#clare quilty

[septirgo]

Sounds crazy, but I think the two had some tension, but ofc it is, it's a Kubrick movie 😋

[ladiesandgentlemenofthejury]

David Hamilton, Ambassador of Artisanal Child Pornography, Dead

[wohlbruecks]

Lolita, 1962 dir. Stanley Kubrick

[wohlbruecks]

[mo-nee-ta]

Happy Explorations! ^_^ Ahoy Nabokov Tumblr Fandom (this is a good read, trust me)

[wouldtheyfuck]

Would they fuck?

Yes

Maybe

No

Voting ended onMay 18

[doloresdisparue]

Do you think Dolly ever got to tell Dick about what happened? Did they somehow got the information that HH killed Quilty just a few days after visiting them?

Regarding her past... no I don't think she did. We know she deliberately lied to him and made up a fake history so she clearly actively did not want Dick to know the truth. My guess is she was scared he would see her differently, as broken or a slut or tainted in some way. Whether she saw herself that way or not, people still victim blame today and the general attitude in the 1950s was certainly not any kinder. She could not have known him for much more than a year and this kind of thing is something people today might not disclose to their spouse for years or decades if at all.

Besides, looking at how she talked about Quilty and told Humbert he's been a pretty good dad I don't think Dolly even had enough distance or active support at that point to conceptualise what either Humbery or Quilty did as severe sexual abuse. Some CSA victims (especially those who grow up isolated) come to take their situation as the norm, strange as that might sound. But how can you not when you're new to this world and don't have anything else to compare? At some point the abuse becomes part of your routine. Just another chore. And again, this is a time period where CSA is genuinely not even a concept people factor into their worldview. I don't think Dolly was ever considering whether to disclose that she had been victimized. I fear she viewed the whole thing more as a series of mistakes and unpleasant happenstances that got her in trouble that she was partially to blame for and didn't want anyone to know about (NOT TRUE obviously but coming to terms with CSA can be a long and ugly process and she was pretty busy just surviving on her own).

"Dick did not know a thing of the whole mess. He thought I was her father. He thought she had run away from an upperclass home just to wash dishes in a diner. He believed anything. Why should I want to make things harder than they were by raking up all that muck?"

Regarding Quilty I'm not sure. I believe Humbert visited them in late September and Dolly died late December so there were three months in between. It's possible that the news reached them but unless Dolly was actively looking for news about Quilty I think it's unlikely (and she seemed to want to leave all of it behind her more than anything). Between their poverty, the remoteness of their shack and the wildly different news cycle compared to today it's doubtful whether they were avid newspaper readers in the first place before factoring in whether their local paper would have reported on a writers murder in a different part of the country (I don't believe he lived close by, correct me if I'm wrong). On top of that they were busy preparing a move to Alaska (where the local paper would definitely be unlikely to cover it). You can believe it if you prefer, I don't think canon negates the possibility but I doubt she found out unless Humbert's visit changed her attitude in a way the novel doesn't let us see.

[doloresdisparue]

In your opinion, why did Dolly say that Cue was the only man she ever loved? Was she being genuine, trying to get HH to target him instead of Dick, or..?

I think she was absolutely being genuine. She met him when she was ten and he showed her affection we know she was lacking at home. He was a star playwright everyone admired and he told her SHE was special and pretty and whatnot. She had a magazine cutout of him pinned to her wall. He was essentially her celebrity crush. What tween girl whose celebrity crush tells her she's special and talented and then saves her from the horrific abuse she's been enduring for over a year right as she's at the age where you're liable to fall head over heels in love with anyone of your preferred gender who is sort of nice and good looking wouldn't consider herself in love? The fact that Quilty was a celebrity is important here because celebrities have an incredibly easy time grooming and abusing the trust and adoration of fans. We know this. Imagine you're being sexually abused at home and living miserably and suddenly your favorite writer or singer or actor showed up and told you you're talented and beautiful and he will save you and he DOES. How could she not fall in love with him the strongest she has ever felt for anyone?

You also have to remember she's only 17 when she tells Humbert this. No offense to any 17-year-olds who may be reading this but she has all the conviction of a teenager who thinks whatever is going on in their life right now is the deepest and most meaningful emotion anyone has ever felt. I say this affectionately because that is what its like to be a teenager. And she has no frame of reference for what genuine deep love can be between adults. Her father died when she was still a child and she knows her stepfather never loved her mother, no one modeled loving relationships to her (nevermind that its the 1950s and any model of healthy relationships she could have gained is still uhhh flawed). And Dick isn't the love of her life because in her traumatized, vulnerable state she clung to the first guy vaguely her age who was nice to her and saw her as a person which is VERY understandable because she needs the emotional and literal security he gives her (because again, it's the 1950s, she's a minor and a girl and can't even have a bank account).

There's also the fact that even today with the widespread knowledge of the harm CSA does and the availability of therapists and books and the internet it takes some people decades to realize they were groomed and admit that to themselves. Dolly hadn't even been safe and away from men trying to sexually abuse her for a full two years and it's the 1950s and she is an expecting mother trying to keep her past secret from the one person she has who all of her material security depends on she does not have the headspace to unpack ANY of what has happened to her. If she had had the chance to grow up and mature and actually deal with her trauma she may have changed her mind and seen Quilty more for what he was. But she never got that chance.