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| “ | We have fun together, don't we? Ay, whenever you want something, I buy it for you automatically. I take you to concerts, to museums, to movies. I do all the housework. Who does the-the tidying up? I do. Who does the cooking? I do. You and I have lots of fun - don't we Lolita? | „ |
| ~ Humbert manipulating Dolores. |
Humbert Humbert (pseudonym; real name unknown) is the main protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial 1955 novel Lolita. He is a pedophile who is obsessed with 12-year-old Dolores Haze, whom he nicknames "Lolita".
In the 1962 film adaptation, he was portrayed by the late James Mason, who also portrayed Phillip Vandamm in North by Northwest and Richard Straker in the 1979 TV miniseries adaptation of Salem's Lot.
In the 1997 film adaptation, he was portrayed by Jeremy Irons, who also portrayed Simon Gruber in Die Hard With a Vengeance, Scar in The Lion King, Rodrigo Borgia in The Borgias, Profion in Dungeons & Dragons, Alan Rikkin in Assassin's Creed, John Tuld in Margin Call, Randall Bragg in Appaloosa, the Über-Morlock in the 2002 film adaptation of The Time Machine, and Ozymandias in the HBO series Watchmen.
Biography[]
Humbert is a middle-aged literary scholar who is sexually obsessed with beautiful little girls, whom he calls "nymphets". It is implied that Humbert's pedophilia is the result of his youthful romance with a girl named Annabel, who died before they could consummate their relationship. As an adult, he observes a "look but don't touch" rule in regard to little girls, as he fears going to prison.
He accepts a teaching position in a small New England town and takes a room in a boarding house owned by a middle-aged woman named Charlotte Haze. When he meets her 12-year-old daughter, Dolores, he becomes obsessed with her and nicknames her "Lolita". He gets engaged to Charlotte just so he can be near her daughter. When Charlotte sends Dolores off to summer camp so they can be alone, Humbert is devastated, but he is briefly heartened when Dolores gives him a kiss goodbye. Eventually, Charlotte finds Humbert's diary, in which he details his contempt for her and waxes poetic about his lust for Dolores. Horrified, Charlotte runs out of the house and is struck dead by a passing car. Humbert picks Dolores up at her summer camp and takes her to a motel, intending to drug her and rape her in her sleep. When Dolores tells him that she is not a virgin, however, he takes it as a sign that is acceptable to have sex with her. They become lovers and go traveling cross-country together.
They settle in a small town, where Humbert takes a job as a college professor. He sends Dolores to school but is so pathologically jealous of her that he refuses to let her have a life. Eventually, Dolores tires of him and runs off with Clare Quilty, a local playwright. Humbert goes looking for her, but to no avail. Years later, Humbert receives a letter from a now-adult Dolores asking for money. He goes to see her and finds that she is married and pregnant. She tells him that she left Quilty after he tried to make her perform in child pornography, and that she just wants to live a normal life. Humbert finds that he still loves her, even though she is no longer the nymphet of his dreams, so he asks her to run away with him. Even though she rebuffs him, he still gives her the money.
He then goes to see Quilty, intent on killing him. He reads Quilty a poem he wrote accusing him (hypocritically) of destroying Dolores's innocence, and then shoots him dead. He is arrested and later dies in prison after telling the story of his relationship with Dolores to a journalist.
Trivia[]
- Stanley Kubrick wanted James Mason to play Humbert Humbert, but he turned down because he was starring on Broadway at the time. After Laurence Olivier and David Niven turned down the role, Kubrick offered it to Mason once again, and this time he accepted.
- Humbert is believed to have been inspired by the late real-life child molester Frank La Salle, who kidnapped 11-year-old Sally Horner in 1948 and moved around the country with her for 21 months while forcing her to pretend to be his daughter to avoid detection. Although Vladimir Nabokov denied being inspired by La Salle, he is explicitly referenced during Humbert's epiphany near the end of the novel when he wonders "had I done to Dolly what Frank La Salle had done to Sally Horner in 1948?".