Humbert Humbert of Lolita and James Gatsby of The Great...

At first glance, one might find it difficult to draw comparisons between the two protagonists: James Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby, and Humbert Humbert, from Lolita. Gatsby’s is the tragic story of a self-made man who built himself an empire for a woman who would never love him. Humbert Humbert, on the other hand, is a manipulative and witty pervert who lusts after the vulgar nymphet, Lolita. Both men are extremely similar in one key aspect, however. Both Gatsby and Humbert have idealized an encounter from their youth and that idealization has become a driving obsession in each of their lives. In her essay, â€Å"Attachment to the Missing Object: Infidelity and Obsessive Love,† Lucinda Williams says that â€Å"the passion displayed†¦show more content†¦Another striking resemblance to William’s description of the ‘common’ form of obsession stems from the fact that when Humbert meets Annabel, his father is away touring Italy. He states that he â€Å"had nobody to complain to, nobody to consult† about sex (11). Instead of speaking to a parental figure about his sexual desire, he tries to figure it out for himself and in the process projects what he is really missing, a loving parental figure, onto this adolescent girl. The relationship between Annabel and Humbert is one marked with sexual restraint. Humbert describes an important sexual encounter, when they escaped to a mimosa grove while their chaperones play bridge, in great depth and it is this encounter that haunts Humbert for the rest of his life. Shortly after this moment, Annabel is called away by her mother and Humbert never gets to reach his sexual climax. He also never sees Annabel again because she dies of typhus four months later. Because of her death, Annabel is kept sacred and perfect in Humbert’s memory. The unsuccessful first tryst plagues the rest of Humbert’s relationships with women. Ellen Pifer reiterates this in her book, Demon and Doll, saying that â€Å"It is Humbert’s longing for the unattainable, for ideal perfection – what he calls the ‘rosegray never-to-be-had’ – that fires his imagination and fuels his desire for nymphet beauty† (68). This unattainable perfection whi ch Pifer speaks of appears to be the ever-young Annabel.Show MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Lolita s Tehran Is A Memoir By Azar Nafisi1484 Words   |  6 Pages Reading Lolita in Tehran is a memoir by Azar Nafisi which shows life struggle of people, especially women living in Iran during revolution. Nafisi is a literature professor who has started her own secret class with seven former students. The class meets once a week and discusses different works of the western literature. In Iran women were were not allowed to read western literature and the ones who read these novels  were punished. Iranian government considered western culture bad for their womenRead MoreThe Truth : Ethics, Arithmetic, And Synthetics Of Life1335 Words   |  6 Pagesto know them with any degree of certainty. In Section 2 of the memoir of â€Å"Lolita in Tehran† by Azar Nafisi the book â€Å"The great Gatsby† written by Scott Fitzgerald is mentioned. Throughout this section, the reader is exposed to a varied range of themes relating to each other. One of the primary themes that recur within the pages is of dreams and its relationship with reality. Th e protagonist Jay Gatsby of â€Å"The Great Gatsby† fantasizes of getting another human and even succeeds to an extent. He is