The Poplar Response

I was assigned the poem The Poplar. Before reading this I looked up what a poplar was, I wasn't sure. I learned that it is a large tree that is a part of the willow family. This poem tells the story of a tree that grows outside of a house that I believe is the home to an older man. This poem is told in a couplet rhyming scheme, with AA BB CC. This makes reading it very simple.
My belief was that the man in the poem was peering out of his window at the tree, and a boy and girl who interact beneath it. It seems as though the man goes off into a memory, a flashback of sorts. He mentions a different time period, "And she-she seems to hold a dim/ Hand mirror with an ivory rim/ Framing a lawn, and her, and me/ Under the prototypic tree,/ Before a pillars porch, last seen/ In July, nineteen seventeen". This part is different than the rest. He uses himself in the context with the girl, instead of "a boy in black", and the poem itself was written in 1952, and he references something that hasn't been seen since 1917. The poem also mentions, "Of Populus that taps at last/ Not water but the author's past." He had mentioned before that the poplar was a dowsing tree, but in this case, the tree reaches for his memories, not a water supply.
By analyzing this poem, I realized that this was a memory about his past, about an old love, and about a specific time under a poplar tree in his front lawn.

Response to Articles

In Lolita and the Dangers of Fiction by Mathew Winston, it talks about how Humbert Humbert confuses what he is writing between fiction and reality. Winston also talks about how Nabokov is mocking the characters in the novel as well as the readers. One part that interested me in the book, is the fact that the whole basis for why Humbert is the way that he is, could very well be fake. He blames most of his troubles on the loss of his young love, a girl named Annabel Leigh. But, Edgar Allan Poe has a poem called Annabel Lee. Even Humbert remarks about the poem, and there are many similarities between them. But while Humbert is writing this story in prison, he could just be making this story up, to make it seem more appealing to the jury.

Possible Theme Choice

For my theme, I was really interested in talking about and researching the concepts of beauty in Lolita. It always stood out to me when I was reading. Like, when Humbert goes to pick her up from the camp and sees her for the first time he is highly disappointed, "She was thinner and taller, and for a second it seemed to me her face was less pretty than the mental imprint I had cherished for more than a month: her cheeks looked hollowed and too much lentigo camouflaged her rosy rustic features"(pg. 111). Humbert has built this image in his mind of what Lolita is to look like, it hasn't fully set in that she is going to grow and her body will change. He is picturing her as Annabel, which in his mind is the perfect girl for him. 

I wanted to write more about how Humbert pictures each of his characters and what about them makes them so special and detailed, to the point where I can visualize them. I also wanted to go outside of the book and talk about the trend called Lolita. Where women try to look and dress like prepubescent girls, because thats what they deem to be more attractive.

Lolita Response #4

In order to keep Lolita from going to the police, as she said she would, he threatens her into staying by mostly scaring her, "So I go to jail. But what happens to you, my orphan? Well, you are luckier. You become the ward of the Department of Public Welfare-which I am afraid sounds a little bleak. A nice grim matron of the Miss Phalen type, but more rigid and not a drinking woman, will take away your lipstick and fancy clothes. No more gadding about!"(pg. 151). By showing her how horrible her life would  be if she left him, she doesn't tell anyone. They end up going around the country for the better half of the year, or practically a full year, before they settle somewhere and he finally lets her go to school. I found it interesting that he does in fact let her go to school, and that he has learned to trust her enough. Which obviously proves to be a mistake.