Distortions of Reality Essays

Distortions of Reality Essays Distortions of Reality Essay Distortions of Reality Essay Essay Topic: Diary Of a Madman Lolita In both Vladimir Nabokovs novel Lolita, and Thomas Pynchons novel The Crying of Lot 49, the protagonist is consumed by an obsession. These obsessions affect the characters behavior, actions, and interaction with the world. Most importantly, however, both authors reveal that obsession distorts a persons perception of reality. In Lolita, the protagonist and narrator, Humbert Humbert, has an obsessive lust for nymphets which warps his view of the world, ultimately driving him to paranoia. His sexual fixation for nymphets is projected on all that he sees. It prevents him from seeing the world clearly, void of nymphet-sexual overtones. His interactions and perceptions of girls are consumed with sexual fantasy, which obstructs their true nature. He becomes delusional due to paranoia, causing his imagination to take hold of his notions of reality. Humbert writes the following accounts from a prison cell, where he is able to use his retrospect to narrate the novel. He describes his obsession with nymphets at great lengths. Whenever he comes into contact with them he is overcome with sexual lust and yearning. He tells the reader, I was consumed by a hell furnace of localized lust for every passing nymphet (18). His obsession is intensified by the agony and frustration he feels due to his inability to act on his desires. Humbert even convinces himself that there is nothing wrong with being infatuated with girl-children, justifying it as, a question of attitude (19). This rationale is further justified through his numerous references to man-nymphet sexual relationships throughout history. He has done thorough research on the topic because of his utter fascination with girl-children. This fascination has also led him to pursue the detailed study of the pubescent stages of female development. Humbert describes the feelings that his obsessive lust evokes. He says that his random infrequent interactions with girls on the metro or in the park created a revelation of axillary russet[that] remained in my blood for weeks (20). Whenever nymphets are near him he feels euphoric and becomes enraptured in his fantasies. The world around him stops, and he dreams of being left alone in my pubescent park, in my mossy garden. Let them play around me forever. Never grow up (20). He uses imagery of a mossy garden to emphasize his forbidden desire of young girls. Moss is green, which symbolizes youth or something that is unripe, while the garden refers to Eden, where Eve was forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge. Nabokov similarly uses imagery to reveal Humberts misconceptions of reality. His obsessive lust for young girls is reflected in the world that he sees, which is expressed through images of a mirror. While he is with a nymphet prostitute he notices his reflection that distorted my mouth (22). This mirrors his distorted view of young girls that he projects throughout the novel. He cannot see himself clearly in the mirror, just as he cannot see young girls clearly. His inability to see outside of his world, which is consumed by thoughts and feelings of obsessive lust, is also seen through imagery of a window. The prostitute is wrapped in the gauze of the window curtain, which symbolizes that Humberts obstructed view of reality is just like the obstructed view that a curtain provides a window. Similar imagery is seen during Humberts life with his first wife Valeria. Humbert and Valeria, who resembles a little girl, live in an apartment that has a hazy view in one window, a brick wall in the other (26). Humbert cannot see outside the box within he lives. He cannot see past his warped sense of women. His mind has slipped into a world confined by his sexual desire. While living in this apartment he is driven mad by the shadow of the grocers little daughter (26). This image reveals that his picture of girls is only a dark reflection of light, thus it lacks substance and clarity. Similar images persist when Humbert notices through the store window of an art dealer, a locomotive with a gigantic smokestack, great baroque lamps and a tremendous cowcatcher, hauling its mauve coaches through the stormy prairie night and mixing a lot of spark-studded black smoke with the furry thunder clouds (26-27). This image of smoke, light, and clouds reflects Humberts obscured understanding of h is world. Instead of seeing things clearly and illuminated, his head is in the clouds. The novels theme of obsession leading to the distortion of reality is reiterated through the work that Humbert does when he goes to America. The intense research that is involved in his job of writing the history of French literature causes him to have a nervous breakdown and he is sent to a sanatorium twice. This reflects the larger theme of the novel that intensity, like compulsion or obsession, leads to mental disorder. While Humbert is on an expedition to arctic Canada, he feels curiously aloof from [himself]seated on a boulder under a completely translucent sky (33). Nabokov uses imagery of clarity to make Humbert feel disconnected from himself. Under a clear sky he cannot see himself clearly. Humberts arrival at the Haze household marks the beginning of his most powerful obsession: Lolita Haze. The name Haze is an intentional play-on-words that Nabokov uses to emphasize the obscured perception and confused state of mind that she causes Humbert. Humberts obsession with this twelve-year-old girl is chronicled in an entire diarys worth of entries that mark every stage of his growing lust for her. It is filled with imagery and language that illustrate his lack of perspective. Mrs. Haze takes a picture of Humbert while he sits blinking on the steps (41). Humberts blindness from watching Lolita is accentuated by the fact that it is captured in a photograph. In another instance, while Humbert daydreams of Lolita, Mrs. Haze interrupts by asking him for a cigarette light (43). This refers to Humberts obscured view of Lolita and is an example of the subtleties of language used by Nabokov to reveal a greater theme. The leitmotif of the mirror is again seen in these diary entries when Humbert observes one day that he and Lolita are in the same warm, green bath of the mirror that reflected the top of a poplar with us in the sky (43). Their position in the sky depicts that Humbert is not grounded, nor does he have his feet on the ground, because he is completely preoccupied with his lust for Lolita. Humbert also reveals self-recognition of his biased perception of Lolita. He explains, Never have I experienced such agony. I would describe her face, her ways and I cannot because my own desire for her blinds me when she is near (44). Humbert is both literally and figuratively blinded by Lolita. He is unable to notice anything but his lust for her. One day, as he lustfully watches her leaning through a window while talking to the newspaper boy, he confesses, I seemed to see her through the wrong end of a telescope (55). Again, Nabokov uses figurative language to depict Humberts inability to see Lolita clearly while she is leaning outside of a window. By looking through a telescope from the opposite end, her image appears much farther away, and thus obscured. Humberts obsession with Lolita causes him to recreate reality. He figuratively takes on the role of an artist. He says, you have to be an artist and a madman (17) in order to lust after nymphets. This aspect of his character is emphasized when Lolita shows him a picture of a surrealist painting in a magazine (58). Nabokov uses this allusion to refer to the surreal nature of Humberts perception of Lolita. Humbert admits, What I had madly possessed was not she, but my own creation (62). He has molded his own image of Lolita in his mind, which has objectified and glorified her. His obsession with this figment of his imagination has clouded reality.

The 1920 Wall Street Bombing

The 1920 Wall Street Bombing At noon on September 16, 1920, a horse drawn buggy loaded with 100 pounds of dynamite and 500 pounds of cast- iron slugs exploded across the street from the J.P. Morgan bank headquarters in downtown Manhattan, New York. The explosion blew out windows for blocks around, killed 30 immediately, injured hundreds of others and completely destroyed the interior of the Morgan building.. Those responsible were never found, but evidence- in the form of a warning note received at a nearby office building- suggested anarchists. Tactic / Type: VBIED / Anarchist Learn more: VBIEDs (vehicle borne improvised explosive devices | Anarchism and Anarchist terrorism Where: Financial District, downtown Manhattan, New York When: September 16, 1920 The Story: Shortly after 12pm on September 16, a dynamite loaded horse drawn cart exploded on the corner of Wall and Broad Street in downtown Manhattan, just outside the banking firm. J.P. Morgan   Co. The blast would ultimately kill 39 people- most of them the clerks and messengers and secretaries who served the financial institutionsand cause damage in the millions of dollars. To witnesses, the scale of the damage was unimaginable. Glass flew everywhere, including into the Morgan building, where several of the banks partners were injured (Morgan himself was traveling in Europe that day.) The attack was made more lethal by the cast iron slugs packed in with the dynamite. Investigations began immediately, with several theories about who might have committed the attack discarded along the way. Thomas Lamont, a Morgan bank principal, first accused Bolsheviks of the attack. Bolsheviks was for many a catch-all term that meant radicals, whether anarchists, communists or socialists. The day after the attack, a message was found in a mailbox a block from the attack, which said: Remember. We will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners or it will be death for all of you. American Anarchist Fighters! Some have theorized that this note indicated that the attack was revenge for the murder indictment, several days earlier, of anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Finally, it was concluded that either Anarchists or communists were responsible. However, those responsible for the attack were never located, and suspicions about the object of the attack were inconclusive. From Wall Street to the World Trade Center: The first act of terrorism aimed at the heart of the nations financial institutions inevitably draws comparison to the second, on September 11, 2001. Beverly Gage, author of the forthcoming book, The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror, has made one such comparison: To New Yorkers and to Americans in 1920, the death toll from the blast seemed incomprehensible. The horrible slaughter and maiming of men and women, wrote the New York Call, was a calamity that almost stills the beating of the heart of the people. That those numbers now seem paltry statistics from a past when we counted civilian deaths in dozens instead of thousands underscores just how violently our own world changed last Tuesday. The destruction of the World Trade Center now stands alone in the annals of horror. But despite the difference in scale, the Wall Street explosion forced upon New York and the nation many of the same questions that we are confronting today: How should we respond to violence on this new scale? What is the proper balance between freedom and security? Who, exactly, is responsible for the destruction? There is another striking similarity. We may think that the defensive security crackdowns and resource mobilization following 9/11 are unprecedented, but a similiar mobilization occurred in 1920: Within days of the attack, there were calls on Congress and the Department of Justice to dramatically increase funding and legal mechanisms to counter the threat of Communists and Anarchists. According to the New York Times on September 19: It was said today at the Department of Justice that Attorney General Palmer would recommend in his annual report to Congress that drastic laws for dealing with anarchists and other disturbing elements be enacted. At the same time he will ask for larger appropriations, which were denied in the past.