On Lolita’s Dialogic Models

Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita has been widely researched in academia. But complicated dialogic models embedded in the novel are rarely studied. Based on Bakhtin’ theories of dialogism and polyphony and so on, the author has found three dialogic models in Lolita:that is, the textual dialogic model, the co-constructional dialogic model among the author, Lolita and the reader, and the cultural dialogic model. Firstly of all, Lolita is a springboard of the textual dialogic model because Russian literary tradition (the textual dialogue with The Overcoat, Eugene Onegin, and Crime and Punishment), European continental literary tradition (the textual dialogue with Madame Bovary, Carmen and Faust), and English and American literary tradition (the textual dialogue with Timon of Athens, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Black Cat) are all clearly seen in the novel. Secondly, Lolita is a co-constructional result of Nabokov and readers. The co-construction phenomenon in Lolita is analyzed at the following three levels:Nabokov’s dialogue with Lolita; the reader’s dialogue with Lolita; the dialogue between the reader and Nabokov. Nabokov created Lolita by using the technique of polyphony. At the same time, readers are invited to construct and enrich the meaning of the text of Lolita. Therefore, a dynamic and complicated web is woven in the dialogic model. Finally, Lolita has recorded various cultural phenomena, for instance, the explicit dialogue between the media culture and the consumerism culture, the implicit dialogue between the elite culture and the popular culture, the indirect dialogue between emigration culture and local culture. The prosperity of the mass media culture contributes a lot to the popularity of consumer culture. Nabokov’s cultural identities of elite and emigration are projected into the novel Lolita. By interpretation of Lolita based on the above three dialogic models, the pluralistic and polyphonic worlds in Lolita are thoroughly explored and revealed.