De-Victimizing Lolita: Removing Emotion from the Classroom

De-victimizing Lolita: Removing Emotion from the Classroom

Abstract: This paper focuses on Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. Specifically the argument discusses the need for reform within the classroom setting regarding student reaction and interpretation to the text. Class discussion involving Lolita tends to fall under a blanket of socially constructed presumptions that lend the discussion toward a shallow and judgmental reading of the text, and this tendency limits the discussion. This paper argues that, for a teacher attempting to teach this novel, it is important to limit the amount of emotionally reactionary responses and guide the class towards a more allegorical or symbolic representation of the text. This paper is intended for publication in College English, which is a bi-monthly periodical published by the National Council of Teachers of English.

Lolita in the Classroom

At what point does a reader decide whether a narrator is reliable or unreliable, and what real difference does this decision make. If a narrator is deemed reliable, does the story gain any truth or significance that it had been missing before the determination was made? If the narrator is decidedly unreliable, what other sources are available to bring the reader closer to or passed the deceptions of the narrator? At what point does the narrator's unreliability begin to reflect on the author? And if that connection is sustained, should the reader then assume that the author is also unreliable, forever mistrusted and scrutinized? These questions are integral when discussing Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, for within this novel the reader is asked to separate herself from conventional ideas of morality, decency and reality, and place herself within the trust of an unreliable narrator.

The unreliability of the narrator should be the key point of interpretation when discussing Lolita, however, this is generally not the case within the classroom. In my educational career I have studied Lolita in two classroom settings, one as an undergraduate and one as a graduate student. In both of these classes the discussions ignored the science of the unreliable narrator and chose to focus exclusively on the moral implications presented by Humbert Humbert concerning twelve-year old girls. I would have expected such a discussion in the undergraduate setting; the novel's shock value is high, and for the untrained reader, it is natural to focus on the surface morality of the novel rather than the underlying narrative discourse. However, when I found myself again discussing Lolita with this same narrow approach in my graduate class, I began to wonder if the majority of readers only focused on Humbert Humbert's transgressions. Had the rest of the world missed the point? Could no one recognize the genius behind the monster? Is it possible for the average reader to grasp the ironic intentions of the author, or is Lolita forever overshadowed by the reader's need to judge and dismiss?

Too often Lolita is read from only one perspective, the perspective of monstrosity. "Nabokov the pornographer threatened to expose and corrupt others, particularly children, through the publication of a novel about unnatural desire" (Whiting 835). The tendency is for the average reader to become entangled in a moral debate, to take opposition to the seemingly criminal and amoral acts of the narrator, to condemn him for his blatant and grotesque sin. This surface analysis of the text was prevalent at the time of publication, delaying the release of the novel in the United States by three years. "Most reviews of the novel [Lolita] dealt with the narrow issue of its alleged obscenity. The novel was published three years earlier in France because Nabokov could not find an American publisher ready to risk publishing it" (Tamir-Ghez 65). Critical theory since this time has uncovered multiple layers of interpretation that offer much more meaningful analysis of the novel without labeling it in such pornographic terms. The critical discourse on the subject is emphatically unsympathetic to the accusations of pornography and monstrosity that the novel received upon its first publication. However, in the classroom this shift has not occurred.

Classroom discussions tend to be highly volatile concerning Lolita. In one of my two experiences with this phenomenon, a fellow student became distraught over what she considered to be the "rape" of a Delores (Lolita), and she associated this interpretation with her own personal experiences concerning child abuse. When this student encountered opposition within the class discussion, her emotional state completely dissolved, and she became too emotional to stay in the class. She left in tears, leaving a room full of angry women, poised to argue her point in her absence. This dramatic reaction completely tainted the rest of the discussion. There was no room left for interpretation beyond the emotional state this student projected onto the class. The result was a dry and simplistic discussion of the novel that helped no one.

The mistake this student made, as well as the majority of the class, was that she limited her interpretation within the confines of a socially constructed perception of morality. Her judgments against Humbert Humbert and in favor of Lolita were made before she read the first page of the novel. This is a natural tendency. We experience this on the local news practically every night. A young girl accuses a teacher of molestation, and the public instantly condemns the teacher with no consideration for circumstance or reliability. The exact same folly is likely when reading Lolita. It is for this reason that I will attempt to explore a deeper reading of Lolita. I propose that, within the classroom, Lolita should be approached from a more critical point of view. Discussions about the novel within the classroom should center on the unreliable narrator coupled with the underlying allegorical reading of the text. If a classroom can be directed away from the knee-jerk, socio-political reaction to the text, and if they can open their minds to a world where fault does not always lie with the male, then the entire reading experience will be more beneficial to the student. In the following sections I will attempt to provide a template, supported by current critical theory, for future teachers of Lolita in order to avoid the very situation I found myself in when confronted with the reality of classroom politics and the tendency toward vindication.

Humbert Humbert's Reliability as a Narrator

Let us first look at the evidence presented by Humbert Humbert. Humbert is guilty; there is

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