Lolita And Her Predecessors In Russian Literature

With the popularity of ACG subculture in today’s society,"LOLI" gradually becomes familiar to people,white it indicates to innocent,cute little girl.In fact,this term is the abbreviation of Lolita,which originated from the famous Nabokov’s"Lolita",who is the 12-year-old heroine of the story.There’re always different opinions and understandings on the image of this figure.In the early study of Lolita,the heroine herself was not a hot spot,and most of the study had only taken Lolita as an unethical,precocious sexy girl.With the deepening of the research on the novel,the study is broadened,and our understanding of Lolita also becomes more abundant.Some scholars regarded "Lolita" as a warm and bitter love story,while some others gradually realized that Lolita was just a 12-year-old girl and the lust prisoner of her stepfather.In fact,the image of Lolita,created by Nabokov,is far more colorful than that of Lambert of Humbert.It is difficult to simply judge whether she is a morally corrupt girl,or a completely innocent child.Humbert thinks Lolita is vulgar,but in fact her hobbies and behavior are just like most adolescent girls,and are easily attracted to pop culture.Humbert also condemned Lolita as a debauchery girl,claiming that Lolita had seduced him as a prostitute and used sex in trade off money,but in fact we found that Humbert had lied to Lolita,ruined her life and health.Moreover,Lolita was not willing to succumb to Humbert,unwilling to be his prisoner,and finally she waited for the right opportunity to escape from Humbert.Lolita’s short life is very tortuous,but she did not give up on herself,and always maintained a longing for a beautiful,normal life.Although Nabokov said that the creation of "Lolita" was inspired by the 1939 or early 1940,but the image of young girl who’s especially attractive to adult male have already appeared in his early works.We can trace back to several examples,like the young heroines in his work "Lilith" "the dark laughter" "magician",and so on.Taking into account the identity of Nabokov’s Russian writers,the Russian literature has a certain influence on his creation.Although most researchers are doing research from the perspective of Anglo-American literature "Lolita",few people focused on Lolita from the perspective of Russian literature.But in fact,Lolita’s literary archetypes are also found in Russian classical literary works,such as the Nastasia in Dostoevsky’s"Idiot" and Zenaida in Turgenev’s "First Love".By comparing the predecessors of Lolita and his literary works,it is possible to more clearly recognize the multidimension and variability of the image of Lolita.This paper consists of introduction,three chapters,conclusion and the corresponding reference.The first chapter analyzes the character of the heroine in "Lolita".Through studying on the details of the text,this paper reveals Lolita’s genuine characteristics as the 12-year-old girl Dorothy.The second chapter analyzes the characteristics of Lolita’s predecessor in Nabokov’s Russian literature and also in the works of other Russian writers.Through the comparative analysis of Lolita and its predecessor’s character and behavior,we find that Lolita is an extremely rich figure.With the development of the story,the character is evolving and changing,which forms a sharp contrast with its predecessors.The third chapter explores the relationship between Lolita and the concept of"eternal feminine" in Russia.First of all,this paper elaborates on the ideal image of a young girl in the eyes of Russian public.Secondly,it focus on the analysis of Lolita who shows different characteristics than the traditional ideal girl image.As a conclusion,this paper examines Lolita from a comparative perspective,which can provide us more in-depth understanding of the literary prototype of Lolita,and also enables us to appreciate this negative-personality female image in a more comprehensive way.