Lolita vs. Frankenstein Analysis - Essay Example

Lolita vs. Frankenstein Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein is totally a scientific fiction novel, infused with elements of both gothic horror and romance. Shelly tries to find out the truth of the basic law of human nature on her masterpiece work. The impact of the novel was so powerful that it received widespread acceptance all over the world and became a trendsetter of same genre stories and films. In the second volume of the novel, one finds vivid portrayal of the monster’s story. Conventional manner about sex started to change during the 1950’s in western countries especially in the United States. It is almost in the same period that Vladimir Nabokov gave vent to a world clung to puritanical thoughts in Lolita. Lolita was very sensational in United States in the late 1950s because of its controversial substance. Many critics branded the novel as pornographic trash, and they condemned this masterpiece as a piece of poor quality literature. However, there were many other critics who praised the work for its uniqueness, genuineness, and vivacious wit. In this novel, Nabokov formed the character of Humbert Humbert as complex mixture; he is a mad rakehell as well as wild romantic at the same time and Lolita falls a victim of his incessant obsession for her but ended it as form of murder. The essay seeks to bring out a comparative and contrastive study between the two novels in terms of their themes, character sketches and the over all setting and treatment of both the novels. While Frankenstein depicts the story of the hero who is ruined by his unchecked pursuit of knowledge, in Lolita the tragedy of the hero stems from his obsessive drive for sex and violent nature; both fail to foresee the consequences of their actions until they are completely ruined. The strong passion of Love is the basic instinct of sex that is displayed on various forms on this novel. “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, and my soul” (Nabokov part 1: 1) utters Humbert in the opening of the novel which shows his deep passion and strong desire on Lolita. It also displays mixture of feelings such as deep pain, love, anger and regret that he experiences. In the book of Frankenstein the author indicates the strong desire of Frankestein to produce another human “Beautiful! -- Great God!” (Shelly.98). Here the author mixes up the emotions of excitement as well as enthusiasm of Frankenstein very effectively. One can notice parallels between the themes in both the novels and there are many who argue that in Lolita Nabokov reworked fundamental themes found in Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. The novel Lolita consists of multifaceted themes such as love, pain, sex, puritanical ideas, art, psychology, exploitation, use of language and so on. The basic content of this novel is the desire for sex that permeates all throughout the story and the author knits together the other themes into it very nicely. The strong passion of Love is the basic instinct of sex that is displayed on various forms on this novel. A close reading of the text reveals that almost all the characters in the novel are seeking for love and this tends many to underestimate the book as pornographic. Here the characters, both Humbert and Charlotte, are seeking love but not from each other. For instance, Humbert looks love from the young girl Lolita, the mother of Lolita, while Charlotte seeks love from Humbert. In the same way, one can also come across multitudes of themes in the book Frankenstein too. The basic theme of Frankenstein is most widely accepted as ignorance is bliss. The novel also posses challenges to many conventional precepts about the nature and one’s beliefs of god through science and technology. The author mixes the emotions of love, hatred, guiltiness, romance, sadness and so on into the novel extremely well. Frankenstein and his cousin Elizabeth loved each other with the permission of his parents. He wanted to marry her after the completion of his study in Germany. “Tears gushed from the eyes of the Elizabeth” as she is unable to control herself when her lover Frankenstein leaves her (Shelley 67). Here the author mixes up the emotion of sadness, sorrow, and the affection and the pain of separation very effectively. The narrative style of both the novels also deserves one’s attention. The novel Frankenstein starts with the communication between Captain Robert Walton and his sister passing across letters. These letters consist of the story of Frankenstein and his creature as Frankenstein describes it to Robert. The novel Lolita, on the other hand, is totally a record of Humbert Humbert. He always lives in his fictional world and he spends his maximum duration of time in different sanitariums. He has undergone a mental treatment that made him hungry for teenage girls. The narrative structure of Lolita is as similar as Frankenstein because the main characters of both of the novels are conversing theirs past behavior to future occurrences as a form of confession. For instance, utterances like “I was born in 1910. In Paris” (Nabokov part 1: 2) and “I am by birth a Genevese.” (Shelly, 39) depicts similarities in the narrative styles even though different motives prompt the characters. The characterization of the central characters in both the novels add to the tragic effect of the plot. The characters develop and their personalities undergo considerable changes as the novels progress. After giving life to the monster, Frankenstein recognizes that it would not allow him to sleep and this predicament starts to disrupt the life of him. The appearance and flees of the monster always become a nightmare to him. His ugly creature becomes violent and turns against his own creator as well as his wife Elizabeth. To quote Frankenstein’s own words, the monster’s “fiendish finger he pointed towards the corpse of my wife” (Shelly 209) He understands that the monster has moved away from his control and that it has posed great threat to human life. Frankenstein later comes to know that the monster is behind of murder of his brother Williams and Justine Moritz. Here one can analyze that the Frankenstein’s greediness is the main cause that motivates him to create monster but finally he regrets on his own creation. To conclude, it can be stated that it is the unique characterization of the tragic hero Frankenstein that the novel assumes its grandeur as a science fiction. Similarly, the character sketch of Humbert is equally note worthy. Humbert virtually murders his wife, Charlotte to possess her 12 year old daughter. After the death of her mother Humbert thinks that his ‘dream has come true’ but she is always afraid of his behavior and shouts at him when Humbert entered her room with strong sexual desire: "Youre a monster. Youre a detestable, abominable, criminal fraud. If you come near--Ill scream out the window. Get back!" (Nabokov Part 1: 22). After the death of young girl, he pulled in to the sanatorium due to his psychic disorder. He is always haunted by teenage girls monster, and confessed himself as her destroyer. Similarly, the element of monstrous living and extreme monster state is common to both the novels and in both the novels the presence of the monster haunts the central characters. The central characters are tormented by their monstrous existence and both Frankenstein and Humbert regret their wrong doings. Here one has to agree that both the characters Frankenstein and Humbert share certain character traits. Frankenstein was very passionate about findings the truth of human nature so that he creates the monster. But finally it becomes a nightmare to him and he confesses of his foolish creativity when Monster starts to kill him and his most beloved ones. Frankenstein remembers the word of his monster when he abandoned it like an animal: “I will be with you on your wedding night” (Shelly138). One can clearly feel the regretful and guilty feelings of Frankenstein in many parts of the novel. In the same way, Humbert has an erotic desire on teenage girl’s ages between nine to fourteen. He focuses his attention on young Lolita. Utterances such as "Come and kiss your old man, “and “drop that moody nonsense” betray the inner feelings of Humbert very easily (Nabokov part 2: 2). He is yet to finalize his strong desire of possesses her but he succeeded to breaks the life of poor young girl (she died). After the death of Lolita he is disturbed always with her monster and this causes feelings of guilt in him too. Many readers found it hard to digest the novel Lolita due to the use of language and experience than by his treatment of Lolita. Expressions such as “She had put both pillows under her dark tousled head; aband of pale light crossed her top vertebrae”(Lolita, Part1,29) and “Her lightly veiled body and barelimbs formed a Z” (Lolita, Part1,29) are repeatedly used throughout the story. Another major factor to be noticed is the fact that both the novels are portrayed and set against the normal nature of things. A careful analysis of the novel shows one that both of the characters had done their activities against the existing nature. God is the superpower of this world who is the only person entitled to create or destruct the life of human beings if the person has superstitious power. Here Frankenstein challenged the principle of human nature with the creation of his monster. At last this creature goes beyond his control and becomes a great threat to the entire human race. But in Lolita, Humbert had done their activities against the human concept in a different way. He was perverted and abnormal sexual behavior character. The author displayed so many evidence of Humbert’s immoral character against her but he is always incapable to complete to his desire on her. For instance ,when he imagine himself as an artist, he possessing strong emotion of sadness that characterizes his relationship with young girl. His desire was to have sex with the girls whom on the edge of puberty but the society will not allow anyone to do such kind of activities. This ideal of Humbert one can identify it as nature of brutality instead of the concept of human nature. Later both of them (Frankenstein and Humbert) move towards to the principle of nature. They have expressed their guiltiness and confessed their cruelty against the human race. Humbert admits that “She preferred acting to swimming, and swimming to tennis; yet I insist that had not something within her been broken by me--not that I realized it then!” (Lolita, part 2, 20). These words rightly reflect the confession of Humbert for having ruined the life of young girl. The novel Lolita breaks the traditional attitude towards the sex during the 1950’s. Many of them criticized the core aspect of Lolita and branded the novel as pornographic. But the basic content of Frankenstein is entirely different from Lolita. It is a scientific fiction novel and it can be considered as belonging to gothic horror genre. Here one can easily identify the characteristics of Frankenstein and Humbert that both of them are living for different purposes and their motivation also different as well. Frankenstein wanted to become popular for his creation of human being but he was unsuccessful in his accomplishment. But Humbert is a mad lecher who owns multitudes of characteristics. He is perpetrator as well as prey of his catastrophic obsession with the immature girl. By summing up, one can see that both the novels deal with importance of human nature, and human perceptive. Frankenstein in Frankenstein and Humbert in Lolita Suffer from mental stress due to their monstrous experiences, but in different ways. Frankenstein understood that his ignorance becomes disaster against human race as well as creator of human beings; in the same way, Humbert feels that he ruined the life of young girl due to his wrong ideal. He regrets about his wrong doings from the prison cell as he awaits trial for his murder and at the end dies of heart failure. So it is evident that these characters are different in their motives but their beliefs are similar. Works Cited Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein: or, The modern Prometheus. Printed for G. and W.B. Whittaker: Original from Oxford University, 1823. Nabokov ,Vladimir Vladimirovich. Lolita. Printed for Capricon Books:Original from Pennsylvania State University,1972 Read More