Lolita: Metaphors 5 key examples

Humbert writes the narrative from prison, where he is incarcerated while awaiting trial for the murder of the playwright Clare Quilty. In prison, his thoughts turn to Lolita, his step-daughter, whom he abducted and sexually assaulted for several years. He describes her in a quick succession of metaphors as the “light” of his life, the “fire” of his “loins,” his “sin,” and his “soul.” These various metaphors reflect his ongoing fixation with Lolita, whom he regards as both the love of his life and the cause of his downfall. His language here simultaneously invokes religion and eroticism, suggesting that he worships Lolita but nevertheless recognizes the “sin” of his attraction to the young girl. 

Here, as elsewhere in the novel, Humbert also demonstrates a careful attention to language, befitting his background as a professor of literature. He uses alliteration in the first sentence, repeating words that, like “Lolita,” begin with the /l/ sound, such as “light,” “life,” and “loins.” Later, he again uses alliteration by repeating the /t/ sound (which also appears consonantly in "Lolita"), saying, “the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.” His combined use of alliteration and consonance here reflects his deep fixation with the nickname “Lolita,” which he alone uses for the girl.

Humbert claims that there are “two kinds of visual memory.” The first, he writes, takes place “when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind.” Here, he uses a “laboratory” as a metaphor for memory, imagining himself as a scientist who pieces together an image of a person limb by limb. The second type of visual memory, he argues, occurs when “you instantly invoke [...] the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors.” This second type of memory, then, is even stronger than the first, as he claims that he can see an “objective” image of Lolita as a “little ghost” standing before him. The first metaphor draws from the language of science and medicine, and the second, in contrast, invokes ghosts and the supernatural, perhaps communicating Humbert Humbert's irrational, destructive, and even frightening interest in Lolita.

When he reflects upon his adolescent experiences with Annabel, Humbert describes the events as occurring on an “enchanted island of time.” This metaphor emphasizes how important these memories are to him, but also his feeling of distance from that “enchanted” period. Additionally, he writes that Annabel’s premature death put “poison” in his psychological “wound,” a wound that “remained ever open.” Through these metaphors of poison and wounds, Humbert insinuates that he is, as an adult, a pedophile because he was unable to consummate his adolescent relationship with Annabel.

Throughout the novel, Humbert alternates between defending his own actions to the reader and bitterly criticizing himself. In this passage, he presents himself unflatteringly as being “like one of those inflated spiders you see in old gardens.” His choice of simile here registers his predatory attitude towards Lolita. Further developing this simile, he notes that his “web is spread all over the house,” allowing him to sense her whereabouts. Metaphorically, he claims that he can “tug on the silk” threads of his web to determine where she is, in fact listening closely for signs of her movements about the house. Here, his choice in simile and metaphor suggests that he thinks of Lolita as “prey” he intends to hunt. 

Previously, Humbert agreed to marry Charlotte in order to get closer to her daughter, Lolita. His plan is to take advantage of his status as the girl’s stepfather in order to sexually abuse her. Hoping to keep Charlotte happy, Humbert agrees to tell her about his previous lovers. Using several closely related metaphors, he writes that she “desired me to resuscitate all my loves so that she might make me insult them, and trample upon them.” Here, Humbert imagines that Charlotte wants him to bring his previous lovers back to life so that he can then symbolically “trample” them, emphasizing her possessive feelings toward him. Later, Humbert claims that he “had to present her with an illustrated catalogue” of his former lovers, a metaphor that mockingly casts his own romantic history in the terms of shopping and commerce that he associates with suburban America.