从心理分析角度解读《洛丽塔》中亨伯特的人格

School of foreign language,Hebei University of Science and Technology

I. Introduction

Vladimir Nabokov (22 April 1899 – 2 July 1977), a Russian-born American, is recognized as one of the most outstanding novelists and stylist in the twentieth century. On April 23, 1899, Nabokov was born in St Petersburg. During the Bolshevik revolution, Nabokov exiled to Germany with his family in 1919. From studying French and Russian literature at Trinity College, in Cambridge, he began the 18 years of literary career in Paris and Berlin. Nabokov immigrated to the United States in 1940, teaching of literature in Wells and Harvard, Stanford, Cornell University. Vladimir Nabokov is famous in literary world as a novelist, poet, critic and translator.

On September 15, 1955, Nabokov's most popular work Lolita was published by Paris Olympia press and became quite controversial. In 1961, Nabokov moved to Montreux, Switzerland. In 1962, the book Pale Fire published and it is Nabokov's most peculiar work, which was widely seen as his best work. Ada, published in 1969, is the most beloved by Nabokov himself, but a lot of critics think it is difficult to understand because of its obscure. Because of his lifetime achievement, Vladimir Nabokov was awarded by the United States with National Literature Prize in 1973.

Lolita is the writer Vladimir Nabokov's most popular work. Most parts of the novel are the confessions of Humbert a convict sentenced to death, recounting the love story between a middle-aged man and an underage girl. Originally the novel was not allowed to publish in the United States, published in 1955 by the European Olympia Publishing House in Paris for the first time. Finally the American version was published in 1958, and the work jumped all the way to be NO.1 in the list of the New York Times bestsellers. Lolita has been made into a film.

The novel describes a middle-aged man Humbert Humbert who immigrated to the United States from France, had a first love in his childhood, with a 14-year-old girl Annabelle, but finally Annabelle died at a young age because of typhoid fever, led to Humbert's pedophilia (The child love). He defined \ as \ Humbert first was abandoned by a wealthy widow, and then infatuated with the landlady Charlotte Haze's 12-year-old daughter Lolita, calling her \

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School of foreign language,Hebei University of Science and Technology

Because of the shadow in the childhood, Humbert can't help falling in love with Lolita. In order to be close to the precocious and enthusiastic girl, Humbert married the landlady and became Lolita's stepfather. The landlady was so angry that she found her husband's attempt to their daughter in her husband's diary later, and wrote three letters to rescue their marriage. She was finally dead for being hit by a car on the way to send the letters.

After the death of Lolita’s mother, Humbert took her to travel along the USA in the relationship of father and daughter. By using the pocket money, beautiful clothes and delicious food which the little girl would like, Humbert controlled Lolita, and continued to meet his desire for her. Lolitas grew up and began to hate her stepfather, for realizing that \even the most tragic family life is better than the incest condition\. (Nobokov, 2000:305) So she chose to leave him. Humbert found her being married and pregnant. He could do nothing but to help her in economy for Lolita refused to go away with him. Humbert went to prison because he killed the man who took Lolita away 3 years ago and finally died there. Lolita was dead for dystocia.

This paper including 4 parts except the introduction and the conclusion. The introduction is about Vladimir Nabokov's life experience, his literature achievement and the plots of Lolita. The following 4 parts is the main body of this thesis.

Part 2 is theoretical basic.The main idea of Psychoanalysis is an Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud who developed the ideas about psychoanalytic theory from work with mental patients. And this part give s some explanatios about pedophilia.

Part 3 discusses hero Humbert and his abnormal infatuation towards young girl whose age ranges from 9 to 14 years old. In Lolita, it mainly describes an abnormal relationship between the hero Humbert and the heroine Lolita, and there are some so-called pornographic descriptions as well as some involvement of pedophilia.

Part 4 make a study on the analysis of Humbert’s personality with psychoanalysis theory. Humbert could not control his id by himself so that he committed one of the world's most immoral and evil crime-rape. Id is the foundation of personality formation, basically being composed of desire, which completely has no right or wrong morality and space-time

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restriction. However, our hero Humbert has a handsome appearance, being knowledgeable, and is a very talented linguist. He tried to adjust the original need of id for matching the condition on realistic environment; regulate and solve the conflict between the id, the ego and the superego.

The last part is the conclusion. It makes a summary of Humbert's personality from the id, ego and superego analysis, which provide a new way to understand Nabokov consciousness and humanistic ideas. So we should know personality is complex. Be willing to develop a sound personality, people's ego must be in harmony with society and the external world.

II. Difinition of Psychoanalysis

Psychoanalysis is a science based on psychiatric treatments, which analyzes the deep occurrence, development and principles of the human's psychology. Besides psychology and psychiatry, psychoanalysis also has a deep influence on literature, language, religion, philosophy, ethics, art and so on. The founder of Psychoanalysis is an Austrian psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud. He developed his ideas about psychoanalytic theory from work with mental patients.

There are some basic tenets of psychoanalysis include the inherited, human attitude, experience, confiction between conscious and unconscious etc. Under the broad umbrella of psychoanalysis there are at least 22 theoretical orientations regarding human mental development. The various approaches in treatment called \the theories do. The term also refers to a method of analyzing child development.

Freudian psychoanalysis refers to a specific type of treatment in which the \ (analytic patient) verbally expresses his thoughts, including free associations, fantasies, and dreams, from which the analyst induces the unconscious conflicts causing the patient's symptoms and character problems, and interprets them for the patient to create insight for resolution of the problems. The analyst confronts and clarifies the patient's pathological defenses, wishes and guilt. Through the analysis of conflicts, including those contributing to

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resistance and those involving transference onto the analyst of distorted reactions, psychoanalytic treatment can hypothesize how patients unconsciously are their own worst enemies: how unconscious, symbolic reactions that have been stimulated by experience are causing symptoms.

Psychoanalysis has received criticism from a wide variety of sources. One notable critique of psychoanalysis is that it constitutes a pseudoscience. Nonetheless, it remains a strong influence within the realm of psychiatry, and more so in some quarters than others.

2.1 Freud's theory of personality structure

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) developed his ideas about psychoanalytic theory from work

with mental patients. He was a medical doctor who specialized in neurology. He spent most of his years in Vienna, though he moved to London near the end of his career because of the Nazis' anti-Semitism.

Freud believed that personality has three structures: the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is the Freudian structure of personality that consists of instincts, which are an individual's reservoir of psychic energy. In Freud's view, the id is totally unconscious; it has no contact with reality. As children experience the demands and constraints of reality, a new structure of personality emerges- the ego, the Freudian structure of personality that deals with the demands of reality. The ego is called the executive branch of personality because it uses reasoning to make decisions. The id and the ego have no morality. They do not take into account whether something is right or wrong. The superego is the Freudian structure of personality that is the moral branch of personality. The superego takes into account whether something is right or wrong. Think of the superego as what we often refer to as our \conscience.\rough for the ego. Your ego might say, \the proper precautions because I don't want the intrusion of a child in the development of my career.\ However, your id is saying, \I want to be satisfied; sex is pleasurable.\Your superego is at work, too: \

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