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Ophelia 
Embodiment of Reason
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 Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 12:35 pm Post subject: Lolita, part 2, chapters 30-36
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Lolita, part 2, chapters 30-36
At the end of chapter 31, Humbert learns about Lolita 's (somewhat prolongued) affair with Charlie Holmes (13) at Camp Q, and concludes:
| Quote: |
| Sensitive gentlewomen of the jury, I was not even her first lover. |
Did Humbert meet his match in Dolores Haze? |
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realiz
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| Posted: Wed Nov 19, 2008 7:04 pm Post subject:
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Ophelia
| Quote: |
Lolita, part 2, chapters 30-36
At the end of chapter 31, Humbert learns about Lolita 's (somewhat prolongued) affair with Charlie Holmes (13) at Camp Q, and concludes:
Quote:
Sensitive gentlewomen of the jury, I was not even her first lover.
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Olphelia, this was actually from Part 1, chapter 31 rather than part two.
I'll look at Part 2...These chapter 30 - 36, part 2, have so much in them to look at.
Humbert finds Dolly and discovers the identity of his nemesis and Dolly reluctantly tells him the story. Ironically, Quilty is more depraved than Humbert (I guess this is debatable) and Dolly admits that he is the only man she has ever been crazy about.
Humbert comes to the realization that he loves Dolly for herself despite that fact the nymphet phase is over, he love 'this Lolita, pale and polluted, and big with another's child, but still gray-eyed, still sooty lashed, still auburn and almond, still Carmencita, still mine;'
Dolly lets him down almost gently, 'No, honey, no." when he asked if there is and chance that she would come with him. Does she realize that his feelings have somehow changed? Or have they really? Perhaps underneath all that he did to her she did feel that he loved her. Dolly also admits that perhaps he was a good father in his own way. Does Dolly feel this way because she has never seen herself as a good person?
I think for Humbert that the growing realization of what he has done as finally hit home, or perhaps he is just regretting it because he has lost what he now knows he wants forever, not just for a fleeting stage as he imagined in the beginning.
Humbert:
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| Alas, I was unable to transcend the simple human fact that whatever spiritual solace I might find, whatever lithophanic eternities might be provided for me, nothing could make my Lolita forget the foul lust I had inflicted upon her. |
The whole scene where Humbert is going to kill Quilty is quite humorous. He cannot get Quilty to take it seriously, or even really remember who Dolly was at first, and when he does he claims that he rescued her from a beastly pervert (true).
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| Because you cheated me of my redemption................because of all you did, because of all I did not, you have to die |
A few lines from the 'sentence' Humbert has given to Quilty and has Quilty read before he shoots him. Does Humbert believe that he could have really had a life with Dolly? Also, interesting that he refers to this as Quilty's sentence, yet in the next chapter as he awaits his trial Humbert claims to not believe in capital punishment, for himself that is.
And then as Humbert drives away from the murder scene he decides to drive on the wrong side of the road:
[/quote]that since I had disregarded all laws of humanity, I might as well disregard the rules of traffic.
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Is this why he killed Quilty? He was already the lowest of low by his 'rape' of Dolly, for her broken life, so murder put in a place he already felt he was. Humbert, in thinking of what his self-sentence would be, gives 35 years for rape and throws out the other charges.
The publication of his confession, or memoir, is supposed to be held off until Dolly is dead. This beastly pervert, this selfish swine, finally seems to really love her as he has claimed to for so long in the book, or at least a kind of love that is about caring about someone else's pain, someone else's feelings rather than just posessing them selfishly. |
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