America in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita Research Paper

America in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita - Research Paper Example So much of the consumer society must have been a shock to him, after the deprivations of wartime in Europe, and yet he identified very strongly with many features of his new home. Sweeney quotes Nabokov saying to a journalist in 1966 â€Å"I am as American as April in Arizona† (1994, p. 325) and links this curious alliterative statement with the period when Nabokov and his family lived in Arizona in the Spring of 1953: â€Å"On sunny afternoons that April (and all day long during one rainy week) Nabokov worked at telling one story in particular: Lolita, his most acute observation of America’s beauties and vulgarities, the most cunning, incisive and poetic American novel of this century. (Sweeney, 1994, p. 328). Lolita is set in working class provincial America, and its characters speak the idiom of that milieu. The object of his desire is a world weary twelve year old and Humbert indulges her love of vulgar and transient aspects of American culture: â€Å"Mentally, I found her a disgustingly conventional little girl. Sweet hot jazz, square dancing, gooey fudge sundaes, musicals, movie magazines and so forth.† (Nabokov and Appel, 1991, p. 148)The character of Humbert is portrayed as an immigrant of French origins, and in this character Nabokov plays out part of himself, quoting the narrative style of the realist novelist Flaubert in French with the phrase â€Å"Nous connà »mes† and contrasting this learned reference with the tacky motels that they visit (Nabokov and Appel, 1991, pp. 145-146). He sees the tackiness that is on offer as something faintly ridiculous, but uses it as a means to ingratiate himself with Lolita: â€Å"we had to buy its Indian curios, dolls, copper je welry, cactus candy. The words ‘novelties’ and ‘souvenirs’ simply entranced her by their trochaic lilt† (Nabokov and Appel, p. 148). Humbert merges his own intellectual delight in the language with Lolita’s love of trivia. Through her he learns to both love and hate

How the Black Death Transformed the Role of States Essay

How the Black Death Transformed the Role of States - Essay Example This paper discusses the impact of the Black Death on the role of states. The Response of the State to the Black Death From the 16th century, the state had persuaded the city government, the London Corporation, to take steps to stop the pestilence and other maladies. The frequently recommended solution was a kind of quarantine, where the afflicted were prohibited to leave their homes.ii Theodore de Mayerne, the king’s physician, produced a statement in the 1630s indicating a stricter regulation for food distribution, removal of beggars, and widespread cleansing. Furthermore, he suggested that a public health centre be formed, with power over issues of beggars, cleanliness and sanitation, and health assistance.iii Even though the physician received due respect from the king’s counsellors, his recommendations were immediately overlooked after the plague had stopped. In the period after the 1640s deaths from pestilence were unusual, and the ‘pesthouses’ where the afflicted were confined had been renovated for other functions. A lot of physicians, by 1665, had never observed the typical indications of the epidemic, and London stayed defenceless.iv The Royal College of Physicians, the certifying association for physicians, had been licensed by Henry VIII and had been an esteemed organisation. However, by 1665, its power was greatly diminished due to its historical connection with the state, oppositions from other associations, like the Society of Chemical Physicians, and the reality that only a few Royal College physicians were working in the city, and several doctors could simply be identified as frauds whose certification had been coerced by King Charles on the Royal College.v Yet, when the Black Death stormed, the Royal College suggested medications and public health actions to mitigate the predicament. The Royal College also financially supported medications for the infected people who could not pay for them. Additional pesthouses were hurriedly constructed, and alleged ‘plague nurses’ were assigned to look after the afflicted, even though many thought that their major interest was to speed up their demise so they could steal from them.vi As usual, the state attempted to fight the pestilence by removing beggars and wandering merchants from the streets, shutting down courts, schools, and other establishments, and implementing quarantine on the afflicted and their families. London’s economic being was plunged into pandemonium, and countless animals were exterminated due to suspicions that they carry the virus.vii State-supported exterminators were hired to eradicate cats and dogs and received two pence for each animal as wage. This was a big pay at that time, and Daniel Defoe, who presented a description of the pestilence, assessed that 200,000 cats and 40,000 dogs were killed, and usually the remains were left to rot in the streets, hence worsening the already revolting reek in the city.viii Th ese actions only made the rat population bigger, because nobody knew in during this time that these pests were the main virus-carriers. In September, the state ordered the kindling of flares to expel the epidemic from the air. Countless were dying successively that burying the deceased became a serious hygiene problem. Digging of mass graves was the initial response of the state, but there were very few gravediggers.ix At last, when the October weather chilled, the number of deaths dropped and