Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0002825, Tue, 10 Feb 1998 08:20:36 -0800

Subject
Names in LOLITA
Date
Body
From: DaveR6789@aol.com

A large section of my dissertation deals with names in Lolita. The greatest
concern, of course, is the name of Dolores Haze herself. Leona Toker has
argued that "Lolita," in critical discourse, should be called "Dolores,"
because that is the name she calls herself. My argument is that Humbert, in
this text, is the controller of names, as he demonstrates on the first page,
and that this text shows us only Humbert's version of this girl. "Lolita" is
part of the bars on Humbert's cage.

I have more on this, including an interesting comparison between the novel and
VN's screenplay use of names.

David Rutledge