Dr. Humbert and Destitute Dolly
Dr. Humbert and Destitute Dolly
Kaitlyn mentioned how Part 2 attacks psychology, and I completely agree. I felt this most strongly in chapter 1, when H.H. uses Dolores’ natural resistance to being kidnapped and raped against her:
“I am not a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child. The rapist was Charlie Holmes; I am the therapist…” (150, emphasis mine.) “…Let us see what happens if you, a minor accused of having impaired the morals of an adult in a respectable inn, what happens if you complain to the police of my having kidnaped and raped you?” (150) In H.H.’s explanation, Dolores would become an orphan in “the correctional school, the reformatory, the juvenile detention home, or one of those admirable girls’ protectories” (151) and, ultimately, somehow, more miserable than a girl who has lost her mother, her friends, her childhood, and her free will, and who is being raped and manipulated by the man who is supposed to be her father. H.H. knows how horrible he is being – he admits that he “terroriz[es]” (151) her with his explanations of possible fates. Nabokov employs this deliberate misuse of psychology as a general statement about therapists in general – that they do more harm than good, delude their patients, and have the potential to secure them in a situation far more harrowing and dangerous than their supposed “perversions.”
Another thing that struck me in Part 2 was another transformation on Dolores’ part – H.H. made her Lolita, and she takes on the part of a prostitute. “Knowing the magic and might of her own soft mouth, she managed…to raise the bonus price of a fancy embrace to three, and even four bucks.” (184) She accumulates at least $34 that H.H. steals back, and, shockingly, “…for sixty-five cents plus the permission to participate in the school play…Dolly put her inky, chalky, red-knuckled hand under the desk,” thus pleasuring Humbert in her classroom (198). Considering how difficult it would be to escape from H.H., sex between him and Dolores was probably inevitable, so perhaps her demanding money was her way of getting something out of it. It at least allowed her certain escapes – movies, celebrity magazines, et cetera, wherein she could imagine a life that was not quite so horrible as the one she lived.
Tags: Dolores, Humbert Humbert, Lolita, power, prostitution, psychology
