re Control - Who's in charge here?
Hi all,
I read through the posts on "control" up above as they were occurring, and I had the feeling that Lolita had rather more control of her situation than I heard. If this covers old and settled territory by all means say so, or yawn, but here are my thoughts from recollection.
After Humbert captured her and they started on their cross country journeys, Humbert had to figure some way to keep Lo in line and decided on the three horrible futures that he impressed upon her consciousness if their arrangement were ever to change. That however began to unravel after a while as Humbert began to think that those threats were losing their deterrent power, i.e. Lo wa getting wise that it didn't have to turn out the way he said.
In parallel, he started the sytem of negotiated payments for her favors. Or, more exactly, he surrendered to her demand for a system of negotiated payments, I think is more exact. Here she seemed to have him over a barrel, because apparently when she said "No" she meant it, unless he would placate her in some way, for example by agreeing to her raise in rates. In fact he mentioned that he became more pliant toward her deliberately to keep her in a good mood for his approaches. And he also mentioned, in exasperation, that in negotiating payments she was very difficult to deal with. Plus there was one scene where he crawled to her on all fours and, when her reaction was "Oh no, not again!" he desisted. Finally he did agree to "a party with boys" much against his main wishes, just to keep things smooth with the school is my guess. He gave in as necessary in all circumstances.
When the second journey began it was because she suggested it and also said, "now we're going to do this one my way." She kept busy with the map and called the shots on where they went, and when, and he never objected to any of it.
She may not have had "anywhere to go."
But on the other hand there was nothing else he could do, either.
(Unless of course he was going to be a real ogre and keep her chained in a basement someplace.
)
So she gradually moved from a situation of merely keeping him at a negotiated arm's length, to a situation where she was really calling the shots. He was deathly afraid that he/they would have serious trouble with the law, of course, but by his nature he seemed also to want treat her in as civil, and loving (?), a manner as he could. He wanted to be nice to her, because that was really his view of himself as a generous man, I suspect. He gave her presents and gave her whatever she asked for, except her freedom. And he did mention that the continued travel was really costing him, but he did not resort to harsh measures.
At first I imagine she didn't have a constructve idea of what she would do with her freedom, so it was a deterrent thought, but gradually she put it together and worked out the plan with Q.
I'm not sure whether to call that manipulative or controlling.
He had her in a cage so to speak by limiting her physical freedom.
But in return she had the better of him psychologically, and used that leverage to keep him in place. That she was ruthless in twisting the knife (throwing the words incest and rape at him), and didn't care at all about the sex, must have reinforced the idea to him that she had him. And that he was in the proverbial position of having a tiger by the tail.
Eventually the tables turned and she got the better of him.
At their parting, he tried gently to reason with her, but she again said no, and he realized the game was finally up and went quietly. Which I would say is to his credit.
Having said all that, I suppose I would describe it more as a contest of wills, with each side doing what they could to prevail, but with both also limited in what they could do by their shared circumstances. Sort of like checkers on a very small board.
Anyway, that's one and one-half cents. Anyone with two cents prevails.
(I'm learning
)
Peder
