For my response paper, I chose to analyze one of my favorite stories in literature and film; Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, first published in 1955. Seven years later, in 1962, Nabokov and Stanley Kubrick adapted the novel into a feature film, which received an Academy Award nomination for screenwriting in 1963. In my response, I will be comparing the literature and film adaptation, as well as finding contrasts and correlations with related text from Foucault and McDonald. Not only is this one of my most cherished college novels and most respected of Kubrick’s films, I also feel it’s the most controversial of any subject matter I have ever experienced. In fact, Nabokov finished the novel in 1949, but was rejected from numerous American publishers because of its taboo themes. It took six years until a French publishing company, Olympia Press, finally took notice of Nabokov’s masterpiece and put the novel into circulation, and years later for American readers.
The protagonist of Lolita, Humbert Humbert, or H.H., is an educated, middle-aged college professor who has just moved to New England in search for a residence to live and work. He shortly finds a room under Charlotte Haze, and decides to move in due to his infatuation with her twelve-year-old daughter, Dolores, also nicknamed Lolita. In Nabokov’s story, we are introduced to the protagonist, knowing that he has a fixation with “nymphets” as he describes, or young, underage girls to be blunt, and confesses his forbidden desire to destroy the conventions of love and sexuality. H.H. spends the rest of the novel acknowledging his crimes and tries to justify it as a force of nature and not a psychological imbalance or genetic induced pleasures. In fact, H.H. and even Nabokov are critical of psychiatry, Freud, and of the human dilemma and boundaries of sexuality. Nabokov allows us to deconstruct H.H. as a human being with many flaws, being a pedophile and a murderer, and we are obligated to sift through H.H.’s clever usage of words and imagery to understand, or even accept the human condition. In contrast, Foucault attempts to state the history of “aberrant sexualities” through games of “perpetual spirals of power and pleasure” as a way of explaining the sexual inconsistency and reality of the individuals and those who classify them. Nabokov destroys these conventions and explanations through H.H.’s narration, not allowing the point of view of the observers, outside society, or reality into his confidential love. The narration of the story from H.H. states that his attraction, perversion or “pleasure” doesn’t derive from the evasion of an apposing law, construct or “power”, but is much more innate. H.H. describes his love through a journal, using vivid, magical phrases to compare his emotion to a trance, spell or euphoria. Like Foucault states, from a readers’ point of view, we are classifying, rather than condemning H.H. as a human being and not as a mental patient. The emotion is uncontrollable and natural for Humbert, and so he marries Charlotte to abide by societies normalcy, only to be secretly to be closer to his love. Charlotte then dies after finding H.H.’s journal, thus allowing H.H. to pursue his Lolita without interference, but now, unfortunately, as a father figure and not a lover. Lolita and H.H. go into exile from normal society, in secrecy from suspicious observers, but eventually Lolita grows up. H.H. tries to control Lolita, tries to run away with her, or even marry her, but Lolita, now aware of the situation, goes into her own exile, and marries a man half way across the country. H.H. dies in a jail cell, awaiting a trial for the murder he committed against the man that took Lolita from him. H.H. dies alone, heartbroken and widowed, only with his journal to pass on to future psychiatrists.
In comparison from the book to Kubrick’s version (and even the 1997 remake) of the film, one could refer to McDonald’s chapter on the “Sex Comedy”: a time when the subject of even legal, heterosexual sex was considered taboo. The film, made in 62, within the limits of censorships and the Production Code Administration was considered controversial because it acknowledged the forbidden “sexual perversion”, which was one of three taboos, McDonald states, that held the weakened PCA code together until 1966. Indeed, Kubrick could not portray the love between H.H. and Lolita as effective as Nabokov could, so Kubrick uses imagery and subtext within words to point out the blatantly obvious. Kubrick opens the film with foreshadow of H.H. killing a man who is also fond of Lolita, which is actually the last chapter in the book. We then cut to the introduction of H.H. as a narrator and his discovery of Lolita. Kubrick does this to get the categorization of H.H. as a murderer out of the way so we may concentrate on the more important aspects of H.H.’s subconscious and condition. Like Nabokov, Kubrick forces us to relate with H.H., his narration, usage of illustrative words, making us pedophiles, and at the same time, accepting it as just another part of the human condition. The film never received as much recognition as the 1958 American release of the book, which was controversial, yet a bestseller, because the film couldn’t achieve the graphic intensity, flow of emotions and clever usage of postmodern literature as Nabokov did. Overall, the subject matter of pedophilia may never be accepted in modern society, but we cannot dismiss that it exists. The book is still banned from every high school and more than 1/3 of countries in the world, but I think that is also why it is so highly accepted and intriguing as a form of classic literature that dares to question the conventions of passion, love and sexuality.
Works Cited
Foucault, Michel “The Perverse Implantation.” The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: The Will to Knowledge. London: Putnam, 1976.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy, Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower Press, 2007
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. France: Olympia Press, 1955. New York: Putnam, 1958.
Lolita. DVD. Dir. Stanley Kubrick, Warner Brothers, 1962
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
Ethnography
PART 1
Usually, I'm at the the local CSUN Chipotle on Reseda and Prairie
every Tuesday and Thursday after 313 class. It's always bursting
at the seems with business and hungry students, and I don't think
I've ever seen the line shorter than 20 people, so this is a
perfect opportunity to get some observations. As soon as I sat
down at a small silver table, I realized that my cover would be
blown because I was the only patron without a two pound burrito
or salad bowl in front of me, so I took my notebook and waited in
the 30 person line.
In front of me, stood two young male professionals, dressed in
casual suits with loosened ties, probably because it's their lunch
break. It's about 1 o'clock and the line is getting longer by the
second; now 35 people and out the side door. Behind me, is an art
student with a large black portfolio and hints of paint on her
jeans. I make eye contact with her, but she immediately looks toward
the food. The two men in front of me start talking about politics.
Both are Democrats and both hate Palin. One comment about Palin
and the familiar looks to recent Emmy award winning Tina Fey,
makes the shorter female customer in front of them look back in
disgust. She's next in line, and probably a republican. I'm third,
behind the bankers in front of me.
Behind the art student behind me is a young couple, about
24 years of age. They look sun burnt and happy to be stuffing
their face with a burrito the size of my arm. Behind them is a guy
with tattoos, staring at the art student behind me. Since I obviously
have a fascination with tattoos, I stare at his collection, hoping
he won't notice my curiosity. After all, people get tattoos to
express themselves, not to hide them. He has a dagger on his arm,
much like the one on my calf, wrapped in a torn ribbon that gives the
birth date and death of a loved one. Above that is a Celtic cross,
illuminated by the sun coming from his shoulder, which looks like
those old school suns you see on grandfather clocks and old medieval
paintings. As I looked beyond the tattooed guy, I got called in with
a "NEXT!" I ordered and payed close to $8.00 for my chicken burrito
with black beans and white rice.
As I looked around, I noticed it was going to be nearly impossible
to find a seat. The diner had become a mob of college students,
some sitting on the floor, and some standing up. I see a seat out
on the patio and sprint outside to grab it. I sit and continue my
notes by observing the few students waiting out in the 100 degree
sun, waiting to merely get inside the air conditioned establishment.
There are 3 males and 1 female, all around the age of 22. Two of
the males are in a conversation about photography, that soon leads
to a conversation about cinematography in film. I scoot a little
closer as this conversation interests me being a ctva film student.
They start talking about the new Cohen brother film, "Burn After
Reading". The shorter, lighter skinned male disagrees and says it's
a remake of "Fargo". He then stresses his disappointment because
of the expectation following last year's "No Country For Old Men".
They both start applauding that film, so I gear my ears to male
and female behind them.
They don't quite look like like the couple from inside the restaurant,
but it definitely looks like there are sparks amidst. They stand only
inches away from each other, but aren't touching. They glance
through the windows of the Chipotle in wonder. This either must be
their first time or they're nervous. I hoped that they were nervous,
or on a first date. It's nice to write about those type of encounters.
I finished my colossal burrito in a few more bites. The two
photo/ctva students go inside the doors. The two love birds make
small talk, as I put on my shades to hide my interest. They talk about
television, probably because the two students in front of them
seemed so enthusiastic, it would be a good conversation started. A
good technique for small talk. They both agree that House and Grey's
Anatomy are the best shows on television, Lost and Heroes are 2nd,
and for some reason, Survivor comes in at third. They laugh about
their choices in prime time T.V. and walk inside the diner. I look at
my watch, and it's almost 2. Time's up.
PART 2
My second part of the ethnography has changed a bit from my WebCT
version now that I can define ethnography as a system of signs and
descriptions to help understand this observation. The Chipotle
diner was indeed a great place for an observation, but it is also
harder to analyze and deconstruct the customers because they are
too similar to myself. Chipotle is a business that appeals to
students, probably because of the amazing food, but also because
they have a liquor license, margaritas and beer close to campus.
This Chipotle is also a social gathering of students who are there
to meet new people, and at the same time fill their bellys. Any
of them could have chosen the empty KFC next door, but the simple
fact that there are more peers in the Chipotle make this diner
more appealing to students like myself.I found it interesting
that when people are standing in line, a social norm is to
create small talk on a common ground such as media or politics
as was the case with the business men, the ctva students and the
love birds I observed. In this situation, language is used as
a diversion to the uncomfortable solitude in a line of 30 people,
like the art student and the tattooed guy, also observing people
much like I was, but unconsciously and without a pen and pad.
Perhaps the art student was looking at me because of my tattoos,
either in a form of curiosity or judgment, trying to define my
personality by how I appear. Barker states "the transformation
of the body through fashion and body decoration has become a
significant aspect of contemporary identity projects" and
through my observations, and my own experience with body
art, I can view the tattooed guy at the end of the line
and realize that although he is expressing himself much
differently than the fashionable art student, they are
both the same, but using "the cultured body" as a means
to describe themselves with words.
Overall, this observation hour gave me a chance to
recognize some of the ways college students use language as
a means to "achieve our purposes" as
Barker states. Though there were many different types of
people in the Chipotle, all of them seemed to be students,
based on correlating conversations, and expectations on how people
wait and react within a line of peers. Language is used not
in a social sense in this situation, but as a protective
device to alleviate the pain of that uncomfortable silence,
surrounded by hundreds of hungry college students.
Usually, I'm at the the local CSUN Chipotle on Reseda and Prairie
every Tuesday and Thursday after 313 class. It's always bursting
at the seems with business and hungry students, and I don't think
I've ever seen the line shorter than 20 people, so this is a
perfect opportunity to get some observations. As soon as I sat
down at a small silver table, I realized that my cover would be
blown because I was the only patron without a two pound burrito
or salad bowl in front of me, so I took my notebook and waited in
the 30 person line.
In front of me, stood two young male professionals, dressed in
casual suits with loosened ties, probably because it's their lunch
break. It's about 1 o'clock and the line is getting longer by the
second; now 35 people and out the side door. Behind me, is an art
student with a large black portfolio and hints of paint on her
jeans. I make eye contact with her, but she immediately looks toward
the food. The two men in front of me start talking about politics.
Both are Democrats and both hate Palin. One comment about Palin
and the familiar looks to recent Emmy award winning Tina Fey,
makes the shorter female customer in front of them look back in
disgust. She's next in line, and probably a republican. I'm third,
behind the bankers in front of me.
Behind the art student behind me is a young couple, about
24 years of age. They look sun burnt and happy to be stuffing
their face with a burrito the size of my arm. Behind them is a guy
with tattoos, staring at the art student behind me. Since I obviously
have a fascination with tattoos, I stare at his collection, hoping
he won't notice my curiosity. After all, people get tattoos to
express themselves, not to hide them. He has a dagger on his arm,
much like the one on my calf, wrapped in a torn ribbon that gives the
birth date and death of a loved one. Above that is a Celtic cross,
illuminated by the sun coming from his shoulder, which looks like
those old school suns you see on grandfather clocks and old medieval
paintings. As I looked beyond the tattooed guy, I got called in with
a "NEXT!" I ordered and payed close to $8.00 for my chicken burrito
with black beans and white rice.
As I looked around, I noticed it was going to be nearly impossible
to find a seat. The diner had become a mob of college students,
some sitting on the floor, and some standing up. I see a seat out
on the patio and sprint outside to grab it. I sit and continue my
notes by observing the few students waiting out in the 100 degree
sun, waiting to merely get inside the air conditioned establishment.
There are 3 males and 1 female, all around the age of 22. Two of
the males are in a conversation about photography, that soon leads
to a conversation about cinematography in film. I scoot a little
closer as this conversation interests me being a ctva film student.
They start talking about the new Cohen brother film, "Burn After
Reading". The shorter, lighter skinned male disagrees and says it's
a remake of "Fargo". He then stresses his disappointment because
of the expectation following last year's "No Country For Old Men".
They both start applauding that film, so I gear my ears to male
and female behind them.
They don't quite look like like the couple from inside the restaurant,
but it definitely looks like there are sparks amidst. They stand only
inches away from each other, but aren't touching. They glance
through the windows of the Chipotle in wonder. This either must be
their first time or they're nervous. I hoped that they were nervous,
or on a first date. It's nice to write about those type of encounters.
I finished my colossal burrito in a few more bites. The two
photo/ctva students go inside the doors. The two love birds make
small talk, as I put on my shades to hide my interest. They talk about
television, probably because the two students in front of them
seemed so enthusiastic, it would be a good conversation started. A
good technique for small talk. They both agree that House and Grey's
Anatomy are the best shows on television, Lost and Heroes are 2nd,
and for some reason, Survivor comes in at third. They laugh about
their choices in prime time T.V. and walk inside the diner. I look at
my watch, and it's almost 2. Time's up.
PART 2
My second part of the ethnography has changed a bit from my WebCT
version now that I can define ethnography as a system of signs and
descriptions to help understand this observation. The Chipotle
diner was indeed a great place for an observation, but it is also
harder to analyze and deconstruct the customers because they are
too similar to myself. Chipotle is a business that appeals to
students, probably because of the amazing food, but also because
they have a liquor license, margaritas and beer close to campus.
This Chipotle is also a social gathering of students who are there
to meet new people, and at the same time fill their bellys. Any
of them could have chosen the empty KFC next door, but the simple
fact that there are more peers in the Chipotle make this diner
more appealing to students like myself.I found it interesting
that when people are standing in line, a social norm is to
create small talk on a common ground such as media or politics
as was the case with the business men, the ctva students and the
love birds I observed. In this situation, language is used as
a diversion to the uncomfortable solitude in a line of 30 people,
like the art student and the tattooed guy, also observing people
much like I was, but unconsciously and without a pen and pad.
Perhaps the art student was looking at me because of my tattoos,
either in a form of curiosity or judgment, trying to define my
personality by how I appear. Barker states "the transformation
of the body through fashion and body decoration has become a
significant aspect of contemporary identity projects" and
through my observations, and my own experience with body
art, I can view the tattooed guy at the end of the line
and realize that although he is expressing himself much
differently than the fashionable art student, they are
both the same, but using "the cultured body" as a means
to describe themselves with words.
Overall, this observation hour gave me a chance to
recognize some of the ways college students use language as
a means to "achieve our purposes" as
Barker states. Though there were many different types of
people in the Chipotle, all of them seemed to be students,
based on correlating conversations, and expectations on how people
wait and react within a line of peers. Language is used not
in a social sense in this situation, but as a protective
device to alleviate the pain of that uncomfortable silence,
surrounded by hundreds of hungry college students.
FWD from Week 6 discussion
I, for one, am one of those people who have seen the 1961 film
countless times (thanks to parents and ex girlfriends), but
never attempted to read Truman Capote's writing. After seeing
Phillip Seymor Hoffman's academy award performance in "Capote",
I kind of predicted out that our faithful narrator was (just
like Tennessee Williams) an asexual or closet homosexual (at
the time), thus adding to the dilemma the book has now struck
on me. I now understand some of the themes that I couldn't
really fathom as a kid/teen, having only watched the film, trying
to understand what the heck they meant by "powder room" and why
they accepted checks and cash for 50$ because of it. Prostitution
has added a whole new element to the drama I had always thought
was Hollywood romance. Ironically after last weeks discussion on
the sex comedy and "beating around the bush", this 1961 film, made
in between the age of "the code" makes complete sense... if you
only take into account that they abandoned EVERY controversial,
juicy emotion that Capote is trying to convey.
Instead of the book being a romance, I find it to be more of a
study piece on the human condition of the female-rebel without a
cause. Our narrator, unlike the film, serves as an investigator,
complacent and willing to understand the abstract character of
Holly. We are drawn to Holly's charm, style, confidence and apathy
because everybody else in the story is. The character progression
of Holly is more like a deconstruction of insecurities, addictions,
and fixations, thus revealing her soft side as she shifts back into
reality as the story progresses.
I actually prefer the film over Capote's novella even with its
flaws. It's nothing personal against Capote's writing, because I
think he has the gift to make words and emotions fly like music
within sentences. I just think Audrey Hephburn's performance defined
an image and culture for millions of women and celebrities to come.
countless times (thanks to parents and ex girlfriends), but
never attempted to read Truman Capote's writing. After seeing
Phillip Seymor Hoffman's academy award performance in "Capote",
I kind of predicted out that our faithful narrator was (just
like Tennessee Williams) an asexual or closet homosexual (at
the time), thus adding to the dilemma the book has now struck
on me. I now understand some of the themes that I couldn't
really fathom as a kid/teen, having only watched the film, trying
to understand what the heck they meant by "powder room" and why
they accepted checks and cash for 50$ because of it. Prostitution
has added a whole new element to the drama I had always thought
was Hollywood romance. Ironically after last weeks discussion on
the sex comedy and "beating around the bush", this 1961 film, made
in between the age of "the code" makes complete sense... if you
only take into account that they abandoned EVERY controversial,
juicy emotion that Capote is trying to convey.
Instead of the book being a romance, I find it to be more of a
study piece on the human condition of the female-rebel without a
cause. Our narrator, unlike the film, serves as an investigator,
complacent and willing to understand the abstract character of
Holly. We are drawn to Holly's charm, style, confidence and apathy
because everybody else in the story is. The character progression
of Holly is more like a deconstruction of insecurities, addictions,
and fixations, thus revealing her soft side as she shifts back into
reality as the story progresses.
I actually prefer the film over Capote's novella even with its
flaws. It's nothing personal against Capote's writing, because I
think he has the gift to make words and emotions fly like music
within sentences. I just think Audrey Hephburn's performance defined
an image and culture for millions of women and celebrities to come.
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