Humbert Humbert’s unreliability in Nabokov’s Lolita and the film adaptations by Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne

Abstract

This thesis aims to explore to what extent and how Humbert Humbert’s unreliability, as presented in the novel Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, is incorporated and represented in the Lolita film adaptations by Stanley Kubrick and Adrian Lyne. In order to compare the unreliability in novel and film, the nature of Humbert’s unreliability in the novel is first defined. Based on different articles that discuss Humbert's unreliability, a distinction is made between the following elements that form a synthesis of Humbert's unreliability in the novel: focalisation, character, audience and evidence. Then, on the basis of these four elements that together form Humbert’s unreliability, it is examined to what extent and how Humbert’s unreliability is represented in both film adaptations.