1940s

The 1940s serve as the primary temporal setting for the events of Lolita, anchoring the narrative in a specific post-war American context. The decade begins with Humbert Humbert's arrival in the United States after a period of European wandering, and it concludes with his death in legal custody in November 1952, though the core of his confession is set firmly within the 1940s. The decade is marked by the aftermath of World War II, a time of social change and economic expansion in America, which forms the backdrop for Humbert's predatory pursuits.

Humbert's Arrival and Early Years in America

Humbert reaches the United States in the early 1940s, after a winter of ennui and pneumonia in Portugal. He eagerly accepts a job in New York, which consists mainly of thinking up and editing perfume ads, a role he welcomes for its desultory character and pseudoliterary aspects. During this period, he also works on his comparative history of French literature for English-speaking students, a project that occupies him throughout the decade. The first volume takes him a couple of years, during which he puts in seldom less than fifteen hours of work daily. His life in New York is divided between the solace of research in palatial libraries and the shade of his excruciating desires and insomnias. A dreadful breakdown sends him to a sanatorium for more than a year, and he goes back to his work only to be hospitalized again. Seeking relief, he joins an expedition into arctic Canada as a "recorder of psychic reactions," spending twenty months in cold labor before returning to civilization, only to have another bout with insanity. His complete restoration comes from a discovery he makes while being treated at a very expensive sanatorium: an endless source of robust enjoyment in trifling with psychiatrists, cunningly leading them on and never allowing them the slightest glimpse of his real sexual predicament.

The Central Events of 1947

The year 1947 is the most critical within the 1940s for the novel's plot. In the fatal summer of 1947, Humbert moves into the Haze house in Ramsdale, where he first sees Dolores Haze. This encounter triggers the central obsession that drives the narrative. The summer of 1947 is marked by Humbert's diary entries, which cover most of June, detailing his growing fixation on Lolita. The diary, a pocket diary bound in black imitation leather with a golden year, 1947, en escalier, in its upper left-hand corner, is a key exhibit in his confession. During this summer, Humbert marries Charlotte Haze, and after her accidental death, he retrieves Lolita from Camp Q. Their cross-country road trip begins in August 1947 and continues through the rest of the year, marking the start of their year-long journey across the United States.

The Cross-Country Journey and Its Aftermath

The cross-country road trip, which begins in August 1947 and lasts until August 1948, is the most extensive period of Humbert's relationship with Lolita. During this mad year, they travel all over the States, visiting countless motels, tourist attractions, and scenic drives. The journey is a hard, twisted, teleological growth, whose sole raison d'être is to keep Lolita in passable humor from kiss to kiss. The decade's cultural landscape is reflected in their travels: they visit roadside restaurants, movie theaters, and various tourist traps, all of which are part of the American experience of the 1940s. The journey ends when they settle in Beardsley, where Lolita attends Beardsley School. The latter part of the decade sees Humbert's growing paranoia and the eventual loss of Lolita to Clare Quilty in 1949. The 1940s thus encompass the entire arc of Humbert's obsession, from its inception to its tragic conclusion, providing the historical and cultural framework for the novel's exploration of desire, guilt, and the American landscape.