''Vladimir Nabokov's Comic Quest for Reality' - Nottingham eTheses

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123 --
could victimize her poor daddy and hold him in her
sway "40, are in themselves parodistic of what father
and daughter and their relationship are normally
expected to be. As somewhat distorted comic mirror
images of Humbert and Lolita and their life together,
they throw an additional ironic and parodistic light
on them.
At the Enchanted Hunters Hotel Lolita adds one
more way (the one which the Baby Snooks programme
skipped) of victimizing her Dad to her repertoire,
thus giving the mock-incestuous touch to the mock
father-daughter relationship. Again, this is a very
comic scene although it makes one of the most reckless
attacks on some deep-seated moral principles:
Humbert plans to satisfy his perverse sexual desire
on a little girl whom he thinks he has drugged with
some potent pills. But not only is Humbert very comic
in his role as the would-be passionate (though stealthy)
lover ("L'Amant Ridicule" he calls himself with
a fine sense of humour) (128), but his and Lolita's
roles are comically reversed: it is the little girl
who eventually seduces the experienced man.
The night is for Humbert a terrible (and for the
reader a very comic) anti-climax. Instead of enjoying
all the delights and raptures that he has imagined,
Humbert is troubled by a multitude of quitte unforeseen
and all too sobering mundane inconveniences.
His "magic potion" (121) has not worked, which means
that he has to cope with quite an unexpected and
intensely frustrating situation. Burning to move