Being Towards “Otherworld”

Vladimir Nabokov is universally acknowledged as an outstanding novelist and stylist in the twentieth century.The elite education and identity of Russian-American writer endow Nabokov with Russian and American dual cultural background,also bring up a unique style of his literary works.Lolita,as his most celebrated masterpiece,has aroused much controversy at the beginning of its publication.Most content of the novel is the monologue of Humbert Humbert,a death row inmate,telling about a middle-aged man's love for a underage girl.The taboo moral relationship,touching words and exquisite narrative techniques have focused the attention of many scholars on the study of the literary and artistic value of the work itself.But in addition,the specific era and social background in novel,as well as the similar immigration status of the protagonist and the author Nabokov,indeed provide Lolita with rich cultural connotation and predisposition worthy of our in-depth studies.Employing Nabokov's concepts of literary criticism(aesthetic bliss,poshlust,otherworld)and cultural ideas in Leavisism,this thesis aims to explore the protagonist's cultural identity and dilemma in the twentieth-century American.This thesis studies Lolita in three parts.The first one provides some information about the author and his main works,as well as the research results of Lolita at home and abroad,expounding the cultural theoretical basis and framework in this paper,and expressing the central point of this thesis.The second part is separated into three chapters: the first chapter begins with a cultural interpretation of Nabokov's conceptof “Aesthetic Bliss”,and this aesthetic standard is used to appreciate elite culture or high culture.At the same time,Humbert's identity of cultural elite is also determined by virtue of it.The second chapter focuses on Nabokov's concept of “Poshlust”,especially the tendency of poshlust in mass culture.The most obvious manifestation in the text is the poshlust characters and social phenomena with the poison of mass culture.And Humbert's attitude towards these people and things can reflect his contempt for popular culture to some extent.The third chapter is related to Nabokov's concept of “Otherworld”.This is a world of artistic fantasy,consists of countless moments of intertwined memories and emotions.In this imagined world,the sense of cultural nostalgia is very strong.While facing the temptation of mass culture and poshlust fairy,Humbert can not avoid vulgarity and even be partially assimilated.Such a contradictory attitude makes him finally fall into the cultural nihility and have to wander forever in his “otherworld”.The third part is the final conclusion.On the basis of summarizing the whole paper,it clarifies the conclusion and provides a new life meaning of being towards the “otherworld”.With longing for the otherworld,human beings choose to live in the earthly world poetically,confront the elapse of time and inevitability of death by means of artistic and aesthetic imagination.