Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lolita, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Perversity, Obsession, and Art
Suburbia and American Consumer Culture
Exile, Homelessness and Road Narratives
Life and Literary Representation
Women, Innocence, and Male Fantasy
Patterns, Memory and Fate
Summary
Analysis
Without Lolita, Humbert Humbert falls into despair. Over the next few years, he throws away or donates Lolita's clothes, books, and other items. When he dreams about her, she is strangely mixed with Valeria and her mother, Charlotte. Humbert writes a long poem about Lolita, begging her to reveal where she has gone. Though Humbert is still attracted to nymphets, the loss of Lolita has dimmed the pleasure of being around young girls—he no longer fantasizes about kidnapping one.
Throughout his story, Humbert has stressed Lolita’s absolute singularity for him. She is the center of his imaginative world, and all of his perceptions of his surrounding environment are modified by her presence. Now that she is gone, he begins to lose that clear picture of her. She mixes with other women in his dreams, a demonstration that the loss of her has damaged the clarity of Humbert’s imagination. Once again, romantic obsession is tied to the imagination and artistic creation.
Themes
