The structure of Lolita completed at the springtime of 1954. Matching to its writer, Vladimir Nabokov said "a few times I used to be on the idea of losing the unfinished draft. " But he ceased by the thought that "the ghost of the ruined booklet would haunt my filed for the others of my life. " Fortunately, Lolita survived, or readers and critics would miss just how many interesting and valuable subject areas. The key reason why Nabokov wanted to eliminate his draft he appeared to make clear less. However, being almost set up completely on the text, Lolita is a superb challenge to creativeness. But it can be an undeniable truth that no subject in what aspect, this novel entitles the honor to be a vintage works. And its obstructed publication pained a dramatic color for its specialty. Interestingly, from being banned book at first to popular publication currently, Lolita's contradictory development possesses the paradoxical meanings of the novel itself. Although, Nabokov declares in Over a Reserve Entitled Lolita that "I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and, despite John Ray's assertion, Lolita does not have any moral in tow, For me personally a work of fiction is accessible only insofar as it affords me what I will bluntly call aesthetic bliss" (Nabokov 332), those discourse on Lolita's morality by reader or critics are not all nonsense. In other words, Lolita's esthetic and moral meanings are not antithetical totally. Thus, you will want to pursuing Nabokov to observe how he makes text message self-subversive and deconstructive, isn't it also an interesting way of reading?
The foreword of Lolita should not be seen as an independent part of book. Actually, this part not only is the beginning of the book, but also foretells the features of the novel. Based on the definition: "A preface or foreword is written either by the author, explaining his reason for writing the booklet and exactly how it is written, or by somebody else making an advantages to the publication and presenting his own feedback" (The Modern day Chinese Dictionary [Chinese-English Model] 2166). However, as an artistic creation, the foreword of Lolita is compiled by John Ray, who is, matching to Nabokov, his "impersonation of suave John Ray" (Nabokov 329). As an indispensible area of the novel it foretells some controversial concentrates of book itself, such as its truthfulness and significance. Here comes the first question: why they can be controversial. For the reason that that the foreword as well as the novel has many uncertainties and contradictoriness which lead to its self-subversive character. This "self-subversive" is the spirit of deconstruction, it centers its readers on an environment of experience already narrated by way of a decentered and indeterminate profusion of information, stories, yet a global still dominated with a discredited discourse of Ray. M. H. Abrams's words points out directly: "no words is with the capacity of representing determinately, far less of demonstrating the 'real truth' about any subject matter" (M. H. Abrams 203). Hence, through analyzing and decomposing the uncertainty of the foreword of Lolita in deconstructive perspective, perhaps a rigorous reading activity is more significant than seeking meaning itself.
For the advantage of inspecting, its six paragraphs is divided into three parts and all of them respectively subverts the Ray's credibility, Lolita's reality and scientific interpretation. Part you are the first paragraph. Here, Ray shows up as editor of the original manuscript of Lolita. However, his entitlement to do so is not made the decision by Humbert himself for in those days Humbert has passed on. But Humbert's legal professional Mr. Clark chooses Ray to edit the draft. So, in order showing his competence to do this task, Ray provides such a proud "fact" that his book Do the Senses make Sense? Only need been awarded the Poling Award if not this manuscript possessed "been allowed to come under my reading lamp"(Nabokov 3), Humbert's crime purpose may still be a mystery. Clearly, Ray intends to use this information as an evidence to show his capability. However, regardless of the unusual "Poling Prize", his awarded work "Do the Senses make Sense?" is also challenging for the paradoxical meanings of "sense" which can mean both "feeling" and "reason". No matter which one is appropriate for this name or may be both of these are right, Ray's frame of mind toward "sense" is vague anyhow. If Ray fails to make a clear standpoint of "sense" (to be sure he stands by reason or feeling), it is untainted with doubt whether he's in fact supplying an unbiased information and all his remarks even his entitlement will by in question. For similarly, how such a person could be trusted to make a sound, persuasive and objective foreword? Alternatively, there is a detail can not be neglected is the fact that Mr. Clark is Ray's good friend and relationship. Therefore, in a great level, Ray's entitlement to be the editor for Humbert's manuscript does not contribute to his academic affect but to his shut relationship with Mr. Clark. Taken these two jointly, Ray's entitlement or credibility is dubious. Originally, those two evidences are being used by Ray to increase his dependability. Ironically, both of them disrupt this type of trustfulness and business lead to his incredibility. It isn't Ray's inability to establish his capacity but a textual snare setup by Nabokov. In surface, Ray's words are affordable and trustful; in profound, just his words betray himself. Thus, from reliability to unreliability, the first pair of binary opposition comes out. Is it necessary to expose this kind of binary opposition in words? The answer is positive-with the dissolution of the binary opposition, the "deep structure" or the underlying universal so this means of structuralism disappears (Zhu Gang 202). Yet, the occurrence of unreliability is never to deny the reliability but to dilute monism. The following parts will expose the other two pairs of binary oppositions
Part two contains paragraph two to paragraph four. In this part, Ray lists many "facts" to make it seemingly real that Humbert's story is not really a fanciful technology but a genuine event. In a single way, Ray takes good thing about the realism of newspapers report to use it as proof: "References to 'H. H. ''s crime may be seemed up by the inquisitive in the daily paperwork for September-October 1952. " (Nabokov 3) However, the name of that "daily newspaper" is not mentioned, making the realness of account remains a total enigma for the absence of persuasive material facts. Moreover, as for individuals testimony, Ray identifies a man called "Mr. 'Windnuller' " who is a dwelling from " 'Ramsdale' " that is the primary setting of the storyline. Here both "Windnuller" and "Ramsdale" are added quotation symbol in the text, which means that "Windnuller" only serve as a substitutive name in the light of "the long shadow of the sorry and sordid business should not reach the city to which he's proud to belong. " (Nabokov 4) It appears reasonable and it seems real that there indeed has been a community where once resided a man known as Humbert whose doings may eliminate the good reputation of that community. Also, this "Mr. Windnuller" agrees to give a few details about the "destinies of 'real' people beyond the 'true' tale" (Nabokov 4). Here, the quotation grades of " 'real' " and " 'true' " was added by Ray itself. Based on the classification: quotation grades; couple of punctuation marks used to point the beginning and the end of any quotation, in which the exact phraseology of another word is directly cited, and also sometimes used to emphasize the addressed subject or words of special interpretation" (The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary [Chinese-English Model] 2291). Certainly, the "real" and "true" here hold the special meanings, most likely the opposite meanings. Since Ray himself has denied the reality of "real people beyond the real story", why all together, he stains himself to give a individuals testimony to stress the authenticity of the storyplot itself? It is actually just for the account of "old-fashioned" reader? Whatever it is, how much trouble the desire to dramatize such descriptive information can cause. Ray's arduous but fruitless work requires a reversed effect. Not only does Ray fails in showing the authenticity of Lolita, but places the truthfulness of people and account of Lolita in question and doubt. Besides, on the purpose of describing the universality of Humbert's case, Ray mentions Dr. Blanche Schwaramann who makes a "conservative" estimate that "at least 12 percent of North american males enjoy yearly, in a single way or another, the special experience 'H. H. ' describes with such despair" (Nabokov 4). Here, the utilization of statistics might take an authoritative impact, but the saying "conservative estimate" destroys this sense of specialist, for confirmed statistics should be affirmative or at least, its doubt should not be exposed. Furthermore, Dr. Blanche Schwaramann is only a "verbal communication". Thus, all he says becomes a bubble. Considered along, the unidentified "Mr. 'Windnuller' " and indiscernible "Dr. Blanche Schwaramann" as well as the arbitrary "daily newspaper" bring out the second pair of binary opposition: Lolita's authenticity/fictionality.
Part three is the previous two paragraphs. This part is approximately Ray's evaluation on Lolita. Actually, in the last part, Ray has advised his propensity. For the implicit explanation of situation and feelings in Lolita, Ray admits that its artistic creation make it different from the clich of conventional pornography. Well, as for those "aphrodisiac scenes", they are "the most purely efficient ones in the development of a tragic tale tending unswervingly to nothing significantly less than a moral apotheosis" (Nabokov 4). Ray uses the term "moral apotheosis" to verify the moral value of Lolita. Yet, in part three Ray's frame of mind towards Lolita's dynamics becomes ambiguous, he remarks that "a great masterpiece of design is of course always original, and thus by its very characteristics should come as a more or less shocking delight" (Nabokov 5). In this sense, Ray uses "a great term of art" to describe Lolita. Thus, the central wisdom is indecisive. Otherwise stated, Ray fails to pin down the worthiness of Lolita, in the same way he says in the following paragraph that:
As an instance history, 'Lolita' can be, no doubt, a classic in psychiatric circles. To be a work of art, it transcends its expiatory aspects; but still more important to us than methodical relevance and literary worthy of, is the moral important the book must have on the serious reader" (Nabokov 5)
It is ambivalent that whether its value is medical or literary or moral or all of them. On one hand, Ray intends to prove the authenticity of the storyline to generate its medical or ethical value; on the other palm, the inner contradiction of these evidences exposes their absence and unmasks the occurrence of fiction and imaginative meaning of the book. That is ambiguity just like those adjectives used to describe Humber. In passive way, he's "horrible", "abject", "cunning" and "abnormal"; in positive way, he's a magician so attractive that make reader ingested in e book while detesting its author. Inside the mechanical certainty of binary thought, when Ray confirms one aspect he should have negative another one. However, Ray does not deny some of them. Although by the end of the foreword, Ray emphasizes the moral worthy of of Lolita, do not disregard the fact that Ray's credibility and the story's realness is still in question. Along with the most obvious cause of failing comes when there is a gross disparity between your statements to competence of the Ray himself and the shoddiness of his presented tale which is hastened to explain that whether Ray's last summary in the foreword is usually to be taken critically or ironically. Therefore, how such a controversial account can undertake the responsibility of moral education? At last, the third couple of binary opposition is clinical /artistic (or didactic and creative) worth.
Hence, three pairs of binary opposition are shown: Ray's credibility/unreliability, novel's authenticity/fictionality and medical/artistic price. In each of them, the former at first plays the functional role as "being center". It both permits and limits the "presence" of the later. The "center" dominates the framework of wording. But according to Derrida the structure is "a metaphor for any 'presence' with a middle" (Zhu Gang 202) and "any such presence is a function of signification, actualized by words. Language, in this deconstructive discourse, is something of difference in its extreme form" (Zhu Gang 202). In other words, no signifier has a fixed signified so this means, since this signified is only a network of distinctions. The ultimate so this means or the center can never be arrived. Since the rhetorical dynamics of terminology makes content material always deconstructing itself. Thus, it is impossible to pin down the set meaning of this foreword. In face of such kind of word, reading should be coordinate with the self-subversion of text message. In this foreword, Ray becomes the signifier of the written text. You'll be able to ask such indigenous question as what Ray's (or Nabokov's) motives may have been in manipulating words in this way: is he fooling himself, or is he represented as fooling himself as well as fooling reader into thinking that those three pairs of binary opposition are easy to be product? In these three pairs of binary oppositions, the seeming signification of the past actually includes all nonpresent meanings which change from today's meanings. And the ones "absent" meanings are unnoticeable. Before present meaning surface finishes the self-subversion, the absent interpretation is exposed. Actually, credibility, authenticity and technological worth are never "present" to us in their own personal information. Alternatively, neither can these identifying features be reported to be strictly "absent". All are a kind of "nominal" existence. But, it generally does not mean they are meaningless, only by the launch of the "nominal" presence, the absence can seem. More importantly, the process of introduction surface finishes the self-subversion and deconstruction. The result, matching to Derrida, is that people can't ever have a determinate, or decidable, present so this means; he asserts, however, that the differential play of terminology will produce illusory "effects" of determinable meanings. However, in the binary opposition in the Western metaphysical traditions, Deconstructive criticism is not opposing the one with the other, due to the fact all the elements in the structure are complimentary rather than mutually exclusive.
In this foreword as well as the complete novel when reading is dramatized, much less an emotive reaction to what language does indeed, but as an emotive reaction to the impossibility of knowing what it might up to be. Its self-subversive mother nature or deconstruction, equally as Paul de Man said "is not something we have added to the written text but it constituted the text to begin with" and "by reading the text as we have, we only seeking to come closer to being as rigorous as a reader as the author had to be in order to write the sentence to begin with" (Paul de Man 362). Thus, it encourages misreading. And the opinion of the paper could be looked at as some sort of misreading which is decided by "indeterminables" of "decentered" words. In the meantime, the rhetoric of terms, metaphor, fake and decisiveness of context as well as the contradiction and self-subversive dynamics of text are radically lead to misreading. Perhaps, one of the sights of Lolita is its ambiguity. This ambiguity possesses multiple intentions and multiple potentialities of misreading. And its ability to make readers feel unease and cannot help re-reading it over and over. Here, Booth's analysis on Lolita maybe enlightening: perhaps our life is morally ambiguous; this publication makes it seem even more so-it throws us even more off balance, presumably, than we were before-and hence its very lack of clarity is a virtue. (Booth 372) In the long run, use Lolita's translators Yu Xiaodan's commentary as and closing as being a charming person, such an enchanted book will never fail to be discussed over and over for its multiple views of reading.
