Lolita | Themes
In his essay "On a Book Entitled Lolita," Nabokov traced the first inspiration for the novel to a newspaper story about an ape "who, after months of coaxing by a scientist, produced the first drawing ever charcoaled by an animal: this sketch showed the bars of the poor creature's cage." As many critics have remarked, Lolita is not about sex but about love. Even more, it is about obsession — and the destructive power it can hold over the lives of its victims.
Humbert Humbert, the novel's narrator and protagonist, is, in addition to his passion for preadolescent girls, a...
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