Violence: Uncontrollable or Unbelievable?

Throughout Lolita, readers experience the violent thoughts occurring in Humbert Humbert’s mind. Vladimir Nabokov’s descriptive language makes certain events believable to a reader at first that they may later reconsider. For example, when Humbert and Charlotte are spending the day at Hourglass Lake, Humbert is determined to drown Charlotte. He says, “The fatal gesture passes like the tail of a falling star across the blackness of the contemplated crime” (Nabokov 86). Humbert is descriptively explaining that his opportunity is right in front of him. He is clearly aware that his chance is slipping away, yet he continues to waste his time planning, in his mind, the exact order of the events to follow in which he will achieve the perfect murder. Similarly, earlier in the book, Humbert is informed of his wife’s affair and plots to kill her, as well. Fortunately for Humbert and excuse allows him to escape the possibility of acting on his threats—Valeria’s lover does not leave them alone. It is this characteristic that makes Humbert’s perspective so unbelievable to readers. Although Humbert is intimidating in his mind, readers can come to realize that he is not the type of person to act on his violent thoughts.