Lolita decides to be in the school play and begins rehearsing for it. Although at first Humbert is confident that the play is nothing more than a play for schoolchildren, he is appaled by the play's romanticism and fantasy. One day Humbert recieves a notice that Lolita has been missing her piano lessens. After confronting Lolita about it she claims that she had been sneaking off and rehearsing for the play. Not believing Lolita's story, Humbert starts a heated argument with Lolita. It is through this argument that he realizes that Lolita has changed and no longer posseses some of the nymphet qualities he loved. After a moments distraction Lolita escapes the house and when Humbert finds her in a telephone booth, she confesses that she hates Beardsly and her school and wants to move.
After beginning their travels, Humbert and Lolita stay in a succession of hotels just as they had done before. Humbert continues to keep a close eye on her and keeps her from talking to anyone she may not know. Humbert feels that for adequate protection he must keep a gun on him at all times and stand guard during the night. To no suprise as Humbert continues to spend his time obsessing over Lolita he continues to become increasingly paranoid. He often questions things such as Lolita talking to strange men, or also a red car which had seemed to have been following the two of them during their travels.
Humbert stumbled across a letter to Lolita and began reading it at the post office one day. After finishing the letter he looks up and Lolita is no where to be found. Humbert looks and chases after her and after finally finding her Lolita said that she saw a friend from Beardsly. After becoming increasingly paranoid about the man following Lolita and Humbert, Humbert decides to write down the license plate. Soon after notifying Lolita, he realizes that she had erased the license plate number. After paying close attention Trapp (the name Humbert gave to the man following Lolita and him) had merely been switching cars and after getting a flat tire Humbert had planned to confront him but Trapp had quickly driven off before Humbert had a chance to do so. During Humbert's failed confrontation, Humbert's car (with Lolita being at the wheel) starts moving away. Lolita said that she had been trying to keep the car from rolling away.
Humbert takes Lolita to the pool one day and notices a man watching Lolita, and Lolita watching him as well. After close observation Humbert realizes that the man watching Lolita is Trapp. Humbert gets up and again plans to confront him but Trapp takes off too quickly for Humbert to do anything. Later that night, Lolita claims to feel sick. After taking her temperature and realizing that she has a high fever, Humbert takes her to the hospital where he spends his first couple nights away from her in two years. When Humbert returns to the hospital to pick up Lolita the nurse told him that her uncle has already picked her up.
In an attempt to find any clues of Lolita's whereabouts, Humbert retraces every place that him and Lolita had ever been or stayed at. Humbert even hires a detective but the detective proves to be usesless.
It seems as though Humbert's obsession with Lolita is making his life ten times more complicated and depressing than what it needs to be! Humbert constantly lives with anxiety and paranoia that someone will steal Lolita away from him. His paranoia of other men is keeping him from seeing the many attempts Lolita makes to get away from him. There are numerous accounts in which she clearly tries escape his control but once he finds her she will jsut make up an excuse and he believes it! It baffles me how blind he is to her lies, and yet he is still so paranoid about everything else around him!
No comments:
Post a Comment