Power and Coercion in “Lolita”
Power and Coercion in Lolita
Part 2 of Lolita was heavy on the power relations, particularly between HH and Lo. Throughout their cross-country travels and stay at Beardsley, HH is impossibly controlling. To keep her as subdued as he can, Humbert uses the adult-child power dynamic to threaten Lo and holds money and other material items over her head. Early on, HH details the methods he used to convince her to keep quite, mainly threatening her with reformatory school (151). He later stated “how sweet it was to bring that coffee to her, and then deny it until she had done her morning duty” (164). Humbert later has the audacity to describe Lo’s morals as poor, when discussing the exchange of money for sex. “Her weekly allowance [was] paid to her under the condition she fulfill her basic obligations” and HH used it to his advantage when there was something he knew she wanted (183).
Interestingly, HH stated that Lo “proved to be a cruel negotiator whenever it was in her power to deny [him] certain life-wrecking, strange, slow paradisal philters without which I could not live more than a few days in a row, and which, because of the very nature of love’s languor, I could not obtain by force” (184). I find his conception of “force” interesting. Many would probably agree with my perception that he forced her to sleep with him, and continued to force her by bribing her with material items and money, he slept with her when she was very ill (198), and in many instances, physically forced her to leave public places because he was so anxious to go have intercourse (221).
Additionally, in this section HH explicitly discusses incest. Early in their travels when HH is manipulating Lo to keep quiet, he gives her quite a speech saying that he is her father and she should want to please him, that her mother would want her to learn about romantic relationships from her father, and that “among Sicilians sexual relations between a father and his daughter as a matter of course” (150). Though his early statements are mostly intended to ensure her silence, HH later comes to regard Lo as his daughter and it becomes clear that he condones incest when he fantasizes about getting Lo pregnant and getting rid of her when she gets too old, so that he will have a “Lolita the Second” and later a “supremely lovely Lolita the Third” upon which he can practice “the art of being a grandad” (174).
Also, in the Kinsey report on Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, he states that “in older age groups, males of the lower educational level who are not yet married turn to prostitutes more often than they did when they were younger” (Peiss, 369). I found that statement interesting and rather amusing in the context of Lolita because HH clearly fancies himself a cultured, dashing, upper-class European and often refers to himself as Dr. Humbert. Yet, he frequently takes part in behavior that is attributed to those less-educated that he would definitely fancy himself superior to.
Tags: class, coercion, dirty old men, incest, morals, power relations, sex
