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Humbert Humbert 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".

He was portrayed by James Mason (1962 film), Donald Sutherland (1981 play), and Jeremy Irons (1997 film).

Biography[]

Humbert is a middle-aged literary scholar who is sexually attracted 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' 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[]

• Lolita has inspired several other pieces of pop culture, including the 1971 musical Lolita, My Love, 1984 hentai Lolita Anime, the 1992 opera Lolita, and Joop Wilhelmus' porn mag.
  • The majority of these, including the two film adaptation of the novel, are generally considered to be negative portrayals of the characters as they end up indirectly glorifying the actions taken by Humbert by portraying them in explicit detail. Nabokov showed dislike of the musical in particular due to his belief that the story only worked as words on a page and that by acting it out the story become distasteful.
• Stanley Kubrick wanted James Mason to play 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 often wrongfully assumed to have been inspired by the late real-life child molester Frank La Salle, who kidnapped 11-year-old Florence 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. Frank La Salle 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?". In reality, Nabokov had the idea for the novel as early as 1939 when he wrote a similar novel called The Enchanter, and the Sally Horner case happened during his writing process, making the mention of La Salle a contemporary reference rather than direct inspiration.