A Mimetic Butterfly Soaring To The “Otherworld”

Nabokov is widely recognized as one of the most renowned and influential writers in the twentieth century,known for his multicultural background,his exile experience,his profound insights into writing and his preeminent linguistic talents.Despite his reputation in literary creation,another of Nabokov's identity as a connoisseur of butterflies is not so familiar to many readers.His fictions feature numerous explications and implications relating to butterflies,well-represented by Lolita—the novel that established his reputation—since the image of the butterfly is highly entwined with the whole novel.However,the close connection between Lolita and the butterfly at the spiritual level has not received due attention.An avid lover of “game” and “deception,” Nabokov's literary works are imbued with complicated post-modern elements.However,beneath the fa?ade of frivolity,there exists an expansive,profound but lesser known “otherworld” in his fictions.Based on Nabokov's literary standpoint of “mimesis,”this thesis is to provide a relatively comprehensive analysis on the similarities Lolita bears to the blue butterfly morphologically,behaviorally and physiologically,thereby exposing her first veiled identity as a mimetic butterfly.On the basis of this analysis,this thesis tries to uncover the transcendental connotations hidden behind this correlation,so as to reveal Lolita's second veiled identity as an incarnation of Nabokov's spiritual “otherworld” that leads to immortality.In the end,the author presents Lolita as a possible solution to the spiritual predicamentfaced byboth the writer himself and all the other humankind.