CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

In the life of a child family is one of the important factors which

complement the absence of harmony, and hope for parents. Every child in the

world has also expected an intact family. The affection of the parents, want

attention, well schooled, taught out of worship, and more spiritual and

psychological needs of children need to parents. But of course not all children feel

beautiful relationship with family, as well as Constance Briscoe. Since childhood,

he continuously abused by her mother, both physically and mentally. In

Handbook for action on child abuse and Neglect states that:

“Child abuse is a deliberate physical assault or action by a person

that result in, or is likely to result in, physical harm to a child. It

includes the use of unreasonable force to discipline a child or

prevent a child from harming him/herself or others.”(2007 : 23)

In the novel written by Vladimir Nobokov entitled Lolita presents the

character of Dolores a teenager that experience a hard times in her life it caused

by her step father that force her to be his lover. After Dolores’ mother died Mr

Humbert brought her from one place to another and they pretend as Father and

daughter while in the contrary Humbert has already treated Dolores as his wife.

When she engages in tantrums or refuses his advances, Humbert threatens to put

her in an orphanage so Dolores or Lollita must to obey to Humbert. As a teenager

Lolita has her own dream to develop a normal relationship but she cannot do it

because Humbert always control her activities. This story seems interesting to be

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studied because Dolores or Lolita reflects how sometimes people can be cruel

even when they seems noble.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

The statement of the problem is child abuse conducted by the step father to

his step daughter Dolores or Lollita because since teenager she has to be a sexual

object of her step father Mr. Humbert. Humbert is obsessed with sexually

desirable and sexually aware to young girls. These nymphets, as he calls them,

remind him of Annabel, though he fails to find another like her but Lolita seems

like Annabel. So through Lolita character the researcher tries to trace out how far

Lolita suffers from his step father abnormal desire.

1.3 Reason for Choosing the Topic

Refers to the title of proposal the researcher has some of reasons why this

topic is interesting to be dug out:

1. Child abuse is the very update issue nowadays

2. Lolita is a role model for the teenager how to be careful with an adult and

to be brave when facing every challenge in life

1.4 Research Question

1. How is child abuse revealed in Nobokov’s Lolita?

2. What is the cause and effect of child abuse?

1.5 Purpose of the Study

This research is conducted in order to reveal child abuse and the cause and

its effect

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1.6 Delimitation of the Study

This research delimits only at revealing child abuse and its causes and

effects in Nobokov’s Lolita.

1.7 Significance of the Study

After conducting this research the writer hopes that the result can give the

positive impact for the reader in general and for the students in English Education

Department to be careful and brave in facing every challenges and obstacles in

life.

1.8 Definition of Term Used

Cild abuse : Child abuse has been defined as an act, or failure to act, on the

part of a parent or caretaker that results in the death, serious

physical or emotional harm, Sexual Abuse, or exploitation of a

child or which places the child in an imminent risk of serious

harm.(James, 2003)

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 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

2.1. Literature

The term of literature is derived from Latin ‘littera’ means letter. It refers

to the written or printed words, but literary also can be oral. Roberts states that :

“Literary refers to compositions that tell stories, dramatize

situation, express emotions, and analyze and advocate ideas.

Before the invention of writing, literary works were necessary

spoken or sung, and were retained only as long as living people

performed them.” (1995:1)

Literary is different from the other informative writing such as geography or

history because it has different language in use. Literary usually uses diction or

imagery, while informative language used the daily language. That is why literary

language usually has implicit meaning and we need to analyze it. In the other

hand, literature refers merely to imaginative works; it has identified particularly

with artistic forms of verbal expression. Wellek and Waren (1963:22) states that

“seems beat if we limit it to the art of literature, that is, to imaginative literature.”

Literature is a creative writing by an author with aesthetic values, which makes

literature regarded as an art. Literature as a writing from differentiates it from the

other art products, and its aesthetic or artistic values make it different from other

writings.

2.2. Novel

A novel is a long prose narrative that describes fictional character and

events in the form of a sequential story, usually. The genre has historical roots in

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the fields of medieval and early modern romance and in the traditional of the

novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, further definition

of the genre is historically difficult. The construction of the narrative, the plot, the

relation to reality, the characterization, and the use of language are usually

discussed to show a novel’s artistic merits. “Novel is fiction misleading for

although fiction include made up imagery elements, it has the potential for being

true nature of reality, true to human experience.” (Griffith 1986:41).

2.3 The Elements of Novel

2.3.1 Characters

Character is the combination of qualities or features that distinguishes one

person, group, or thing from another. According to Griffith:

“Characters are the people in narratives, and characterization is the

author’s presentation and development of characters. Characters

are not only people, but sometimes in fantasy fiction the characters

may be animals, robots, or creatures from outer space, but the

author gives them abilities and psychological traits just like a

human. There are two board categories of character development

flat (simple) and round (complex).” (1986: 46 & 47)

There are various kind of character such as: The protagonist is the main

character, who is not necessarily a hero or a heroine. The antagonist is the

opponent; the antagonist may be society, nature, a person, or an aspect of the

protagonist. The antihero, a recent type, lacks or seems to lack heroic traits. A

persona is a fictional character. Sometimes the term means the mask or alter-ego

of the author; it is often used for first person works and lyric poems, to distinguish

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the writer of the work from the character in the work. Characters may be

classified as round (three-dimensional, fully developed) or as flat (having only a

few traits or only enough traits to fulfill their function in the work); as developing

(dynamic) characters or as static characters. A foil is a secondary character who

contrasts with a major character.

Protagonist character :

Humbert Humbert -  The narrator and protagonist of Lolita. Humbert is an

erudite European intellectual with an obsessive love for nymphets and a history of

mental illness. He manages to seduce the reader with his gift for beautiful

language, but he is nonetheless capable of rape and murder. Humbert, despite his

knowledge of the world, becomes self-aware only toward the end of the novel,

when he realizes he has ruined Lolita’s childhood. He writes the story of Lolita

from his prison cell, where he awaits trial for murder. However, he dies of heart

failure soon after Lolita’s death.

Dolores (Lolita) Haze -  The novel’s eponymous nymphet. An adolescent, she is

seductive, flirtatious, and capricious, and she initially finds herself attracted to

Humbert, competing with her mother for his affections. However, when his

demands become more pressing, and as she spends more time with children her

own age, she begins to tire of him. Humbert attempts to educate her, but she

remains attached to American popular culture and unimpressed with his cultured

ideas. Eventually, she runs off with Clare Quilty, but he abandons her after she

refuses to participate in child pornography. She eventually marries Dick Schiller

and dies in childbirth.

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Clare Quilty -  Humbert’s shadow and double. Quilty is a successful playwright

and child pornographer who takes a liking to Lolita from an early age. He follows

her throughout the story, ultimately kidnapping her away from Humbert. Though

Lolita is in love with him, he eventually tires of her. Nabokov conceals Quilty’s

importance to the story until nearly the end. Quilty is amoral, highly literate, and

completely corrupt.

A Persona :

Annabel Leigh -  Humbert’s childhood love. Annabel and her family visit

Humbert’s father’s hotel as tourists. Despite having many physical encounters,

Humbert and Annabel are unable to consummate their adolescent love. She later

dies of typhus in Corfu. Humbert remains obsessed with her memory until he

meets Lolita.

Foil Characters:

Valeria -  Humbert’s first wife, whom he married to cure himself of his addiction

to nymphets. Humbert finds Valeria intellectually inferior and often bullies her.

When he plans to move to America, Valeria leaves him to marry a Russian taxi

driver. Valeria and her husband die in California years later.

Jean Farlow -  A friend of Charlotte’s and the wife of John Farlow. John and

Jean Farlow are among Charlotte and Humbert’s few friends. After Charlotte’s

death, she secretly kisses Humbert. She eventually dies of cancer.

John Farlow -  A friend of Charlotte’s, married to Jean. He handles the Haze

estate after Charlotte dies, but he eventually relegates his duties to a lawyer

because of the complicated nature of the case. After Jean dies, he marries

someone else and lives an adventurous life in South America.

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Dick Schiller -  Lolita’s husband. Dick is a simple, good-natured working man

who is deaf in one ear, Dick has no idea about the sexual relationship between

Humbert and Lolita, believing Humbert to simply be Lolita’s father. Dick receives

a job offer in Alaska, where he plans to take Lolita, whom he calls Dolly.

Rita -  An alcoholic whom Humbert lives with after he loses Lolita. Toward the

end of their affair, Rita has many encounters with the law and becomes paranoid

that Humbert will leave her. Humbert finds her comforting but regards her as

simple-minded.

Mona -  Lolita’s favorite friend at the Beardsley School for Girls. Mona has

already had an affair with a marine and appears to be flirting with Humbert.

However, she refuses to divulge any of Lolita’s secrets. She helps Lolita lie to

Humbert when Humbert discovers that Lolita has been missing her piano lessons.

Gaston Grodin -  A plump, beloved French professor at Beardsley College.

Gaston is popular in the community and helps Humbert find his house and settle

into Beardsley. They often play chess together, but Humbert thinks him a poor

scholar and not very smart. Gaston also has a predilection for young boys, which

no one in Beardsley seems to notice.

Mrs. Pratt -  The headmistress of the Beardsley School for Girls. Humbert is

unimpressed with Pratt’s emphasis on social skills and her resistance to traditional

academic approaches. She calls Humbert to her office to discuss Lolita’s

disciplinary problems and expresses concern that Lolita is not developing

sexually.

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2.3.2 Plot

Plot is the one of elements in novel, which is important to the studied. Plot

is all the events in a story. Nothing happens at random. According to Griffith,

“plot is a pattern of carefully selected, causally related events that contains

conflict.” (Griffith, 1986, PP 43-44). When writing the plot of a piece of literature,

the author has to be careful that it does not dominate the other parts of the story.

There are five main elements in a plot:

1. Exposition or Introduction

This is the beginning of the story, where characters and setting are

established. The conflict or main problem is introduced as well. In the novel,

Humbert relates his peaceful upbringing on the Riviera, where he encounters

his first love, the twelve-year-old Annabel Leigh. Annabel and the thirteen-

year-old Humbert never consummate their love, and Annabel’s death from

typhus four months later haunts Humbert. Although Humbert goes on to a

career as a teacher of English literature, he spends time in a mental institution

and works a succession of odd jobs. Despite his marriage to an adult woman,

which eventually fails, Humbert remains obsessed with sexually desirable and

sexually aware young girls. These nymphets, as he calls them, remind him of

Annabel, though he fails to find another like her. Eventually, Humbert comes

to the United States and takes a room in the house of widow Charlotte Haze

in a sleepy, suburban New England town. He becomes instantly infatuated

with her twelve-year-old daughter Dolores, also known as Lolita. Humbert

follows Lolita’s moves constantly, occasionally flirts with her, and confides

his pedophiliac longings to a journal. Meanwhile, Charlotte Haze, whom

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 Humbert loathes, has fallen in love with him. When Charlotte sends Lolita off

to summer camp, Humbert marries Charlotte in order to stay near his true

love. Humbert wants to be alone with Lolita and even toys with the idea of

killing Charlotte, but he can’t go through with it. However, Charlotte finds

his diary and, after learning that he hates her but loves her daughter, confronts

him. Humbert denies everything, but Charlotte tells him she is leaving him

and storms out of the house. At that moment, a car hits her and she dies

instantly.

2. Rising Action

Rising action which occurs when a series of events build up to the

conflict. The main characters are established by the time the rising action of a

plot occurs, and at the same time, events begin to get complicated. It is during

this part of a story that excitement, tension, or crisis is encountered. Humbert

goes to the summer camp and picks up Lolita. Only when they arrive at a motel

does he tell her that Charlotte has died. In his account of events, Humbert

claims that Lolita seduces him, rather than the other way around. The two drive

across the country for nearly a year, during which time Humbert becomes

increasingly obsessed with Lolita and she learns to manipulate him. When she

engages in tantrums or refuses his advances, Humbert threatens to put her in an

orphanage. At the same time, a strange man seems to take an interest in

Humbert and Lolita and appears to be following them in their travels.

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3. Climax

In the climax, or the main point of the plot, there is a turning point of the

story. This is meant to be the moment of highest interest and emotion, leaving

the reader wondering what is going to happen next. Humbert eventually gets a

job at Beardsley College somewhere in the Northeast, and Lolita enrolls in

school. Her wish to socialize with boys her own age causes a strain in their

relationship, and Humbert becomes more restrictive in his rules. Nonetheless,

he allows her to appear in a school play. Lolita begins to behave secretively

around Humbert, and he accuses her of being unfaithful and takes her away

on another road trip. On the road, Humbert suspects that they are being

followed. Lolita doesn’t notice anything, and Humbert accuses her of

conspiring with their stalker. Lolita becomes ill, and Humbert must take her

to the hospital. However, when Humbert returns to get her, the nurses tell him

that her uncle has already picked her up. Humbert flies into a rage, but then

he calms himself and leaves the hospital, heartbroken and angry.

4. Falling Action

Falling action, or the winding up of the story, occurs when events and

complications begin to resolve. The result of the actions of the main

characters are put forward. For the next two years, Humbert searches for

Lolita, unearthing clues about her kidnapper in order to exact his revenge. He

halfheartedly takes up with a woman named Rita, but then he receives a note

from Lolita, now married and pregnant, asking for money. Assuming that

Lolita has married the man who had followed them on their travels, Humbert

becomes determined to kill him.

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 5. Resolution

Resolution, or the conclusion, is the end of a story, which may occur with

either a happy or a tragic ending. He finds Lolita, poor and pregnant at

seventeen. Humbert realizes that Lolita’s husband is not the man who

kidnapped her from the hospital. When pressed, Lolita admits that Clare

Quilty, a playwright whose presence has been felt from the beginning of the

book, had taken her from the hospital. Lolita loved Quilty, but he kicked her

out when she refused to participate in a child pornography orgy. Still devoted

to Lolita, Humbert begs her to return to him. Lolita gently refuses. Humbert

gives her 4,000 dollars and then departs. He tracks down Quilty at his house

and shoots him multiple times, killing him. Humbert is arrested and put in

jail, where he continues to write his memoir, stipulating that it can only be

published upon Lolita’s death. After Lolita dies in childbirth, Humbert dies of

heart failure, and the manuscript is sent to John Ray, Jr., Ph.D.

2.3.3 Theme

“Theme as the meaning of the story which especially account of the

largest number of its elements in the simplest way” (Stanton, 1965: 30). The

theme is something that has traditionally concerned writers and that therefore is a

legitimate concern of reader’s (Kenney, 1966; 88) Theme is simple the meaning

of the story realize; the meaning the story discovers. Means that the necessary

implication of the whole story. Not as a separable port of story. Theme in fiction

is what is able to make of the total experience rendered.

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 Griffith states that: “The theme is the central idea in the work. It is the

comment the work makes on human condition.” (Griffith, 1986: 49) In this case,

theme is one of the author’s reference to analyze this work which is child abuse.

2.3.4 Setting

According to Griffith

“Setting include several closely related aspects of work fiction such

as physical and sensuous world of work, the time in which the

action of the work take place, the social environment of characters ,

costumers, and moral values that govern the characters society.”

(1986:52)

According to the statement above, the writer conclude that setting is the place and

time which the story or action done by the characters. setting (time) · 1947–1952

setting (place) · Initially the South of France and unnamed locations in Europe,

then all over the United States.

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 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research Design

In conducting this research, the writer uses qualitative research. Such as

stated by Bogdan and Biklen (28)

“Qualitative research is descriptive. The data collected is in the

form of words or pictures rather than numbers. The written result

of the research contains quotation from the data to illustrate and

substantiate the presentation”.

Based on the statement above, it can be understood that the data is collected in the

form of words. It includes some quotations in the novel and other references

which is considered important to improve the quality of this research.

3.2. Data Collection

In collecting the data, the writer uses two kinds if sources: the primary

source and the secondary source. The primary data source is the novel itself,

Lolita by Nobokov. The secondary data source it the books related to the analysis

of the research whether the books which are explaining about literature, theories

of literature, and also other relevant books and sources that support the analysis.

3.3. Data Analysis

Wellek and Warren (1956: 73- 139) state that

“there are two approaches in studying literature, the extrinsic

approach and the intrinsic approach. The extrinsic approach

describes the elements of literature from the outside of literary

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 work. Meanwhile the intrinsic approach describes the elements of

literature from the inside of the literary works.”

Truly the extrinsic approach is the same as expressive, mimetic and pragmatic

approaches; meanwhile the intrinsic approach is the same as the objective

approach. Abrams (1976) explains the following points:

“Expressive approach is an approach that considers a literary works

an expression of telling, thought and experience of the writer. This

approach focuses on the writer’s role. Mimetic approach is an

approach that considers literature as an imitation of the universe.

Pragmatic approach is a approach focusing on reader. An approach

that regards work as a medium to achieves a certain objective.

Objective approach is an approach that focuses on the work itself,

which reveals intrinsic elements which build up a structure.”

(1976 : 178)

In relation to the approaches above, the writer would like to describe extrinsic

elements of the play by applying the mimetic approach because is focuses on the

study of the life such as; human being , human society, place of life and so on,

while the work of art consist of many values of like: like the experience of human

being, the condition of certain society, etc. what is meant by the relationship the

work of art and universe is that the work of art lifts up many problems appearing

in the world. It can be criticism or a depiction of life.

That the plays the pillar of the community consist of social problems, and society

is part of the universe become the reason why the writer applies mimetic approach

as seen on the quotation below : “A sociological study is one of the applications

15
of mimetic approach in analyzing a literary work. The object of sociology study in

society is analyzed from the point of view of relevance among human being and

the process caused from the relevance in society” (Soekanto, 1990: 25).

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 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abrams, M.H. 1953. The Mirror and the Lamb; romantic theory and the Critical

Tradition. Oxford University Press. New York

Bogdan and Biklen. 1992. Qualitative Research for Education. An Introduction to

Theory and Methods.2 nd edition.Boston : Allyn and Bacon.

Griffith, K. 1986. Writing Essay about Literature.Washington: Harcourt Brace

Javanovich Publisher.

Robert, et. al., Writing Themes about Literature. Illinois: Scoot Foresman and

Company, 1995.

Scholes, R and Kellogg, R. The Nature or Narrative, Oxford University, New

York, 1966.

Wellek, R and Warren, A. Theory of Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace and

World, Inc. 1956.

Stosny, S. In Anger in The Age of Entitlement. Published on April 15, 2011

Webster New World College Dictionary. Ohio: Wiley Publishing. 2010.

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