Naomie, your comparison between Humbert and Hester shows the key differences in their characters, but I wonder what would happen if you were to think about Humbert in light of Dimmesdale? Intense self-scrutiny, agonizing guilt, and rationalization for hiding one's "true nature" are points of similarity that become more accentuated over the century between the two novels. That ties in with Katz's argument about the history and difficult construction of male heterosexality as well.
One point to keep in mind as you write about literature: separate the author of the work from the narrator, even if the narrator is staged as the author (an in this case). Nabokov is creating a character for us in HH who is said to be writing about himself, but he is still a character who is an author rather than the author of the novel.
For your next response, you might take up the issue in your comment about HH imprisoning himself as he strives to "escape his nature." Does this theme alter over the course of Part II? What does the novel suggest about his nature as a fixed essence or an evolving one capable of change over time?
Comments
A Century Later
Naomie, your comparison between Humbert and Hester shows the key differences in their characters, but I wonder what would happen if you were to think about Humbert in light of Dimmesdale? Intense self-scrutiny, agonizing guilt, and rationalization for hiding one's "true nature" are points of similarity that become more accentuated over the century between the two novels. That ties in with Katz's argument about the history and difficult construction of male heterosexality as well.
One point to keep in mind as you write about literature: separate the author of the work from the narrator, even if the narrator is staged as the author (an in this case). Nabokov is creating a character for us in HH who is said to be writing about himself, but he is still a character who is an author rather than the author of the novel.
For your next response, you might take up the issue in your comment about HH imprisoning himself as he strives to "escape his nature." Does this theme alter over the course of Part II? What does the novel suggest about his nature as a fixed essence or an evolving one capable of change over time?