Humbert’s "three Orders" In Lolita

Russian American writer Vladimir Nabokov enjoys high reputationin American literature, and his masterpiece Lolita has occupied an important position since itwas published even though it suffered many ups and downs on the way of publication.Lolita describes an abnormal love between a middle-aged man and his twelve-year-oldstep-daughter narrated by the main character Humbert. And this novel has attracted greatattention of numerous scholars from both home and abroad. However, the most literary criticsmainly focus on the analysis on the morality, narrative strategy, features ofpostmodernism and character’s tragic fate. Few of them put their eyes on the deep reasons ofcharacter’s real trauma. Therefore, this thesis tries to use Lacan’s subject theory of the ThreeOrders that is, The Imaginary Order, The Symbolic Order and The Real Order, to analyze thedeep root of Humbert’s tragedy.This paper is divided into six chapters.Chapter one is introduction, aiming to enable the readers to have a clear understanding ofthe author Nabokov and his works Lolita, and put forward the significance of this thesisthrough analyzing the researches of domestic and foreign scholars.Chapter two is the theoretical foundation which mainly introduces thefamous psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and his great theory of Three Orders.Chapter three is to discuss Humbert’s tragedy using Lacan’s Imaginary Order” and makea clear that it is Humbert’s misrecognition of himself and the other in the Imaginary Orderthat caused Humbert’s trauma in reality.Chapter four brings in the concept of father’s law in terms of Lacan’s theory of SymbolicOrder and makes Humbert always feel being threatened so as to resist to getting access to hisimaginary paradise.Chapter five is based on Lacan’s Real Order to dig up the deep reasons of Humbert’stragedy. In the Real Order, Humbert longs for the happiness and sweetness in his childhoodand put his hope on Lolita. But Lolita is the misrecognition in his Imaginary Orderwhichdoomed his various struggles in the Symbolic Order are in vain and the trauma in his RealOrder becomes inevitable.Chapter six is the conclusion part which summarizes the full thesis and points out thesignificance of this study as well as some limitations.