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Alliteration
Definition of Allusion
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals, historical events, or philosophical ideas... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to... read full definition
Foreword
Explanation and Analysis—Joyce's Ulysses:
Dr. John Ray Jr., the (fictional) editor of Humbert Humbert’s manuscript, alludes to the 1922 novel Ulysses by Irish writer James Joyce and to the landmark legal decision in which the novel was cleared of the charge of obscenity by an American judge:
If, however, for this paradoxical prude’s comfort, an editor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a certain type of mind might call “aphrodisiac” (see in this respect the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933, by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably more outspoken, book), one would have to forego the publication of “Lolita” altogether, since those very scenes that one might ineptly accuse of a sensuous existence of their own, are the most strictly functional ones in the development of a tragic tale tending unswervingly to nothing less than a moral apotheosis.
In this passage, John Ray attempts to defend his decision to edit and publish Humbert’s manuscript, which details his abduction and sexual abuse of an adolescent girl named Dolores “Lolita” Haze across a span of several years. More specifically, Ray argues that it would be wrong to “dilute or omit” the more sexually explicit sections of Humbert’s manuscript, as these sections are “the most strictly functional ones in the development of a tragic tale” that ends in “moral apotheosis.” In other words, Ray insists that the story would lose its moral value as a cautionary tale if those sections were removed.
In defending his choices, Ray alludes to the obscenity trial that followed the publication of “another, considerably more outspoken, book,” by which he refers to Joyce’s Ulysses. After copies of Ulysses were seized by U.S. customs in 1932, an American judge, John M. Woolsey, defended the publication of the book in a landmark decision that strengthened freedom of expression in literature. Here, Ray places Humbert’s manuscript alongside Ulysses as a controversial but important literary work.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Jean-Paul Marat:
When describing his married life with Valeria in Paris in the 1930s, Humbert employs both imagery and allusion:
This state of affairs lasted from 1935 to 1939. Her only asset was a muted nature which did help to produce an odd sense of comfort in our small squalid flat: two rooms, a hazy view in one window, a brick wall in the other, a tiny kitchen, a shoe-shaped bath tub, within which I felt like Marat but with no white-necked maiden to stab me. We had quite a few cozy evenings together, she deep in her Paris-Soir, I working at a rickety table. We went to movies, bicycle races and boxing matches.
He describes their home together using sparse imagery, noting various details of their “squalid flat,” including the “hazy view in one window,” the view of a “brick wall” in the other window, and the "shoe-shaped bath tub" in their small bathroom. While lying in the bath, he claims that he felt like “Marat but with no white-necked maiden to stab me.” Here, he alludes to Jean-Paul Marat, a politician and writer who became famous for his pivotal role as a leader in the French Revolution. While lying in a bathtub to treat a painful skin-condition, Marat was assassinated by a young woman named Charlotte Corday, who stabbed him in the heart with a knife. Through this allusion, Humbert compares his situation to that of Marat, suggesting with a typically macabre sense of humor that he would rather be murdered by a beautiful “maiden” than live his altogether conventional married life with his own wife.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Edgar Allan Poe:
Throughout the novel, Humbert Humbert makes various allusions to 19th-century American writer Edgar Allan Poe, who married his first cousin, Virginia Poe, when she was 13 and he was 27. For example, Humbert gives the pseudonym “Annabel Leigh” to his first adolescent lover in France, a clear reference to Poe’s poem “Annabel Lee.” He alludes to Poe again shortly after meeting Dolores “Lolita” Haze for the first time:
The median age of pubescence for girls has been found to be thirteen years and nine months in New York and Chicago. The age varies for individuals from ten, or earlier, to seventeen. Virginia was not quite fourteen when Harry Edgar possessed her. He gave her lessons in algebra. Je m’imagine cela. They spent their honeymoon at Petersburg, Fla. “Monsieur Poe-poe,” as that boy in one of Monsieur Humbert Humbert’s classes in Paris called the poet-poet.
In this passage, Humbert, an unrepentant pedophile, is characteristically fixated upon adolescent female sexuality. His reflections upon the “median age of pubescence for girls” leads him to the topic of Poe’s marriage to the adolescent Virginia. Poe, he notes, “gave her lessons in algebra,” suggesting that Poe was closer in age to Virginia’s parents than to Virginia herself. Here, as elsewhere in the novel, Humbert turns to history for what he considers to be examples of love between adult men and young girls. By alluding to Poe, he suggests that his own attraction to Lolita has precedent among great writers and artists—perhaps a thought process aimed at justifying his pedophilia.
Related Themes:
