Fan Casting Humbert Humbert in Lolita

The narrator and protagonist of Lolita. Humbert is an erudite European intellectual with an obsessive love for nymphets and a history of mental illness. He manages to seduce the reader with his gift for beautiful language, but he is nonetheless capable of rape and murder. Humbert, despite his knowledge of the world, becomes self-aware only toward the end of the novel, when he realizes he has ruined Lolita’s childhood. He writes the story of Lolita from his prison cell, where he awaits trial for murder. However, he dies of heart failure soon after Lolita’s death.