The beginning of part 2 starts with Humbert and Lolita traveling across the country. At first it confused me on how the setting just changed, but it makes sense since this is like a new act to the story.

The part that caught me was, “My chere Dolores! I want to protect you, dear, from all the horrors that happen to little girls in coal sheds and alley ways, and, alas, comme vous le saves trop bien, ma gentille, in the blueberry woods during the bluest summers. Through thick and thin I will still stay your guardian, and if you are good, I hope a court may legalize that guardianship before long. Let us, however, forget, Dolores Haze, so-called legal terminology, terminology that accepts as rational the term ‘lewd and lascivious cohabitation.’ I am not a criminal sexual psychopath taking indecent liberties with a child. The rapist was Charlie Holmes; I am the therapist-a matter of nice spacing in the way of distinction. I am your daddum, Lo. Look, I’ve a learned book here about young girls. Look, darling, what it says. I quote: the normal girl-normal, mark you the-normal girl is usually extremely anxious to please her father.” (149-150) This caught my attention quickly especially when he says he’s no criminal sexual psychopath and he wants to protect her. I know most children that age wouldn’t consider an adult trying to have sex with them as a protector. Maybe Lolita might think of that differently since she was drawing him on earlier in the story.

Where Humbert says, “Among Sicilians sexual relations between a father and daughter are accepted as a matter of course, and the girl who participates in such relationship is not looked upon with disapproval by the society which she is part.” (150) Humbert is a intelligent man, but it seems like he believes that nothing is wrong with what he is doing, and what he wants to do.