Vladimir Nabokov: Unattainable Love in Lolita Essay Example

Unattainable love in Lolita Nowadays, everyone in our society is out to find their one and only true love. Some may find their true love in high school; some may find their true love when they are elderly, but there will always be someone out there for everyone, it just takes some effort. Today, we see true love on television shows, in movies, and in books. For example, Romeo and Juliet, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo, and Jack and Rose from “Titanic”. Love is never easy; it takes time, compromising, and devotion. In the novel, the protagonist, Humbert Humbert, is blindsided by his obsession with Lolita. The love he has for Lolita is purely an infatuation and will not last. Humbert Humbert believes that he truly loves this young girl and that their love will last forever, but ultimately, Lolita will grow up and move on. In the novel, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov, love between Lolita and Humbert Humbert is unattainable. To begin, Humbert has a hard time realizing that the past is in the past. Throughout the novel, he tries to recreate his childhood relationship that he had with Annabel Leigh. The relationship he had with her was an important part of his life, saying “Annabel was no nymphet to me: I was her equal, a faun let in my own right, it was an enchanted island of time” (Nabokov 18). Humbert Humbert is yearning for the kind of love he and Annabel had and he thinks he has found that in Lolita. According to Gullette, “Falling in love with Lolita gives him the psychic illusion, at least momentarily, that he has magically regained his lost past” (Gullette 355). When Humbert moved into the Haze household, he instantaneously fell in love with Dolores Haze. This “love at first sight” turned into a true obsession, which he believes to be love. This feeling for Lolita brings back his cherished memory of Annabel. In sum, Humbert Humbert is a man who fails to accept that the past cannot be relived. Next, Humbert Humbert develops a sick obsession with a young