This passage reveals the roots of Jude’s characteristic secrecy. He learns to cope with his pain by shutting down and keeping his pain inside, and he carries this coping mechanism—and the unresolved trauma it masks—with him to adulthood. When Jude watches the boys playing and sees their innocence (and his own lack thereof), it closely mirrors a scene from
Lolita, another book about a pedophile who kidnaps a child, drives across the country, and assaults them in various motels. Toward the end of
Lolita, the narrator and pedophile-antagonist, Humbert Humbert, observes a group of children playing in a field and finally realizes that his actions have prevented Lolita, the girl he kidnapped, from joining these children in their innocent play.