"'You chump,' she said, sweetly smiling at me. 'You revolting creature. I was a daisy-fresh girl, and look what you've done to me. I ought to call the police and tell them you raped me. Oh, you dirty, dirty old man.'" (141)
This seems to be a critcal moment in Dolores's and Humbert's relationship. Previously Humbert envisioned Dolores as his ideal nymphet and how he would be able to manipulate her. However, reality is far different from his fantasies. In fact, Dolores is alot like her mother because Humbert believed he could manipulate her too. He believed he was so handsome and eloquent that they would be mere puppets, however that was not the case. In fact in their marriage, Charlotte actually seemed to be the one in control of Humbert. The same has occured with Dolores. Humbert pictured himself as a handsome man all women swoon over, yet Dolores explicitly calls him a "dirty, dirty old man" implying his ideas of his beauty are only in his fantasies. And his belief that he could manipulate Dolores failed as they had with Charlotte, in fact Dolores is in command. Humbert actually has to ask her if they can have sex and she can and has said no, showing he has so little control.
I think this is key evidence of how Humbert Humbert truly is. He says he is some eloquent hunk, but in actuallity he appears to be a sociopathic, manchild. He seems sociopathic because he shows the symptoms: manipulative behavior (which he has shown with his writing, though in actual practice he fails at most manipulation attempts; ie. the marriage, the pills, etc.) and his lack of empathy (which is obvious via his constant justification of his pedophilic actions and how he never shows an ounce of remorse, rather he seems more curious on manipulating things to fit his way). And he appears as a manchild because he has no actual job, he doesn't plan ahead (given he went into a marraige for access to a girl who will no longer be a nymphet in two years, which is short-sighted), he is incredibly submissive to any sort of authority (his wife dominated him, and even his step-daughter dominates him), and he throws tantrums when he doesn't get his way (he wants to kill his wife when she plans to send Dolores to boarding school and he bluntly tells Dolores her mother is dead when he can't easily control her). All of those qualities fit the definition of an immature, manchild.
How many see Humbert Humbert as a hysterical character with his mental arrogance, but with an outward childish behavior?
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