uses of imagery

look through the text for signs of the ways Humbert uses imagery to make a point, convince himself or the reader of something, or represent an event as something it is not.

"Therefore (to retrieve the thread of this explanation) the moralist in me by-passed the issue by clinging to conventional notions of what twelve-year-old girls should be.  The child therapist in me (a fake, as most of them are—but no matter) regurgitated neo-Freudian hash and conjured up a dreaming and exaggerating Dolly in the "latency" period of girlhood.  Finally, the sensualist in me (a great and insane monster) had no objection to some depravity in his prey.  But somewhere behind the raging bliss, bewildered shadows conferred—and not to have heeded them, this is what I regret!"

In this passage, as Lolita has just fallen asleep and Humbert wanders inside the hotel waiting for the drug to completely kick-in, Humbert comes to a realization that Lolita is unlike any other girls, and uses an extended imagery chronicling his reaction and recognition.  He first physicalizes a part of himself as a "moralist," the part of him that wants to believe that Lolita is still a child, and a child does what a conventional children do, as in keeping their purity and innocence.  The second part of his conscious or thought that he brings to life, he names the "child therapist," who brings up the "neo-Freudian hash," which I can only assume is relating to the unconscious processes in neurotic behavior and claims that Lolita is just in a latent period, and she does not know what she wants or is not conscious of it, just yet.  The third and final part of him, the sensualist, described as a "great and insane monster" has no objection to the perversity of Lolita. 

Humbert uses these imageries to, firstly, describe the way he feels about his recent epiphany.  However, in describing himself in this manner, he convinces himself, and the reader respectively, of a sense of unintentness.  If he were to say outright that, in a way he feels that he wants to bypass the issue and that Lolita is in a latency period of girlhood, but also has no objection to depravity in Lolita, then it is clear and obvious that Humbert is the one who feels the way he claims.  However, by separating the way he feels, and naming them even, gives a certain distance and an unimpersonable impression, that Humbert cannot help but feel the way he feels, and he feels this way because there are part of himself that he cannot control, such as the moralist, therapist, and the sensualist.

I know this one is late and is solitary, but I wrote a longer post than I usually do to make up for its tardiness and its lack of counterpart.  Sorry!