A Psychoanalytic Study of Lolita

Since the earliest times, human beings have always been trying to know themselves and acquire a better understanding of their complex or destructive behaviours. Owing to Sigmund Freud, the founder of Psychoanalysis, and the offered key concepts of human experience by this approach, human beings are now able not only to focus on the patterns of their behaviour but also to analyse and consider the main character of any narrative as a patient and psychological case study. In so doing, this essay aims to prove that childhood and some sensitive periods of child development play an important role in shaping the character of Humbert, the protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Based on the findings of this essay it can be argued that certain traumatic events in his childhood resulted in a defence mechanism known as displacement as a response to the anxiety caused by those traumas, in his relationship with Lolita. Moreover, the conflicting wishes and desires of psyche's different layers -id, ego, superego- are shown to justify the necessity of ego, in making a balance between the urges of other layers through defence mechanisms. Although it is not easy to fully access one's unconscious mind, psychoanalytic principles have facilitated the diagnosis of certain psychological disorders found in one's behaviour, thought, action and In Humbert's case, self-revelation which is going to be thoroughly analysed in this essay.