind” or to turn back, to learn one’s lesson, to be filled with remor. The Greek root in most NT (New Testament) instances is the word metanoia, which implies a profound
change of heart (Jeffrey, 1992, pp. 659-665). In Part II, the changes in Humbert’s mind are lf-evident. He
admits that “it was always my habit and method to ignore Lolita’s states of mind while comforting my own ba
lf” (Nabokov, 2005, p. 304; pt. 2, ch. 32). “I was to her not a boy friend, not a glamour man, not a pal, not even
a person at all, but just two eyes and a foot of engorged brawn” (Nabokov, 2005, p. 300; pt. 2, ch. 32). This
verbal enlargement of his small piece of flesh reduces to absurdity the legend of the phallus, the basic conceit
游泳有几种泳姿HUMBERT’S CONFESSION IN LOLITA777
supporting much of the book, which depends on a willing suspension of disbelief, a collusion to deny the reality
that no penis can live up to its fabulous mythical importance (Moore, 2001, pp. 78-79).
He proclaims his genuine love to Lolita and denounces himlf near the end of the novel. The first ti
me he address Lo as “Dolly Schiller” indicates that he has acknowledged her identity independent from his control.
After regaining the ability to love, Humbert fully realizes the riousness of his harm to Lolita. His true penitence
from the bottom of his heart paves the way for Lolita’s forgiveness and his salvation.
Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Redemption
成长需要什么E. B. Redlich states the idea succinctly when he says: “Forgiveness is full restoration to fellowship” (as
cited in Taylor, 1946, p. 1). The condition of forgiveness is not only repentance, but also the prence of the
forgiving spirit. In modern theology, it signifies full restoration to fellowship. We forgive the wrong-doer by
the action of love. We repair the broken fellowship and re-establish it upon strong and enduring foundations
(Taylor, 1946, p. 23).
The broken relationships between Humbert and Lolita are restored in Humbert’s part by his inten true love exhibited in her shabby worn home when they meet again and in Lolita’s part by her forgiveness of his hideous
crimes on her. When they meet again, Humbert himlf is astonished by her crowning him as a “good father” and
“honey”. “The Frigid Princess” dubbed by Humbert in Part I never smiles to him except in cheating. But in Part II
she displays her forgiveness of his unpardonable sins by honoring him “a good father” and “honey”. The process
of reconciliation is completed by both Humbert’s true repentance and Lolita’s spirit ready to forgive.
Humbert finally overcomes his lf-centeredness and transcends his solipsism by recognizing her All Rights Rerved.
subjectivity and her autonomy. He does not, with blinkered lfishness, continue to harass her to leave with him.
This is one of the first moments of enlightenment for Humbert Humbert: He es Lolita as a parate soul with a
private, untouchable will to do as she believes. He has no designs here; he waits for her connt—as if for the first
time eing her as having the right to disnt (Ch’ien, 2000, p. 69).
However, neither Humbert’s repentance nor Lolita’s forgiveness suggests his penalty being removed. Paul said that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23). To sin is to die. The repentance of the sinful man cannot free
him from punishment. The redemption of a man connotes a price to pay. His sinful soul is to be redeemed for his
final salvation. At the heart of the image of redemption is the idea of paying a price to regain something that will
otherwi be forfeited. Redemption thus carries double connotations: It implies deliverance and restitution but
also a cost that must be paid (Ryken, Wilhoit, & Longman, 1998, p. 698). Near the end of the story, Humbert kills
his double—Quilty, who formulates Humbert’s entrapment, his criminal passion, his n of shame and
lf-hate. He is at once a projection of his guilt and a parody of the psychological Double (Appel, 1993, p. lx).
Humbert’s killing of him also symbolizes the end of his own life. He dies of heart attack before the final conviction. His willingness to ntence himlf to 35 years for rape—indeed, his willingness to u the term
“rape” for the first time—shows that “he stops rationalizing his behavior and starts taking responsibility for
ruining her life” (Phelan, 2007, p. 236). The spiritual punishment is even more striking and effective t情感小故事
han the
legal one. At the end of the story, Humbert wishes Lo good. The lfish and lf-centered Humbert in the past is
transformed into a noble spirit with generous love, who respects Lolita’s choice and bless her in any way. His
expression of remor and confession of guilt are sincere. His confession is changed from a “palliative of
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HUMBERT’S CONFESSION IN LOLITA
articulate art” into “the refuge of art” where he and his fatal American child love are entombed and atoned.
Conclusion
In spite of the arguments against the reliability in his narrative, the repentance part in the confession is sincere enough to re-model Humbert as a returned prodigal son. The addre of his confession is changed from
the jury in Part I into the reader in Part II, which conforms to the change in the purpo of his confession.
Confession is the way to express one’s guilt so as to ek peace in one’s heart and reconciliation to God. It is ud
by everybody ranging from a rvant to a saint such as St. Augustine. By means of his confession, Humbert
雷历风行reflects his life with Lolita and becomes aware of his irrevocable harm to her. He realizes that although Quilty
我的小书屋breaks her heart he breaks her life. Anyway, admission of his sin is the sign of repentance and the first step to
salvation. We can feel his sincere penitence when he ntences himlf 35 years for rape. Though h
e is not yet
convicted in the court, his conscience has already suffered from the agony of his guilt. Like the scroll in the
Revelation, his confession is the medium by means of which Humbert records his sin, repentance and redemption.
He receives salvation through his confession and restores his broken relationship with Lolita and with himlf.
Clo to the end of the novel, he regains his ability to love. It is love, the most important motif in the Bible, that
saves him from the postmodern man’s chaos and the abyss of sin. He is justified by his faith in love and is
endowed with a peaceful death in his body but resurrection in his soul.
References
Appel, A. ( Ed.). (1993). The annotated Lolita revid and updated. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Ch’ien, E. N.-M. (2000). Worlds of exile: Nabokov, Rushdie, Kingston, Roy, and Diaz (Doctoral disrtation). University of All Rights Rerved.
Virginia, Diss, Charlottesville.
Jeffrey, D. L. (Ed.). (1992). A dictionary of Biblical tradition in English literature. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
Lynd, M. R. (1990). Tragic story, tragic discour: Modem and postmodern narrative tragedies (Doctoral disrtation). The Ohio State University, Diss, Columbus.
Marcus, A. (2005). The lf-deceptive and the other-deceptive narrating character: The ca of Lolita. Style, 39(2), 187-205.
Moore, A. R. (2001). How unreliable is Humbert in Lolita?. Journal of Modern Literature, XXV, 71-80.
Nabokov, V. (2005). Lolita. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Rearch Press.
Phelan, J. (2007). Estranging unreliability, bonding unreliability, and the ethics of Lolita. Narrative, 15(2), 222-238.
Ryken, L., Wilhoit, F. C., & Longman, T. (Eds.). (1998). Dictionary of biblical imagery. Downers Grove, Nottingham: Inter Varsity Press.
Taylor, V. (1946). Forgiveness and reconciliation: A study in New Testament theology. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited.
