History Literature / Lolita

* GirlsAreReallyScaredOfHorrorMovies: Lolita and her mother grasp Humbert's hands during a scary moment of ''Film/TheCurseOfFrankenstein''.

* CrazyJealousGuy: Humbert Humbert is very jealous about Lolita's relationship with boys. In this strange case it overlaps with OverprotectiveDad. He's horrified and beyond jealous when he finds out she ran away with Quilty who is a paedophile. Quilty trails Humbert and Lolita across the United States and leaves behind provocative clues (literary references, initials, inside jokes) in motel ledgers, which makes Humbert even more paranoid and jealous.

* OverprotectiveDad: A very grim variation. The reason why Humbert's keeping others boys (and men) away from his little girl is that he wants her himself.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: Humbert's in-universe reaction to the girly magazines and corny music that Lolita enjoys.

* NiceHat: In the 1962 film, Delores is first seen wearing a hat with [[FluffyFashionFeathers feathers trimming the brim]].

* KillEmAll: [[spoiler:In the end, Dolores escapes from her abusers and marries a man she actually loved. When she becomes pregnant, she contacts Humbert to ask for support, and tells him the story from her point of view. Humbert then leaves her his money and goes off to kill Quilty, ends up in jail, and dies of illness there. Dolores dies in childbirth, along with her child.]]

* MadnessMantra: Chapter 26, where the daily headache in the opaque air of the tombol jail is disturbing. The paragraph describes how he can't go on, and ends with Lolita repeated 10 times, followed by "Repeat till the page is full, printer".

* OneParagraphChapter: Humbert asks his editor/printer to fill up the entire page with "Lolita". He does not, so the chapter is very brief.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The book is presented as a memoir written by the main character written while he was in prison and published posthumously with names changed to protect the innocent.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The book is presented as a memoir written by the main character written while he was in prison and published posthumously with names changed to protect the innocent. In the Creator/JeremyIrons version, Quilty {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this, saying "You are a foreigner, you are an agent of a foreign power, you're a foreign literary agent."

* CorruptTheCutie: DoubleSubversion. According to Humbert, it is teenage Dolores who initiates her first sexual encounter with him, and he justifies not stopping her by her being experienced anyway, she she was involved in sexual activities with her young friends before. But Humbert quickly forces her into a sex-focused relationship, and by the end, her childhood is ruined.

* ForegoneConclusion: [[spoiler: ''Lolita'' has a foreword, which says that Humbert died from coronary thrombosis and Lolita died in childbirth. However, it refers to Lolita as Mrs. Richard F. Schiller, her married name, which isn't revealed until the end of the book.]]

* InMediasRes: The Kubrick film begins with Humbert shooting Quilty.

* BilingualBonus: Tons and tons. Vladimir Nabokov was fluent in English, French and Russian was familiar with other languages, and he makes H.H. a multilingual scholar. The English edition contains numerous sentences, remarks, and pet names in French and other languages.

* DeathOfTheHypotenuse: In this screw-up love triangle, Charlotte wants Humbert, while Humbert wants Lolita. Charlotte dies in a freak car accident.

* {{Lust}}: Humbert is motivated by his lust for preteen girls and especially young Dolores, his 12-year-old stepdaughter. He knows what he wants is illegal, but can't help himself, and tires to justify his lust as normal with many, many explanations that are presented in legalese or beautiful purple prose. However, his explanations are often mutually exclusive.

* UnreliableNarrator: Humbert Humbert is the narrator and his view of the events is very twisted. Yet he uses language so skilfully that some might find themselves seduced and forget what a scumbag he is. H.H. gives multiple, mutually incompatible "explanations" for his actions with Dolores: It wasn't his fault, his "pederosis" is a disease. And besides, it's normal for grown men to be sexually interested in preteen girls. And besides, she wasn't even a virgin. And besides, he was still sexually hung up on Annabel Leigh after a quarter century. And besides, Dante fell in love with Beatrice when she was nine. And besides, it was ''Lolita'' who seduced ''Humbert''. This is a book you need to read twice just to appreciate how horribly screwed up everybody is. As Nabokov noted in his afterword, one publisher rejected the manuscript on the grounds that ''Lolita'' [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy had no good people in it]]. Thanks to the Unreliable Narrator, however, the extent of just how screwed up they are is not immediately apparent.

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Adapted into two films, one by Creator/StanleyKubrick (starring Creator/JamesMason as Humbert Humbert), the other by Adrian Lyne.

TropeNamer for ComedicLolicon and co-TropeNamer for LoliconAndShotacon.

* AbhorrentAdmirer: Humbert Humbert considers Charlotte Haze as this: he thinks she is unattractive and she always tries to pick him up.

* AffablyEvil: Humbert Humbert in spades. There's at least one moment in the book (which also turns up in some form in the movie adaptations) in which he contemplates killing his wife and how easily he could get away with it, but finds that he really is just too nice to do it. In some ways, this actually makes him even ''worse'', and the mid-story DiabolusExMachina that puts her out of his way is made that much more bitterly ironic.
* AgeLift: Lolita is 12 in the book. Sue Lyon was 14-15 during the filming of Kubrick's movie.
* TheAnnotatedEdition: ''The Annotated Lolita,'' with said annotations added by Alfred Appel, who had once been Nabokov's student at Cornell. It's funny how Alfred Appel added the annotations, given the author's affinity for [[AddedAlliterativeAppeal alliteration]]. Given the author's fondness for bilingual puns, it's also fun to note that the French for "reference mark" is "appel de note". Does this man even really exist?\\
\\
Appel's preface to the annotated edition goes out of its way on this point: "Of course, the annotator and editor of a novel written by the creator of [[Literature/PaleFire Kinbote]] and John Ray, Jr., runs the real risk of being mistaken for another fiction, when at most he resembles those gentlemen only figuratively. But the annotator exists; he is a veteran and a grandfather, a teacher and taxpayer, and has not been invented by Vladimir Nabokov." Of course, that's just what a character ''would'' say. . . and before the Introduction is over, Appel is saying that you, gentle reader, are "manipulated by Nabokov's dizzying illusionistic devices to such an extent that [you] too can be said to become, at certain moments, another of Vladimir Nabokov's creations."

* BlackComedy: The blackest.
* BoomHeadshot: [[spoiler:Humbert tries to kill Quilty this way, but fails gruesomely.]]
* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Lolita, or so Humbert would want us to believe.
* BreakTheCutie: The entire book could be considered one for Lolita, considering her childhood is essentially destroyed.
* ChickMagnet: Humbert, [[UnreliableNarrator according to himself]]. It's a source of some irritation, given that he isn't all that interested in grown women.
* ChildrenAreInnocent: Subverted; Humbert is astonished by how much Lo already knows, even though a large part of his worldview revolves around the existence of a class of pubescent girls that are non-innocent by nature. Most likely due to UnreliableNarrator.
* CrapsaccharineWorld: [[FridgeBrilliance Read the novel closely]] and you'll note the very disturbing contrast between the rosy, carefree surface of postwar American society and its rotten, vicious core. Lolita herself a good example: on the surface, she's a cheerful 12-year old girl who loves milkshakes, movies and other innocent pleasures; inside, she is deeply miserable.
* CrazyJealousGuy: Humbert Humbert is very jealous about Lolita's relationship with boys. In this strange case it overlaps with OverprotectiveDad.
* DeathByChildbirth: Mrs. Richard F. Schiller [[spoiler: AKA Lolita]].
* DeliberatelyBadExample: Clare Quilty, although he barely makes Humbert look any better by comparison.
* DetectiveDrama: Parodied.

* DriveInTheater: One scene takes place there in the Creator/StanleyKubrick film.
* DysfunctionJunction
* {{Eagleland}}: Flavour two. The novel is a very scathing portrayal of postwar American society: philistinism, kitsch pop culture, hypocrisy and [[CrapsaccharineWorld all manner of vice behind a cheerful facade]] rule the day. Possibly a case of UnreliableNarrator (Humbert is a European snob, after all).
* EroticEating: In Adrian Lyne's version, Lo erotically sucks on bananas in the car to distract Humbert from Quilty.
* EvilIsPetty: In addition to being another child molester, Quilty's pettier vices (rudeness, chronic drunkenness, being an UpperClassTwit, etc.) make him so disgusting to everyone that even his fellow revelers don't like him very much. One of them mentions at one point that they've all thought of killing him at some time or other, though never really very seriously. Both movie adaptations do a very good job of portraying him this way as well.
* FilleFatale: Lolita in the book, [[UnreliableNarrator at least according to Humbert]]. H.H. even suspects her of trying to pimp her classmates to him.
* TheFilmOfTheBook: Twice.
* TheFifties: More like end-40s (Humbert meets Lolita in 1947), but hits many chords associated with the period.
* {{Foil}}: Quilty to Humbert (also a writer, also a pedophile).
* FreudianExcuse: H.H. has one of these, but neither he nor the author really think it excuses him. He is a pedophile because he fell in love when he was 12, but his 12-year-old girlfriend died and he never got over it. Considering the author's loathing of psychological literary criticism (he would later refer to Freud as "that Viennese witch-doctor"), Humbert Humbert's gleeful attacks on future attempts to psychologically profile him, and also the entire prologue, much of the book is spent [[DeconstructedTrope destroying this trope]]. In addition, H.H.'s alleged excuse is basically a prose interpretation of Poe's Annabell Lee. Is it real, or is H.H. mocking you with a ready-made Freudian excuse?
* GirlsAreReallyScaredOfHorrorMovies: Lolita and her mother grasp Humbert's hands during a scary moment of ''Film/TheCurseOfFrankenstein''.

* HappilyAdopted: {{Subverted}}
* HardDrinkingPartyGirl: Rita, an alcoholic whom Humbert once described as "amiably drunk".
* HarmfulToMinors
* IDidntMeanToTurnYouOn
* IHaveManyNames: "Lolita" is Humbert's nickname for Dolores. Her mother calls her "Lo" (to which she responds, "And behold!"); everyone else calls her, and she signs herself, "Dolly". Humbert also often refers to her as "Lo" and sometimes "Lola".
* InMediasRes: The Kubrick film begins with Humbert [[spoiler:shooting Quilty]].
* InsistentTerminology: Humbert is not attracted to children, but ''nymphets''. It's made abundantly clear that the distinction exists only within his own head.

* LiteraryAgentHypothesis: The book is presented as a memoir written by the main character written while he was in prison and published posthumously with names changed to protect the innocent. In the Creator/JeremyIrons version, Quilty {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this, saying "You are a foreigner, you are an agent of a foreign power, you're a foreign literary agent."
* LittleMissSnarker: Dolores, who is quite sarcastic.
* LoliconAndShotacon: Partial TropeNamer (the first part of the word is a Japanese portmanteau/shorthand of "Lolita Complex"). The book is also a brutal ''[[UnbuiltTrope avant-la-lettre deconstruction]]'' of ComedicLolicon.

* TheLostLenore: Annabell for Humbert. {{Lampshaded}} with many references to Creator/EdgarAllanPoe in her description.
* LoveAtFirstSight: One-way.
* LoveHurts: Annabell Leigh and Poe references embodied by her.
* LoveTriangle: One of the {{Squick}}iest ones in all of modern literature. Worse because Charlotte has no idea her own daughter is her romantic rival.
* MadnessMantra: Chapter 26, where the daily headache in the opaque air of the tombal jail is disturbing. The paragraph describes how he can't go on, and ends with Lolita repeated 10 times, followed by "Repeat till the page is full, printer".
* MakingASpectacleOfYourself: The 1962 film's advertising has Delores wearing [[HeartSymbol heart-shaped]] sunglasses. However, she doesn't wear these in the film.

** Dolores, conceived in Mexico, was named for Nuestra Señora de Dolores, Our Lady of Sorrows. "Haze", of course, is an obscuring cloud or fog (after he and Dolores part, Humbert realizes that "I simply did not know a thing about my darling's mind").

** [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Quilty = Guilty]].
** Richard Schiller- Friedrich Schiller was an 18th century philosopher who wrote on ethics and morals. Notably relevant is his writing on the moral value of 'play' on moral/aesthetic experience. And of course, Richard is referred to as "[[HehHehYouSaidX Dick]]".

* MurderTheHypotenuse
* NiceHat: In the 1962 film, Delores is first seen wearing a hat with [[FluffyFashionFeathers feathers trimming the brim]].

* RepetitiveName: Humbert Humbert. AlliterativeName as well.
* RoadTripRomance: Well, sort of.

* ShoutOut: At the beginning of the 1962 film, Humbert asks a man if he's Quilty. Quilty jokingly replies "No, I'm Spartacus", a celebrated line from Kubrick's [[Film/{{Spartacus}} previous work]].
* SignificantAnagram: The character of Vivian Darkbloom anagrams the author's name. Probably also a case of {{Awesome McCoolname}}.

* UnreliableNarrator:
** This is a book you ''need'' to read twice, just to appreciate how horribly screwed up everybody is. And we mean ''everybody''. As Nabokov noted in his afterword, one publisher rejected the manuscript on the grounds that ''Lolita'' [[DarknessInducedAudienceApathy had no good people in it]]. Thanks to the Unreliable Narrator, however, the extent of just how screwed up they are is not immediately apparent.
** H. H. gives multiple, mutually incompatible "explanations" for his actions with Dolores: It wasn't his fault, his "pederosis" is a ''disease''. And besides, it's ''normal'' for grown men to be sexually interested in preteen girls. And besides, she wasn't even a virgin. And besides, he was still sexually hung up on Annabel Leigh after a quarter century. And besides, Dante fell in love with Beatrice when she was nine. And besides, it was ''Lolita'' who seduced '' Humbert''.
* WifeHusbandry: On several levels. Humbert actually muses on the possibility of impregnating Lolita with Lolita: The Next Generation. Ideally really soon, as in before she grows up and gets uninteresting.
* VillainProtagonist: Humbert Humbert.

* BearTrapBed: Film only.

* {{Lolicon}}: TropeNamer (the word is a Japanese portmanteau/shorthand of "Lolita Complex"). The book is also a brutal ''[[UnbuiltTrope avant-la-lettre deconstruction]]'' of Lolicon.

''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel by Creator/VladimirNabokov about the relationship between erudite pedophile Humbert Humbert and his stepdaughter/kidnappee Dolores Haze. The action takes place between 1947 and 1952, and is chock-full of convoluted wordplay, multilingual puns, and allusions to everything from entomology to Creator/EdgarAllanPoe. Originally written in English and set in the US, it had to be published in France as pornography because no one else would touch it. Nabokov himself pointed out that this is probably the main reason why parents [[NeverLiveItDown don't name their daughters "Lolita" any more]].

This is where we get the terms "Lolita Complex" or "{{lolicon}}" in Japan, and the slang for "lolita", meaning a sexually attractive and/or promiscuous young girl.

TropeNamer for {{Lolicon}}.