Introduction to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita/List of characters


 * Humbert Humbert - the main protagonist and the (unreliable) narrator of Lolita. He is an intelligent, well-read European scholar who has an obssession with nymphets and a history of mental disorder. He is able to seduce readers with his poetic and ornamental language and fancy prose style. Even though Humbert emphasises each time that he is a brute and a monster, he goes to any lengths to win reader’s sympathy. Nonetheless, he is a paedophile capable of such misdeeds as rape or murder. Read an in-depth analysis of Humbert [here]
 * Dolores Haze (Lolita) - a twelve-year-old American girl raised by her mother Charlotte. She lost her father nad her little brother in her childhood. She is an object of Humbert's love and a victim of his passion. According to him, she is a nymphet: she is seductive, desirable and sexually aware. Nonetheless, she is still a simple young girl loving comic books; she is moody, sometimes vulgar and extremely attached to American popular culture. After her mother's death she is forced to stay with Humbert, who is her only relative and her legal guardian. She manages to escape him only to find out that her savior - Clare Quilty - is another deviant. She tries to rebuilt her life and she marries Dick Schiller. She dies in childbirth.
 * Charlotte Haze - Lolita's mum and Humbert's wife. She is a middle-class middle-aged woman who aspires to be cultural and sophisticated. She quickly falls in love with her tenant, Humbert, marries him and remains blind to his deviation. She dies hit by a car.
 * Clare Quilty - Humbert's shadow and double. He is a famous playwright and a child pornographer. He follows Humbert and his nymphet during the story and finally kidnaps her. Lolita is in love with him but he abandons her. Read more about Quilty [here].
 * Annabel Leigh - Humbert’s childhood love. She is the first nymphet he encountered and he is obsessed with the memory of her.
 * Valeria - Humbert's first wife, with whom he lived in Paris; a daughter of a Polish doctor. She left him to marry a Russian taxi driver.

These are only the main characters of the story. To recall more of them, click [here].