Constructing Perceptions of Sexual Transgression
Constructing Perceptions of Sexual Transgression: Invitations to view characters’ sexually transgressive behaviour as forgivable or excusable in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Esther Tusquets’ Stranded
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Esther Tusquets’ Stranded are both novels that revolve around behaviour that could be regarded as sexually transgressive, exploring the concepts of what is viewed as sexually transgressive by the reader, the characters within the story and wider socio-cultural narratives. These novels invite their readers to judge this behaviour and decide whether they perceive the actions of characters to be forgivable or excusable. This paper will explore how the reader is invited and at times convinced by the text to forgive or excuse characters for their actions within the novels, exploring the presentation of Humbert Humbert’s relationship and exploitation of Lolita in Nabokov’s novel and Pablo’s extra-marital affair with the much younger redhaired girl in Stranded.
Humbert Humbert’s first person narrative perspective in Lolita immediately leads to the reader have an affinity with him and the presentation of the ‘causal history of his obsession’ (Frederick Whiting, The Strange Particularity of the Lover's Preference) than they naturally would if the text was written in the third person; it enables Humbert not only to launch into an elaborate and intelligent self-defence but also effectively manipulate the reader. Phrases such as ‘learned readers’ (Vladimir Nabokov, The Annotated Lolita, p.133) are used throughout the text as well as French language, which work to subconsciously associate himself and the readers as intelligent, educated people. The first person narrative also enables Humbert to portray the strong emotions he has towards Lolita, particularly when she leaves him. Humbert states that it felt like ‘a side door crashing open in life's full flight, and a rush of roaring black time drowning with its whipping wind the cry of lone disaster’ (p.253-254); this would evoke pathos for Humbert at the same time as portraying that his interest in Lolita was more than obsessional and sexual. The first person narration also means that Lolita’s voice is never present in the text, all we hear about and from her is controlled by Humbert’s narrative. As Nomi Tamir-Ghez stated ‘not only is Lolita's voice almost silenced, her point of view, the way she sees the situation and feels about it, is rarely mentioned and can be only surmised by the reader’ (Nomi Tamir-Ghez, The Art of Persuasion in Nabokov's Lolita). This one dimensional presentation of Lolita enables the reader to more easily forget about the monstrosities that have been done to her.
On the other hand, Stranded is told from the third person perspective. In this narrative structure, not only Pablo is never able to build up a defence for himself or manipulate the reader but the reader finds out about certain behaviour and different perspectives that most likely would not be present in a first person, defensive narrative. The detached nature of the narrative makes Pablo’s actions seem highly ‘self-enclosed and narcissistic’ (Linda Gould Levine, Reading, Rereading, Misreading and Rewriting the Male Canon: The Narrative Web of Esther Tusquets' Trilogy) as it is evident that in his actions he thinks of no one but himself. The presence of Eva’s perspective shows just how unforgivable Pablo’s actions have been; emotive language is used as Eva feels something ‘breaks inside her’ (Esther Tusquets, Stranded, p.187) and the description of how the red haired girl is ‘scarred, perhaps forever with this wound’ (p.190) further vilifies him. This alienates Pablo and his perspective on the events as it can be seen that ‘Pablo radically misread[s] Eva and never perceive[s] that vulnerable side of her buried beneath the shell’ (Levine) furthering the sense of betrayal and thoughtlessness.
Humbert’s guilty and self-depreciating tone within Lolita also encourages the reader to forgive his behaviour as he insists he ‘never was, and never could have been, a brutal scoundrel’ (p.131). Humbert’s acceptance of his behaviour as inexcusable behaviour, for example when he ‘succeeded in terrorizing Lo’ (p.151) portray him as self-aware, making the reader more ready to understand and forgive him. The use of a word like ‘terrorizing’ when describing his actions also shows that he is aware of how his behaviour would seem to Lolita, even if this is just lightly mentioned so it does not affect his defence. Humbert also highlights the fact that he has tried to fight against his instincts; he states that what attracted him to his first wife was the ‘imitation she gave of a little girl’ (p.25) showing at least an attempt against his impulses.
Pablo’s attitude toward his affair in Stranded contrasts greatly to that of Humbert’s in Lolita, as he seems proud to have committed adultery with a much younger woman and sees it as an achievement. Pablo is described to be walking around ‘with a heroic gesture […] as if he were doing his good deed for the week or of his life’ (p.177) which strongly gives the impression of just how pleased he is with himself for his behaviour. His lack of thought is especially present when he does not efficiently emotionally support Eva when she finds out about the affair as Pablo is ‘so worried about his date […] he wasn’t even paying attention to what Eva was screaming’ (p.170). His pride in his sexually transgressive behaviour seems especially distasteful when ‘Pablo seems to enjoy prolonging’ (p.192) the event which causes Eva such pain, further making him a dislikeable character as he never analyses his own actions or considers the effects of them on others. Pablo shows no self-restraint in his behaviour and only stops because he is forced to by Eva, again further creating dislike for him by the reader.
In Lolita there are various life circumstances that Humbert attempts to blame for his behaviour. Humbert states early in the novel that he is ‘convinced […] that in a certain magic and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel’ (p.13-14) and without the event of her death he never would have had to break her spell by ‘incarnating her into another’ (p.15). This trauma encourages the reader feel sorry for Humbert and highlights his possible psychological problems. The impression of madness is also present later in the novel when he admits he has spent time in a sanatorium and declares a poem he wrote as a ‘maniac’s masterpiece’ (p.257); this again moves any possible blame away from himself to external forces. By raising these issues it gives a strong impression to the reader that previous life events or even insanity are ‘at the root of his obsession […] each of the possible answers leaves him passive before his own history, a prisoner of either his childhood experience or his biological make-up’ (Whiting). Humbert also cleverly questions to what extent is the concept of paedophilia is a social construct; he uses references from other cultures and historical happenings when he states that ‘marriage and cohabitation before the age of puberty are still not uncommon in certain East Indian provinces […] After all, Dante fell in love with his Beatrice when she was nine’ (p.19), this gives the impression of how common and acceptable this behaviour is outside his current cultural context. This rational, supposedly intellectual response is also present in his presentation of his views towards ‘nymphets’ which have the ‘trappings of scientific theory and case-study talk ("Now I wish to introduce the following idea," "It will be noted"), casting himself as professor to the reader/pupil unversed in nympholepy’ (whiting), again giving the impression of intellectual rationality and objectivity leading to the questioning of cultural norms.
Within Stranded, it is Pablo’s dissatisfaction with his own life and circumstance, perhaps what could be called a mid-life crisis, is the reason for his transgressive behaviour. Although some pathos is built for Pablo in descriptions of how he ‘keeps going over and over his discontent, the bad opinion he has of himself, the way of life he often feels trapped in’ (p.66), this reasoning does not have the same persuasive flair or complexity of Humbert’s in Lolita and thus does not build up a very influential reasoning for his affair. The description of how the red-headed girl makes him feel ‘so young all of a sudden, so like a Pablo who lay very far away in time and who everyone […] had already forgotten’ (p.125) seems self-indulgent as he is ‘depicted as ridiculously narcissistic, needing to affirm […his] manliness with women half […his] age’ (Joan Lipman Brown, Men by Women in the Contemporary Spanish novel). It seems foolish to the reader that Pablo risks his marriage for a feeling that is so transient; the name of the red-haired girl is never mentioned in the novel and her character comes across as one dimensional, portraying just how meaningless his relationship with her was.
Humbert attempts to partially blame Lolita for their relationship stating that it was ‘she who seduced me’ (p.132); this flirtatious, sexualised presentation of Lolita is present throughout the novel giving the reader the impression that she is anything but an innocent child corrupted in this relationship. This is added to by Humbert’s dismissal of Lolita’s feelings, which are rarely mentioned, never analysed and merely brushed over, for example ‘her sobs in the night’ (p.176) which not only brought up and never mentioned again, but the reason behind them never explored. Lolita is also shown to be manipulative as she exchanges sexual favours ‘for sixty-five cents plus the permission to participate in the school play’ (p.198) which is again an attempt to eliminate reader sympathy for Lolita. Humbert effectively ‘treats Lolita […like] a bewitching, adorable nymphet - but not as the human, lonely child she really is’ (Tamir-Ghez), effecting any preformed judgement the reader may have on the situation.
Similarly in Stranded, Pablo to a degree blames Eva for the discontentment in his life that leads to his affair. Pablo feels the strain of ‘failing and letting her down’ (p.71), and has found it hard that he has had to ‘live for years and years and more years in […her] shadow’ (p.71); though the blame is not as concrete and attacking as that of Humbert’s toward Lolita, it is Eva that is blamed for Pablo’s state of mind. As Linda Gould Levine stated, ‘Eva does not accurately assess Pablo's dissatisfaction with his role as a comfortable appendage in her world of feminist struggles’ (Levine) and it could be argued that Pablo’s affair partly allows him not only some freedom over his own life but also enables him to affect Eva. However, this emancipation is short lived as he is forced to end the affair and still feels ‘uncomfortable and frightened, pressured and ordered’ (p.187) by Eva.
In conclusion it is evident that the first person narrative and persuasive argument within Lolita invite the reader to view Humbert Humbert’s behaviour as more forgivable or excusable than that of Pablo’s in Stranded even though the paedophilia present in Lolita would be more likely to be viewed as much more taboo and sexually transgressive than the extra-marital affair in Stranded. In Lolita ‘the context is always Humbert's emotional world, and in this context what is communicated to us is his pain when realizing how meaningless he was for Lolita’ (Tamir-Ghez) whereas in Stranded the varied emotional perspective not only means that the reader does not grow to understand or feel a complicity with Pablo but the presence of Eva’s perspective acts to vilify him further. Pablo’s more relaxed attitude towards his sexually transgressive behaviour highlights how what he has done is not highly socially unacceptable making it more excusable but never forgivable, as Eva’s ever present emotions remind the reader of the damage caused. In contrast to this, Humbert’s skilfully presented defence and guilt-ridden tone almost makes something which is inexcusable seem forgivable as he layers the external justifications for his actions.
In light of analysis such as this, it is vital to remember that socio-cultural narrative framing of actions that could be perceived as sexually transgressive has a distinct ability to shift and change moral objections to behaviour. This is particularly evident when taking into consideration the media’s framing of particular events over the course of time; the importance of narrative framing, tone and the information given or not given heavily impacts our perceptions of any given situation. Individual narrative framings work in conjunction with each other to create a broader socio-cultural ideology surrounding what is and is not acceptable behaviour within society. It must always be remembered: whoever holds the pen, holds the power.
Bibliography
Brown, Joan Lipman, ‘Men by Women in the Contemporary Spanish novel’, Hispanic Review, 60 (1 Nomi Tamir-Ghez, ‘The Art of Persuasion in Nabokov's Lolita’, Poetics Today, 1 (1979), 65-83.
Levine, Linda Gould, ‘Reading, Rereading, Misreading and Rewriting the Male Canon: The Narrative Web of Esther Tusquets' Trilogy’, Anales de la literatura espa?ola contemporánea, 12 (1987), 203-217.
Nabokov, Vladimir, The Annotated Lolita, 14 (London: Penguin, 2000).
Tamir-Ghez, Nomi, ‘The Art of Persuasion in Nabokov's Lolita’, Poetics Today, 1 (1979), 65-83.
Tusquets, Esther, Stranded, 1 (USA: Dalkey Archive Press, 1992).
Whiting, Frederick, ‘"The Strange Particularity of the Lover's Preference": Paedophilia, Pornography, and the Anatomy of Monstrosity in Lolita’, American Literature, 70 (1998), 833-862.