Childhood mental trauma is a very dangerous thing in many ways. It can close many important roads in a person's life or open the door to a dangerous or meaningless lifestyle. Among many of my friends, girlfriends or lovers, with whom I talk about personal matters, I have seen completely healthy, normal, complete people, who are either immature or disabled in some particular area due to some childhood mental trauma. The most common is sexual numbness, unwillingness or inability among girls. And unusual or extremely uncontrolled behavior regarding sexuality or religion among men. In our country, unknowingly marrying teenagers is also related to childhood mental trauma. Even destroying the future of oneself and one's loved ones in the hope of a paradise, without treating real people and life well, can also be due to childhood mental trauma.
Childhood mental trauma makes people permanent or fixed in a value system based on painful memories. He cannot get out of it with his thought process or cognition or his experience. He sees reality in the light of his previous experience or his reaction to that particular matter.
Vladimir Nabokov has successfully depicted this in his novel Lolita. How childhood trauma leads a grown man to a world of fantasy where he ignores all kinds of social values, is the real document of Nabokov's Lolita. That is not because it is a remarkable novel. It is because it is so popular and millions of people seem to be immersed in that world of fantasy ignoring reality.
Summary of Lolita
The novel is written in the first person, where the main character and narrator, Humbert Humbert, narrates the events of his life. Humbert is a middle-aged professor of European literature who comes to live in America. He describes himself as a "nymphet" lover, who feels a special sexual and aesthetic attraction to teenage girls between the ages of 9 and 14. The central character of the story is Dolores Hedges, whom Humbert calls "Lolita".
Beginning of the story: Humbert's past
Humbert begins the novel with a tragic love story from his childhood. He describes how he was deeply attracted to a girl named Annabelle as a teenager. But Annabelle's untimely death leaves a permanent scar on Humbert, which becomes the main reason for his later behavior and attraction. He believes that his attraction to this "nymphet" is connected to the memory of Annabelle.
Arrival in America and meeting Lolita
In the 1940s, Humbert immigrated to America and rented a house in Ramsdale, a small town in New England. He began living in the house of a widow named Charlotte Hedges. He is immediately captivated by Charlotte's 12-year-old daughter, Dolores, whom Humbert calls "Lolita". Lolita's natural beauty, adolescent behavior, and innocence arouse Humbert's morbid attraction. He begins to write detailed descriptions of his feelings and fantasies for Lolita in his diary.
Marriage to Charlotte
Humbert realizes that in order to be close to Lolita, he must build a relationship with Charlotte. Charlotte, who is attracted to Humbert, proposes marriage to him. Humbert marries Charlotte, but his only purpose is to be close to Lolita. He feels no real love or attraction for Charlotte.
Death of Charlotte
One day, Charlotte reads Humbert's diary and learns of his morbid attraction to Lolita. In anger and frustration, she argues with Humbert and is killed by a car while running down the street. Charlotte's death creates an opportunity for Humbert, as he now becomes Lolita's legal guardian.
Relationship with Lolita
After Charlotte's death, Humbert takes Lolita on a road trip without telling her about her mother's death. He develops a sexual relationship with Lolita, which he tries to present in an aesthetic and romantic light in his narrative. But in reality it is an exploitative and forbidden relationship. Lolita, who is a teenager, is the victim of this relationship and is not given the opportunity to express her own desires or freedom.
Road Trip and Escape
Humbert and Lolita go on a long road trip through different parts of America. During this time, Humbert maintains a tight control over Lolita, taking away her freedom and keeping her in a relationship against her will. However, Lolita gradually rebels against Humbert's control. She wants to find her own identity and desires. During this time, Humbert notices that a mysterious person is following them.
It is later revealed that this person is Claire Quilty, a playwright and another acquaintance of Lolita's. Lolita eventually runs away with Quilty, abandoning Humbert.
Lolita's Reunion and Ending
A few years later, Humbert finds Lolita. Now Lolita is 17 years old, married, and pregnant. She is living a simple, poor life. Humbert begs her to move in with him again, but Lolita refuses. She reveals that she was in a relationship with Quilty, but Quilty has also abandoned her. Humbert gives Lolita some money and leaves.
In anger and despair, Humbert tracks down Quilty and kills him. At the end of the novel, Humbert is arrested, and while in prison, he writes his memoirs. In his story, he expresses his love for Lolita and his guilt. The novel ends with Humbert's death and Lolita's death from complications during childbirth.
Ultimately, Lolita is a story of obsession with a teenage woman. In her critique of Nabokov's Lolita, Svetlana Boym, a professor of comparative literature in America, says that it is neither love nor sex - Lolita is a nostalgia. Just as the wonderful experience of leaving a country always lingers in people's minds, a love that will never be found again, the memory of that first love of adolescence haunts adult life without any real basis. So Lolita is actually an illusion.
Sirajul Hossain
No comments:
Post a Comment