Nabokov's Satan

Nabokov’s Satan: Defining and Implementing John Milton’s Arch Fiend as a Contemporary Character Trope A Thesis Presented to the Honors Tutorial College, Ohio University. In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation from the Honors Tutorial College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in English. By Corbin Curtis To Mom Acknowledgments There are many people I would like to thank for their assistance with this project, without whom it would have been impossible. First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor Matthew Stallard, whose support, encouragement, guidance, criticism, and inspiration both throughout the course of this project and in the years I have known him during my undergraduate career cannot be overstated. I wish also to thank Joseph McLaughlin, whose diligent and committed work as my professor, academic advisor, and director of studies was instrumental in shaping the trajectory of my academic career and myself as a writer. I also owe thanks to Jill Ingram for her influence on me as a writer and researcher, and more specifically for our discussions of Paradise Lost which I consulted throughout this project. The following list of very generous people were instrumental in this project, each in their own ways, and to them I am grateful: Robert DeMott, Marilyn Atlas, Michael Apwisch, Kelly McIntosh, Shelby Jordan, Carey Snyder, Mary Kate Hurley, Beth Quitslund, Caitlin Lynch. Special thanks to the Alden Library staff for their kindness, assistance, and for always making sure I was awake in time for class. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Part I: The Con-Man 7 Part II: The Abject 20 Part III: The Debauched 37 Part IV: The Rapacious 48 Conclusion 59 Bibliography 62 Curtis 1 Introduction In 1667, John Milton (1608-1674) published the first version of Paradise Lost, which brought arguably the most detailed and influential portrayal of the biblical Arch Fiend, Satan, into the literary world.1 Because of how much attention Satan is given in the poem, and how the epic more or less centers him as the main character, the centuries following the publication of the poem saw a distinct rift form between two camps of criticism. On the one hand, critics such as William Empson and his work, Milton’s God,2 see Satan’s actions as not necessarily justified, but suggest that a sympathetic position is nevertheless logical given how those actions are presented in the poem. On the other hand, there are some, such as in C.S. Lewis in A Preface to Paradise Lost,3 who see Milton’s work as one which puts Satan’s evil on full display, and condemns both his actions and the actions of those who follow him. In Lewis’ view, even Satan’s most poignant moments or traits are symptoms of Milton’s attempt to emphasize Satan’s absurdity and condemnable nature. In 1955, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977) reluctantly agreed to publish Lolita through the controversial Olympia Press, after exhausting his other options due to the taboo themes of the novel. Soon after its release, Lolita became an international hit and is widely held as the achievement which made Nabokov’s career. However, along with wide-reaching success, the novel and its themes also brought much controversy. One such controversy centered around the strangely sympathetic character that the pedophile and serial rapist, Humbert Humbert, becomes in the course of the 1 While the first edition was published in 1667, the second edition published in 1674 is the edition that is most widely read and criticized and also the edition this thesis is concerned with. 2 Empson, William. Milton’s God. 1961. Greenwood Press, Inc., Westport CT, 1978. 3 Lewis, C. S. A Preface to Paradise Lost. New York: Oxford University Press, 1961. Curtis 2 novel, due in part if not mostly from the fact that the novel is told from his perspective and in his voice. Because of the sympathetic parallel between Satan and Humbert, and the many biblical allusions throughout the novel, I consider Lolita to be related, at least in part, to Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, which take direct inspiration from Paradise Lost and that sympathetic/apologetic camp of criticism concerning Satan. However, after reading further into how Humbert and Satan (and similar characters such as Frankenstein’s Monster) are constructed, I noticed that the sympathetic nature of these evil characters is merely a symptom of being a part of a character trope established by Milton in his seminal epic.4 Exploring and defining how biblical themes resonate in Lolita is not a new or baseless endeavor. For instance, in his article, “Recourse to Eden,” Christopher Link discusses “the deep resonances of biblical allusions in [Nabokov’s] work” in length and argues that “Once thoughtfully glimpsed, Nabokov’s pervasive ‘Edenic’ and ‘Adamic’ themes and motifs, drawn from both the original biblical source text and its many apocryphal and literary recastings, cannot be unseen; rather, these motifs emerge as forming a strong, central, recurring pattern in the intricate grand design of Nabokov’s lifelong work” (Link 63). However, Link’s primary concerns in his discussion of Lolita are the recurring biblical imagery, allusions, metaphors, and themes in the novel and how they shape and define the characterization of different characters and the expression of underlying themes. My thesis is definitely concerned with these issues as well, but more 4 While Frankenstein could easily work in the place of Lolita in this thesis, Mary Shelley’s novel has too much of a direct, intentional, and thoroughly examined connection with Paradise Lost. Because of that direct connection, a thesis comparing the two would merely reaffirm or restate many fairly commonly known similarities between Frankenstein and Paradise Lost. Using a less commonly associated novel such as Lolita is a more fruitful academic exercise because the comparison is less well-tread, and therefore can say more about both works and their respective characters that has not been said before. Curtis 3 so with the relationship between Lolita and Paradise Lost (as opposed to the Bible itself), through which I intend to take Link’s associations one step further and argue that Humbert himself is biblical (specifically: Satanic) in character, not merely in a particular scene or in a singular act where a thematic or aesthetic relationship is evoked, but in how Humbert is fundamentally constructed and how he functions within the narrative as a whole. To argue for this foundational relationship between Milton’s Satan and Nobokov’s Humbert Humbert, I rely primarily on comparative analysis, supported by textual, historical, and thematic analyses, to define vital, complex parallels between these two characters. These parallels can be organized into four main aspects of each character, which in turn define a broader, more generalized dichotomy between destruction and self- destruction inherent to both Milton’s Satan and Humbert. By describing how these fundamental traits link Satan and Humbert together in regards to how they are constructed and how they function in their respective narratives, I ultimately argue that John Milton’s Paradise Lost establishes a satanic character trope which is survived almost perfectly in contemporary literature by Nabokov’s Lolita. Organizationally, this thesis is divided into four main parts, “The Con-Man,” “The Abject,” “The Debauched,” and “The Rapacious,” each focusing on and titled after a separate fundamental aspect of both Satan and Humbert. The first two of these parts are concerned with the destructive nature of Satan and Humbert, through which they manipulate, molest, and otherwise spread discord through their respective settings and fellow characters. The second two parts are concerned with the self-destructive nature through which each character suffers greatly, primarily due to unshakable narcissism and Curtis 4 short-sightedness. Each of the four parts follows a similar organizational pattern consisting of two main sections, with the first focusing on defining the given aspect through exploration of how it appears in Satan, and the second drawing parallels from that definition to Humbert. “The Con-Man” can be defined as a Machiavellian affinity for manipulation, often adhering to observable usages of pathos, ethos, logos, as well as an important reliance upon forcing perspectives and capitalizing on doubt. In this section, I will explore how Milton’s Satan and Humbert Humbert use their capabilities as orators in order to manipulate those around them, both in the ways in which their strategies parallel each other in their fundamental argumentative structures (as defined above), as well as the ways in which certain aspects of their rhetorical approach do in fact differ (e.g. Humbert’s story-telling versus Satan’s redefinition of certain terminology). In short, this section will explain how these characters use their abilities as powerful rhetoricians in their respective narratives, as well as establish their rhetoric as perhaps their most powerful influential tool as destructive forces and their most obvious connection to each other. The second section, “The Abject,” uses Julia Kristeva’s Powers of Horror and the definition of abject established therein as a lens through which to characterize Satan and Humbert. These characters, I argue, are defined by a state of abjection wherein their destructive behavior intentionally results in the disruption of structural norms such as societal laws, laws of nature, traditional notions of power, etc. Further, this destructive behavior is also represented physically in each character’s appearance (e.g. Satan’s shapeshifting and Humbert’s conflicting personas as a pedophile, father, husband, Curtis 5 foreigner, etc.) and relationship with spatial boundaries (e.g. Satan’s journeys between Hell, Earth, Heaven, etc. and Humbert’s trips to and around America) in their respective narratives. The third section, “The Debauched,” explores the aspect of these characters defined by an adherence to empiricism, markedly associated with an appreciation for aestheticism and sexuality, but ultimately expressed alongside acute narcissism.

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