Humbert's Limited View

     Throughout Lolita, there is a strong sense of the "unwritten psychoanalyst" character. Nabokov and Humbert talk about their hatred for psychology, but there are many instances when it feels as if Humbert is talking to a psychoanalyst. In some ways, this has to be done to understand characters; to understand characters deeply, as Nabokov seems to want, there has to be an understanding of the characters' thoughts, feelings, ideas, actions, etc. But, knowing that Nabokov is the type of writer who plays games with his reader, one has to wonder if it is one of his games or if he is just criticizing the American culture. It may be a mixture of both, but the critic seems to be more profound. As Mathew Winston writes in "Lolita and the Dangers of Fiction," the American culture can be summed up to "soap operas, psychoanalysis and cheap novelettes" (422). Nabokov strongly detests those things, but they are important elements that he brings into the book many times, thus the game Nabokov plays with the reader. When Humbert talks to the reader as if he or she is a psychoanalyst, Nabokov is actually scorning American culture. As Nabokov does this, he creates a false reality for Humbert, one that the reader knows isn't real, but Humbert does not. Winston addresses this by saying, "Humbert's casual remark about what we are inclined to do accurately describes a limitation of his own perceptions and a consequent tendency of his actions" (424). As Humbert progresses through the book, he becomes a monster and rather senile, but he always talks to the unwritten psychoanalyst to justify everything he does. He isn't a criminal, but a man with a skewed vision of love.