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Part 1, Chapter 31
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Lolita, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Perversity, Obsession, and Art
Suburbia and American Consumer Culture
Exile, Homelessness and Road Narratives
Life and Literary Representation
Women, Innocence, and Male Fantasy
Patterns, Memory and Fate
Summary
Analysis
Later in the morning, Lolita tells Humbert Humbert about her first sexual experience, which took place at Camp Q. It started when she stood guard for two friends, Barbara Burke and Charlie Holmes, while they had sex in the bushes on Willow Island. Curious, Lolita began having sex with Charlie as well.
Throughout Lolita, Humbert uses remote forests and islands as imaginative scenery for his fantasies. These, along with the word “nymphet,” hark back to the erotic stories of Greek mythology: the story of Apollo and Daphne, for instance. That Lolita’s first sexual experience should be take place on an island is suspiciously similar to Humbert’s fantasies.
Themes
Soon after she tells this story, Humbert Humbert and Lolita leave The Enchanted Hunters, getting back on the road. Lolita—who may or may not be joking—begins to frighten Humbert by threatening to call the police and tell them he’s a rapist. When she asks to call his mother, Humbert abruptly informs her that she’s dead.
Now sure of the fact that Lolita is under his power, Humbert allows himself—for a brief moment—to stop deceiving her.
Themes
