Another Kubrick Maze that is Lolita
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Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling)
In the book's forward, crafted by Nabokov as written by psychiatrist, John Ray, mention is made of names and places being disguised, except for Lolita, diminutive of Delores. Lolita's given name and nickname are retained, but her family name has been changed. Haze is stated as rhyming with the real family name.
Its author's bizarre cognomen is his own invention; and, of course, this mask--through which two hypnotic eyes seem to glow--had to remain unlifted in accordance with its wearer's wish. While "Haze" only rhymes with the heroine's real surname, her first name is too closely interwound with the inmost fiber of the book to allow one to alter it...
...For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the "real" people beyond the "true" story, a few details may be given...
Given the repetitive bull and matador imagery in the Haze household, and Nabokov/Humbert ending the novel speaking of "aurochs and angels", one might wonder if the name Haze rhymes with is Mayes or Maze.
In the film, Humbert reads Lolita a poem by Poe, educating her on turns of phrases such as dim to mid in its line, "It was hard by the dim lake of Auber, In the misty mid region of Weir".
Humbert continues...
"Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her
And conquered her scruples and gloom
And we passed to the end of the vista
But were stopped by the door of a tomb
And I said, 'What is written, sweet sister?'
She replied, 'Ulalume, Ulalume'."
Lolita states it's corny and makes a rhyme using her name. "Well, the 'vista-sista', that's like 'Lolita-sweeta'."
The poem is about an individual trapped in an unconscious circularity by which he returns to the tomb of his beloved without initially recognizing the path. One could say he is a prisoner, which takes us to one of Humbert's poems he would write after Lolita fleeing from him.
Where are you hiding, Dolores Haze?
Why are you hiding, darling?
(I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze
I cannot get out, said the starling)
The maze in which the starling is trapped refers to a couple of different things. One is Nabokov's tale of the partial genesis of Lolita, the story of the ape who, when given charcoal, eventually drew lines that were the bars of its cage. But who exactly is the parenthetical one in the maze? Humbert? How about Lolita? I would think both of them, despite Lolita's seeming escape. In the poem, Humbert first identifies her as being a "starlet", and Lolita's death will occur in Gray Star, Alaska. The second is a relationship to passage in Laurence Sterne's novel, A Sentimental Journey, which has to do with a bird that is unable to leave its cage.
This prison maze is conjured in the film with the repetitive lines of prevalent white picket fences, wallpaper with vertical lines, and the shadows of window blinds. At film's end, Humbert only sees Lolita as in a prison of marriage with Schiller, and begs her to walk out the door with him.
May 2018 excerpted portion from analysis. Approx 700 words or 2 single-spaced pages. A 5 minute read at 130 wpm.
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