Rhetorical Narrative Strategies In Lolita

Lolita is Nabokov’s masterpiece and turns out to be one of the classics in the20th century literature. It brings its readers not only extraordinary pleasure in reading through its language, but also endless disputes over the moral issue that it evokes. Lolita appears to be a confession by a pedophile after being put into prison, revealing his obsession with his step daughter in retrospect. Nabokov uses complex narrative strategies to give the novel stunning effects. The thesis paper attempts to utilize the theory of classic narratology to decode Lolita and analyze the narrative strategies on building and dissolving sympathy for the protagonist in the novel, in order to reveal the way Nabokov creates myriad levels of narrative effects to enrich reading experience and his rhetorical purpose embedded in the novel.The thesis is composed of three main parts:introduction, text and conclusion.The aim, organization and significance of the paper are included in the introduction part. There are five chapters in the text to demonstrate the understanding of the rhetorical narrative strategies in Lolita.Chapter One introduces previous researches on Lolita, which covers the life story and literary achievement of Nabokov, the publication and the plot of Lolita, and the critical response to the novel in and abroad. Though critics have done fruitful work in interpreting Lolita, the novel still suffers form a serious lack of studies from narratological viewpoint, not to mention the perspective of rhetorical narratology. Hence, the significance of the thesis lies in closing up the study deficiency as much as possible.The theoretical basis and analysis are to be approached in Chapter Two to Chapter Four. In Chapter Two, the writer tries to make clear some theoretical concepts within narratology. Chapter Three entitled "Build up Sympathy" is devoted to illustrating the emotional bonding effect created by series of narrative strategies, which contains the control of point of view and establishment of dual narratee. Chapter Four "Dissolve Sympathy" is mainly engaged in explicating narrative strategies that dispel sympathy and break readers’emotional identification with the protagonist, which contains the creation of unreliable narrator and indirect speech presentation mode. Ostensibly, some narrative strategies grant Humbert an advantageous position to exonerate himself from his crime so as to gain readers’ compassion. However, it is Nabokov’s deliberate design to make Humbert a puppet which is going to be mocked at. The sophisticated narrative strategies allow Nabokov to frequently and implicitly intervene in the text so that the deceptive and slippery nature of Humbert’s confession can be fully exposed to the readers of the novel.Chapter Five attempts to disclose three rhetorical purposes that Nabokov tries to convey through the two contradictory processes of building and dissolving sympathy for the protagonist in the novel:his view on literature; his view on the fantasy and reality; his expectation for conscious readers. All the three facets together make Lolita a remarkable work of art and it waits for more readers to explore and to fathom.The thesis closes with the last part "Conclusion". Along with summarizing the major points discussed in the thesis, it reviews the limitations of the study and gives suggestions for further research.