Silver Lining Of Humbert’s Morality

Since its publication, Lolita, the story of love and obsession by the Russian-born American novelist Vladimir Nabokov, has been heatedly debated in regard to its moral implications. Its combination of the alarming subject matter and the densely patterned high-brow prose style makes it one of the best known and most controversial classics of the20th century literature.Scholarly solutions to the moral enigma abound and the arguments could be roughly classified into "for,""against,""beyond" and "chaotic" morality. They are all plausible and progressive at their time. However, the postmodern era witnessing unprecedented depth and destruction would inevitably find the "for,""against" and "beyond" morality arguments sweeping and superficial and the "chaotic" claim irredeemably hopeless.Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman develops Emmanuel Levinas’moral and existential ideas into postmodern ethical theories, which distinguish the two previously overlapping areas, ethical rules and morality. The application of Bauman’s differentiation to Humbert’s case paves the way for the further specification of Humbert’s moral complexity, arguing that although Humbert violates ethical rules and has his share of moral darkness, he is morally responsible for Lolita; and, as his moral responsibility intensifies and endures, he finally restores the pristine moral party, revealing the silver lining of his morality.Chapter One introduces Bauman’s distinction of ethical rules and morality, under which Humbert is the offender of the former but the owner of the latter. Chapter Two points out the symptoms of Humbert’s moral flaw, the replaceability and the reciprocity, and their reason, ambivalence thrown off balance by an overdose of sexual desire. Chapter Three contrasts the emotional incoherence of the Third to the emotional perseverance of Humbert, because of which Humbert is able to overcome his moral flaw and recover the pristine moral party in his last meeting with Lolita-which reveals the silver lining of Humbert’s morality in a postmodern light.