Why does humbert kill quilty

He makes himself out to be some kind of champion, leaving Lolita alone to live her new life with her new husband. This goes against all of his previous actions with the women in his life and his former experiences with Lolita. With Valeria and Charlotte, both of whom he did not care for even a fraction as much as he cared for Lolita, he refused to let them leave.

When Valeria decided to separate herself from Humbert, even though he did not love her, he wanted to beat her and inflict pain. When Charlotte left him, he attempted to manipulate her into staying and believing that she was the crazy one, even though she had just found his diary detailing his horrifying, vulgar thoughts about her twelve-year-old daughter.

He had never given up on a woman before, especially Lolita for whom he had been searching for years. It is hard to believe that he would finally decide play the hero in this scene and let Lolita go so easily, especially since he claims that she, nymphet or not, is the love of his life. This falsified scene provides precisely what is needed for Humbert to finish his story.

After visiting Lolita at her new home with her new husband, he says he has to leave to head to Readsburg Nabokov He can write the ending to his story now that he knows the identity of the man who stole Lolita away from him is Clare Quilty.

It is time for Humbert to create the finale to his imagined story. Humbert Humbert has set himself up to end the story with the murder of Clare Quilty. After Lolita tells him the identity of her kidnapper, he writes:. I, too, had known it, without knowing it, all along. There was no shock, no surprise. Quietly the fusion took place, and everything fell into order, into the pattern of branches that I have woven throughout this memoir with the express purpose of having the ripe fruit fall at the right moment; yes, with the express and perverse purpose of rendering.

Nabokov Humbert directly admits that his whole story was a setup, a ruse. He wrote his own story and determined his own fate. From the beginning of Lolita , Humbert has decided his own ending. Everything about the scene feels hazy and disorganized. It seems almost too easy right from the start. Sometimes I attempt to kill in my dreams.

But do you know what happens? For instance I hold a gun. For instance I aim at a bland, quietly interested enemy. Oh, I press the trigger all right, but one bullet after another feebly drops on the floor from the sheepish muzzle.

In those dreams, my only thought is to conceal the fiasco from my foe, who is slowly growing annoyed. This is almost precisely how the encounter with Quilty plays out, a possible clue at the inaccuracy of the scene. His second try hits the rug.

Quilty does not appear to care and continues to play off the encounter as if it is not a matter of life or death. Next in this unusual spectacle, Humbert reads a poem he wrote about how Quilty must die for what he did to Lolita. The whole time Humbert is speaking, Quilty is making casual comments. He even compliments the poem at the end Nabokov It is a curious reaction for him towards someone that has just shot at him and told him he is going to die. The scene continues to get more perverse and comical.

Several bullets are needed to mortally wound Quilty, who all the while is stumbling around, trying to make conversation with Humbert. After Quilty falls to the floor, Humbert begins to leave. The guests joke about it, ignoring Humbert as he quietly gets into his car and leaves.

The reactions, along with how everything has played out, feel too nonchalant and strange to be true. If Quilty does exist, Humbert has forged his perverse and unusual personality in order to justify his death. However, if Quilty does not exist, what can the readers make of these scenes? If Quilty was never killed, why is Humbert in jail? It could be possible that Lolita told the nurse at Elphinstone who was so suspicious of Humbert about his abuse.

The conclusion appears to be that Clare Quilty does exist. Edit as much as you wish, but one little thing If you are going to edit a lot, then make yourself a user and login. Other than that, enjoy Villains Wiki!!! If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page.

He was portrayed by the late Peter Sellers , who also portrayed the title character in Dr. Strangelove , in the film adaptation.

Clare Quilty meet Charlotte's husband, Humbert Humbert , a closet pedophile who is obsessed with Dolores, during the party hosted by Charlotte.

During the party, Clare is seen dancing with Vivian Darkbloom as well as Dolores is dancing with a boy, causing Humbert becomes jealous. After Dolores send to a camp, Humbert and Charlotte were experiencing a short honeymoon. After that, Charlotte Haze discovering the letters that Humbert writing to express his contempt for Charlotte as well as his obsession with Dolores Haze, causes her to attempted to file a divorce and even writing the letters to her friend warning about Humbert, but died of a car accident.

Humbert take Dolores from a camp and takes her to a hotel where he drugged and raped her. Humbert meet Clare again and have a conversation with him. After Humbert and Dolores went to a motel together, Clare went on to dress up as a psychologist Dr. Zempf to manipulating Humbert Humbert to have Dolores Haze appeared in his play, which Dolores accepted to be in the play. Noticing Quilty's inebriated condition, for example, Humbert observes that it is "evident to everybody that he [is] in a fog and completely at my so-called mercy" p.

The adjective "so-called," inserted into the familiar phrase "at my mercy," emphasizes Humbert's fallacious discourse as well as the trial's fundamental dishonesty. In judicial terms, "mercy" refers to leniency for a criminal and, more specifically, to a sentence of life imprisonment rather than death as penalty for murder.

Humbert quizzes Quilty about his preferences, in the tradition of the "last meal" and other death-row rituals, but makes it clear that the actual sentence is a foregone conclusion. He even asks Quilty "whether he want[s] to be executed sitting or standing" and "if he ha[s] anything serious to say before dying" pp. Humbert's adherence to the letter, if not the spirit, of these legal formalities recalls the torturer's insistence on following rules--no matter how meaningless--while interrogating a victim.

In The Body in Pain , Elaine Scarry argues that the purpose of such speech is not to elicit information but rather to lend specious legitimacy to the torturer's crude display of power Humbert's discourse is even more fraudulent than that, however, because it glosses over the very murder that he is using--instead of words--to signify his own guilt.

Among the speech acts in a criminal trial, Humbert particularly emphasizes sentencing. His pronouncement of Quilty's sentence is rhetorical in more ways than one, however. To begin with, it fails as a performative declaration because both speaker and circumstances are illegitimate. In Humbert's case, at any rate, uttering the sentence seems a mere formality because he has already begun carrying it out.

Finally, he adds to its rhetorical force by deciding that Quilty should "read his own sentence" and literally pronounce it aloud p. Humbert therefore hands him a "neat typescript" of the sentence rendered into verse, telling the reader, in a painfully obvious pun, that "The term 'poetical justice' [. It also parodies T. Eliot's "Ash-Wednesday"--a litany that pleads for God's mercy--and thus underscores the mock trial's literary derivations and pretensions.

Given this grammatical construction, the fact that he makes Quilty read it aloud--as if he were Humbert--emphasizes the convoluted rhetorical situation whereby Humbert uses Quilty to signify his own guilt.

After reading the sentence aloud, interjecting critical comments such as "Didn't get that," "A little repetitious, what? He ignores the fact that it sentences him to death. Throughout this scene, in fact, Quilty refuses to heed Humbert's warnings, follow his orders, accept his blame, or stick to the script of his "pistol-packing farce" p.

Quilty pointedly remarks that he is "not responsible for the rapes of others" and that "really, my dear Mr. He denies Humbert's literary authority and brags about his own superior writing skills: "My dear sir, [.

I am a playwright. I have written tragedies, comedies, fantasies. I know all the ropes. Let me handle this" p. And when Humbert invites his last words, Quilty produces a torrent of boasts, bribes, puns, threats, and jokes, culminating in the offer of an unusual reward for sparing his life: "moreover I can arrange for you to attend executions, not everybody knows that the chair is painted yellow--" p. Defiantly, he refers not only to the death penalty but to electrocution, in particular--also evoked in Humbert's description of the sun "burning like a man" p.

Humbert, meanwhile, is so eager to finish the job that his bullets cut short Quilty's last words. He chases him through the house, firing repeatedly as the other tries "to talk [him] out of murder," until he determines that Quilty is dead pp.