There Was in Her a Twilight

“…and it struck me, as my automaton knees went up and down, that I simply did not know a thing about my darling’s mind and that quite possibly, behind the awful juvenile clichés, there was in her a garden and a twilight, and a palace gate- dim and adorable regions which happened to be lucidly and absolutely forbidden to me, in my polluted rags and miserable convulsions;” – pg. 284

Despite the countless hours spent with Lolita over the course of their relationship, Humbert never depicts his nymphet’s personality or the inner workings of her mind to the reader. As a result, Lolita has no “voice” in the events of narrative, which gives Humbert’s character full control over the way that we view their relationship. As this passage points out, it wasn’t until long after she’d been taken away from him before it finally “struck” Humbert that he “simply did not know a thing” about the true, inner Lolita. The realization that within the objection of his affection there are parts forbidden to him in his “polluted rags” frustrates Humbert and only seems to remind him that their “love” was doomed from the start. The imprisoned Humbert writing the story appears to be deeply distraught as he looks back and discovers there to be an entire side to Lolita that escaped his power, control, and manipulation, and perhaps, even worse, a side to Lolita that he can not describe, exaggerate, idolize, fantasize, or obsess over as he rots away in a prison cell.

One is then left to wonder why it is that Humbert’s obsession with Lolita never spurred him to truly get to know her. Was it because Humbert was more interested in preserving the perfection of the nymphet figure that he had constructed in his fantasies than he was in the real, human Lolita? If he had taken the time to understand and learn about Lolita’s thoughts, opinions, and quirks, would Humbert have still chosen to pursue her as her lover, or instead as a loving father?