Vladimir Nabokov And His Novel Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov (1899—1977), a Russian-born American, is one of the contemporary famous writers in America. As a prolific writer, Nabokov is widely accepted as one of the outstanding literary stylists of the twentieth century. Some critics say that he handles skillfully the characters with his pen, like pulling the string behind a doll, and his language is very rich, like the colors on the wings of butterflies. Among the novels there are eight English ones, most of which reflect the illusory nature of reality and the artist's relationship to his craft, and probe the formulation of the illusion.He became a celebrity with his masterpiece novel Lolita. It was first published in 1955 in Paris and brought about a heated controversy in the British and French media at that time over the issues of whether the novel was a work of pornography or not, and should be banned or not. In 1958, the first American edition was finally published and quickly moved to the top of the best-seller lists. The author wants to show us something vivid, and something about people's real lives through characters' images given in the novel, through Lolita's experience, which is like a nightmare, and through Humbert's life, which is hunted by an illusion of pursuing a nymphet, and uses all his real life to discern from illusion to reality. The artistic techniques used in the novel which make the novel Lolita a work of art are reflected mainly in three aspects— rich and varied language, parody and allusion in structure and plot, and the mature first-person narrative strategy of combining the narrator and the protagonist. There are five parts in the thesis. Part One is a brief introduction to Vladimir Nabokov and his works. Part Two contains a brief summary of the novel Lolita, followed by a discussion of Nabokov's major theme illustrated in the novel. Part Three interprets the...