Absurdity And Freedom-A Study Of Lolita From The Perspectiveof Sartre’s Existentialism

Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian-born American writer, holds a very important position in the history of 20th-century world literature. As a prolific writer, he created 18 novels and nearly 70 short stories except for poems, plays, translations and literary criticisms. However, what really made him famous was his great achievements in fiction. Nowadays, his Lolita, Pnin, Pale Fire, Ada and The Defense have become the first choices for literary courses in many universities. Many contemporary famous writers have claimed to be influenced by him. Due to his great contribution to world literature, UNESCO called 1999 to be “the Year of Nabokov”. Lolita, published in 1955, brought Nabokov worldwide reputation and has been widely recognized to be his best novel which has got the most readers and researches among his works. However, few researches have been done on the novel from the perspective of existentialism at present.This paper presents a study of the novel from the perspective of Sartre’s existentialism. In the latter half of the 20 th century, Sartre’s existentialism was one of the most popular movements in the world. It imposes influence not only on philosophy but also on literature. It expounds the absurdity of the world, stresses man’s freedom and his responsibility. Actually, Nabokov expressed these ideas in his novel Lolita. Thus this paper makes a profound discussion over these ideas with the help of combining the novel text.This paper consists of three chapters except for an introduction and a conclusion. The introdution provides some brief information about Nabokov’s life and his works, especially his Lolita. It also presents the literature review on him and Lolita, the purpose and significance of this research.Chapter one is a review of the development of existentialism. It firstly introduces existentialism as a whole, then mainly discusses some important ideas of Sartre’s existentialism which are absurdity, freedom and responsibility.Chapter two is an analysis of the absurdity presented in Lolita. It discusses in detail the absurdity of American society as well as the accident of man’s life.Chapter three centers on freedom Lolita and Humbert pursue and the choices they actively make while facing absurdity. It also discusses the responsibility they have to bear. Sartre proclaims “Existence precedes essence”, which actually stresses that man’s existence isn’t determined by anything, that is to say man is absolutely free. The statement “The coward makes himself cowardly, the hero makes himself heroic” is a representation of man’s active choices and his responsibility.The last part is a summary of the whole thesis which reaches the following conclusion: the world described in Lolita is an absurd world where Lolita, Humbert, Charlotte Haze etc. all have to passively struggle, but they endeavor to pursue freedom and actively make choices in order to make their lives significant.