How does Nabakov use this chapter to develop the reader's understanding of Humbert's character Humbert? Nabakov reveals in the chapter 13, Humbert Humbert as a sneaky predator, a pedophile convinced of his own cunning genius. Through her narrative voice, may we, the reader, be both sickened by her perverse madness and perplexed by our own defense of her quest for Lolita. When stripped of linguistic and meaningful embellishments, this chapter perpetuates a lewd narrative of masturbation and sexual exploitation, through Humbert's confused and romanticized perception. Humbert simultaneously becomes the soapy-eared intellectual and the voracious beast, as his sexual corruptions come to the surface. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Humbert Humbert is both an ironic conglomeration of all duplicitous heroes and an anomalous mess of sexual iniquity and false pretensions. Most of his hazy character manifests itself in chapter 13, in an erotic account of his masturbation on his “little girl” Lolita. Unknown or not to Lolita, Humbert stalks her sexuality in an attempt to consummate her desires, thus transforming himself into a beast, “while I crushed against his left buttock the last beat of the longest ecstasy that a man or a monster has ever known ". (page 61). The study of her character becomes a question of moral conflict: should we trust Lolita to be "safely solipsized", or should we, as the reader, stop the progression of the narrative and drop the book? In Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell Tale Heart, in which the protagonist is comparable to Humbert, the unreliable narrator is again innately encouraged by the reader to commit his murder by simply turning the page. Nabakov is aware of this and of the metafictional role the reader plays: "we should reflect on the question of how the mind functions when the sullen reader is confronted with the sunny book. First, the sullen mood disappears and, for better or worse, the reader enters into the spirit of the game." Nabakov neglects the "truth" sought in fiction, just as he neglects psychoanalysis, both of which are distillations of human conceptions and ideas that he believes should remain deceptive and therefore beautiful. Humbert's narrative perspective in this particular chapter is accentuated by the excitement of language. Rather than an objective account of his sexual encounter, wonder prevails through the series of phrases and erotic language, "and while keeping a manic inner eye on my distant golden goal, I cautiously increased the friction magic that was fading, in a maniac's mind. illusory, if not factual, meaning with the physically immovable, but psychologically very crumbly texture of the material division (pajamas and dress) between the weight of two sunburned legs, resting on my life, and the hidden tumor of an unspeakable passion . (59). His inability to state, without embellishment, the reality of his sexual perversions shows an awareness of his wrongdoings from a moral perspective. He constantly refers to Lolita as Eve, or a temptress, and at one point he compares her to a snake: "She twisted, backed away, and lay in the right corner of the davenport" ( 58). disdain for symbolism, the apple of chapter 13, as in the existence of the Christian faith, becomes an emblem of corruption. By comparing himself and his experiences to those of the divine, Humbert Humbert expands his base desires into a spiritual pursuit of his nymphet. If Lolita is..