Analysis Of Duality Of Narrative Text, Narrator And Narrative Text Themes In Lolita From Narratological Perspective

When the full extent of Nabokov’s talent began to declare itself in the novels he wrotebetween1940and1970, Nabokov’s critical reputation began a steady ascent that by the timeof his death had earned him, in the eyes of some critics, a place among the twentieth century’sforemost literary masters.Lolita is the representative work of Russian-born American writer Vladimir Nabokov. Itgains instant success and makes its author become famous in one night since its publication.However, for its subject matter, it stirred up a hurricane in literature circle. While as more andmore scholars and critics participating in interpreting it, they pay more attention to its artisticlanguage and narrative techniques instead of considering its moral issue. In Lolita VladimirNabokov plays a very serious game with the relations between a work of art, the experiencesthat underlie it, and the effects it may have upon its readers. The book’s protagonist, narrator,and supposed author, Humbert Humbert, continually forces us to maintain a doubleperspective by calling on us to pass moral and legal judgment upon him as a man andaesthetic judgment upon him as an artist.This thesis is going to use the theory of narratology to analyze duality of narrative text,narrator and its narrative themes in Lolita, and find out the reasons why Nabokov arranged thenovel in this way, and what effects the narrative techniques have achieved.Chapter One is the introduction of the author of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov and literaturereviews on Lolita which contains two parts—studies abroad and studies at home. ChapterTwo is the theoretical basis. It will mainly introduce the theory of narratology which containsclassical narratology and postclassical narratology proposed by some representatives and theirworks and their contributions to analyzing literary texts. Chapter Three, Chapter Four andChapter Five are the main body of the thesis. Chapter Three is the duality oftext—authenticity and fictionality. Lolita, besides its nature—fictionality, owns authenticnarration and cultural background information (the use of many real motel names, placenames and scenery) which reflect circumstances of postwar America vividly and truthfully. And its fictionality lies in its wordplays, coincidences, narrators’ unreliable narrations andother narrative techniques. Chapter Four mainly discusses narrations of John Ray in theForeword, Humbert Humbert in the narrative text and Vladimir Nabokov in the Postscript.Through analyzing narrative text, it will show that the protagonist Humbert Humbert’snarration is unreliable. His unreliable narration, on the one hand, discloses the fictionality ofLolita, and on the other hand, it exposes Nabokov’s high distinguished English-language level.Chapter Five is the duality of narrative themes. Lolita presents different themes from differentpoints of view. So the arrangement of different narrators exposits its functions to the wholefiction and interpret different themes from different narrators’ points of view. For John Ray,Lolita is a case history; for Humbert Humbert, Lolita is his love story and his endeavor torecur his past; for Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita is a work of art, and without this, it is nothing.The last chapter—Chapter Six is the conclusion of the whole thesis. It will summarizefindings of the thesis and outlines the limitations of the thesis.