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

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not record images of the symbolic self. "
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And
of
course, Lolita runs away with Quilty,. and Humbert
murders him. But Quilty has also been called "Humbert's
perverse alter ego"62, "the dubious incarnation of
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Humbert's sinister side", and "a projection of
Humbert's guilt. "64 Humbert himself quite clearly as-
signs that role to him.
Some of the conditions of the traditional Doppel-
gänger tale, Dostoevski's The Double and Poe's William
Wilson, for example, seem to be fulfilled by Quilty
and Humbert Humbert, who moreover has an appropriate
name. It is certainly no accident that Quilty, after
his name has several times been mentioned only briefly
and unobtrusively, should first appear on the scene
at The Enchanted Hunters Hotel, just before Humbert
will for the first time possess Lolita. It becomes
clear only in retrospect that the person mentioned
there is Quilty, but Lolita notices the resemblance,
and he is introduced in a manner suiting the role he
is going to play: although he talks to Humbert,
Humbert "could not really see him" (125), and when
the man strikes a light, "the flame illuminated not
him but another person" (126). "... I saw not, at any
moment, the features of his face", says William Wilson
of the mysterious person who follows him wherever he
goes.
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Humbert and Quilty resemble each other in
certain respects. Apart from both being sexual perverts,
they both have purple bathrobes (Wilson's double
always wears clothes of the same style as Wilson himself),
and, as Humbert notes, Quilty's "type of humour