Is Nabokov's Humbert the Victim?

In Vladimir Nabokov’s acclaimed novel Lolita, Nabokov’s character Humbert Humbert seeks to justify his affair with a child.   Throughout Lolita the reader picks up on Humbert’s constant sexual perception of children, as well as his obvious discourse regarding the pre-meditation, action, and consequences of seducing Lolita.   Often, critics describe Humbert’s actions as “monstrous”.   Dolores “Lolita” Haze becomes the sexual object of a pedophile’s desires and is left unprotected with the sudden death of her mother.   Lolita is an innocent young girl who is victimized and seduced by a pedophile.

Humbert has a predisposition towards children that affects his entire life prior to meeting his victim Lolita.   His pedophilic actions are linked back to an experience with a lanky girl by the sea that never came to fruition.   Lo is not even represented wholly as Dolores, but instead is preceded by Annabel, “a certain initial girl-child” (Nabokov 9).   The nymphets seem to take on qualities of this young, fumbled love.   As the reader progresses through the story, Humbert relays how other children attract him, and why.   His entire life is woven around nymphets, desires, and morality (or lack thereof).   Humbert, when choosing a wife, plainly states that his attraction to Valeria, his first wife, was due to the “imitation she gave of a little girl” with an innocent pout and cute curls (Nabokov 25).   However, on the wedding night, Humbert terrifies Valeria by asking her to wear a white, virginal child’s nightdress and reduced his insignificant “baba” to hysterics (Nabokov 26).   Obviously, despite his attempt to seek those same childlike qualities, Humbert is left in an unsettling situation with an adult woman he does not desire, and reduces her in his mind to a plain whore.   Subsequently, Valeria becomes a victim of Humbert’s sexual desire of nymphets.   Frederic Whiting agrees that Humbert marries Mrs. Haze solely as “a maneuver to ensure physical proximity to Lolita” (Whiting...