Fatherly Advice

"Be true to your Dick. Do not let other fellows touch you. Do not talk to strangers. I hope you will love your baby. I hope it will be a boy. That husband of yours, I hope, will always treat you well, because otherwise my spector shall come at him, like black smoke, like a demented giant, and pull him apart nerve by nerve" (Chapter 36, pg 290-291).

So Humbert concludes his memoir after discovering Lolita married and pregnant at seventeen and killing Clare Quilty for kidnapping her. Quilty and Humbert were remarkably alike: both have an obsession with nymphets and possess the ability to manipulate language, though Quilty is more like a typical pervert in how he uses Lolita. Quilty's death at Humbert's hand almost makes it seem like Humbert was trying, too late, to protect Lolita from a worse version of himself.

Over the course of the novel, Humbert has established his relationship to Lolita as a romantic one under the guise of a paternal one, but perhaps this relationship, like many of the events in the book, has been twisted by Humbert's perception. Now, knowing he can never return to Lolita, he gives her parting wisdom which sounds like a a mixture of what a father would tell his daughter over the course of her life, from the "Don't talk to strangers" spiel given in childhood to the threat that hangs over Dick should he mistreat her. He kills Quilty for stealing her away. Humbert is even willing to go to jail for Lolita's rape, but believes he shouldn't be charged for the murder because in the former case he recognizes he stole Lolita's innocence, but in the latter he was trying to protect her.

Has Humbert finally learned to be a father, or is he covering himself for his crimes? Does his shifting relationship with Lolita mean he is a changed man?