BASIC CONCEPTS

— When novelists claim they do not invent it, but hear voices and find stories in their head, they are neither joking nor crazy.

— When characters, narrators, or muses have minds of their own and occasionally take over, they are alternate personalities.

— Alternate personalities and memory gaps, but no significant distress or dysfunction, is a normal version of multiple personality.

— normal Multiple Personality Trait (MPT) (core of Multiple Identity Literary Theory), not clinical Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD)

— The normal version of multiple personality is an asset in fiction writing when some alternate personalities are storytellers.

— Multiple personality originates when imaginative children with normal brains have unassuaged trauma as victim or witness.

— Psychiatrists, whose standard mental status exam fails to ask about memory gaps, think they never see multiple personality.

— They need the clue of memory gaps, because alternate personalities don’t acknowledge their presence until their cover is blown.

— In novels, most multiple personality, per se, is unnoticed, unintentional, and reflects the author’s view of ordinary psychology.

— Multiple personality means one person who has more than one identity and memory bank, not psychosis or possession.

— Euphemisms for alternate personalities include parts, pseudonyms, alter egos, doubles, double consciousness, voice or voices.

— Multiple personality trait: 90% of fiction writers; possibly 30% of public.

— Each time you visit, search "name index" or "subject index," choose another name or subject, and search it.

— If you read only recent posts, you miss most of what this site has to offer.

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Sunday, August 2, 2015

Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita: Was Humbert Humbert (HH) a pedophile, a hebephile, or demon possessed; that is, a person with multiple personality?

I have just started Lolita. I am a very slow reader. And I am bogged down at the very beginning over what the protagonist is, sexually speaking.

Hebephile, Not Pedophile
Loosely speaking, HH is a pedophile, since he is sexually attracted to children. However, since his preference is for girls between 9 and 14 who show the first signs of puberty—“bud-stage breast development” and “the first appearance of pigmented pubic hair” (1, p. 20)—he is not a pedophile (who prefer prepubescent), but rather a hebephile (who prefer pubescent), strictly speaking.

But not Hebephile, either
However, HH is not attracted to most pubescent girls, no matter how pretty, but only to girls who remind him of his childhood girlfriend, so he is not really a hebephile, either.

“it was Lilith he longed for”
“But how his heart beat when, among the innocent throng, he espied a demon child…Humbert was perfectly capable of intercourse with Eve, but it was Lilith he longed for” (1, p. 20).

Who is Lilith?
“Lilith…is a Hebrew name for a figure in Jewish mythology…who is generally thought to be in part derived from a historically far earlier class of female demons in Mesopotamian religion…

“The Hebrew term lilith (translated as "night creatures", "night monster", "night hag", or "screech owl") first occurs in Isaiah 34:14…In Jewish magical inscriptions on bowls and amulets from the 6th century BC onwards, Lilith is identified as a female demon…

“In Jewish folklore…Lilith becomes Adam's first wife, who was created at the same time…and from the same earth as Adam. This contrasts with Eve, who was created from one of Adam's ribs…in the 13th century writings of Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Cohen, Lilith left Adam after she refused to become subservient to him and then would not return to the Garden of Eden after she coupled with the archangel Samael. The resulting Lilith legend is still commonly used as source material in modern Western culture, literature, occultism, fantasy, and horror…” — Wikipedia

“Nymphets” attract men who are already “bewitched”
HH says, “Now I wish to introduce the following idea. Between the age limits of nine and fourteen there occur maidens who, to certain bewitched travelers, twice or many times older than they, reveal their true nature which is not human, but nymph (that is, demoniac); and these chosen creatures I propose to designate as ‘nymphets’…

“Between those age limits, are all girl-children nymphets? Of course not…Neither are good looks any criterion…”

And the man will “come under a nymphet’s spell” (1, pp. 16-17).

Demons and Spells
Demon possession is an obsolete theory for multiple personality.

Allusions to Edgar Allan Poe
HH’s childhood girlfriend, the fixation on which his attraction to nymphets is based, is named after a poem by Poe, “Annabel Lee.”

HH’s double name not only suggests literary doubles, but reminds readers of Poe’s multiple personality story, William Wilson.

So, what can I do?
Keep reading.

1. Vladimir Nabokov. The Annotated Lolita [1955]. Introduction and Notes by Alfred Appel, Jr. New York, Vintage Books, 1970/1991.
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