Catalysts: Empowered women or Victims?

 Catalysts: Empowered women or Victims?

                  Relationships are important and essential to living a normal life. The genders of the individuals involved play crucial roles within these relationships. In Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, the female characters Clarisse and Lolita become the catalysts to sequences of events that inadvertently affect the lives of not only the male characters, Guy Montag and Humbert Humbert, but also the sequences of events throughout their books. These events clearly show the power that both Clarisse and Lolita have, despite their lack of experience and age.
           Clarisse is depicted as very ethereal in Montag’s mind. Their first meeting makes a huge dent in Montag’s armor. He finds her questions disgruntling but they force him to think. When he returns home after meeting her for the first time, he sees the stark contrast between Clarisse and his wife. His wife is the total converse of Clarisse; a very shallow woman who just wants to watch T.V.  Montag amplifies Clarisse in his mind.  This is very evident when Montag thinks that she “had a very thin face like the dial of a small clock seen faintly in a dark room in the middle of a night when you waken to see the time and see the clock telling you the hour and the minute and the second with a white silence and a glowing, all certainty and knowing what it had to tell of the night passing swiftly on toward further darkness, but moving also toward a new sun (Bradbury, 10).” He is acutely aware of not just her physical appearance but also the strong emotions that she brings to the forefront. That description is a door into the subconscious mind of Montag. He is well aware, albeit unconsciously, that Clarisse is not meant to be in his life for a long period of time. The large age difference between Clarisse and Montag is a common denominator between both books. In Montag’s case it’s a difference of thirteen years.
                 Lolita is twelve when she and Humbert Humbert first meet. He is a man of great learning yet he is shown to have Lolita on a pedestal from the day that he first meets her. She was considered a grubby child by her own mother, yet Hubert’s’ descriptions of Lolita are of a beauty so undefined that his descriptions can go on for pages. These descriptions are in direct conflict with who Lolita actually is as a person. However, Humbert is well aware of the reality and acknowledges incidents that show her as she truly is. The advertisements that affect Lolita during their travels are examples of this, showing how she would take them at face value. There is a mention of that in the following: “She it was to whom ads were dedicated: the ideal consumer, the subject and object of every foul poster (Nabokov, 148).” His relationship and love is so one - sided that it often leads to ridicule from Lolita. This includes cussing and demeaning him. Humbert Humbert has to cajole her through the use of threats and constant entertainment in order to keep her his complacent Lolita. Humbert is not above using the threat that she will “become the ward of the Department of Public Welfare- which I am afraid sounds a little bleak (Nabokov, 151) ” if she doesn’t comply.   This is done to attain her full cooperation and make sure she doesn’t disclose the full reality of their relationship to anyone.              
            Clarisse’s questions are her weapons of choice. She is fully aware of the fact that she is asking the wrong questions, which would be normal in the real world, and delights in discomforting Montag. The woman in the fire that dies with the books supports those very discomforts that Clarisse’s questions kindle. The fact that a women dies with her books is another show of the gender power which also reinforces Clarisse’s questions about burning the books. That sequence of events coincidentally falls into the same time span as Clarisse’s’ questions. The next day, Montag is so disturbed by the death that he pleads sick from work. Around this time Clarisse disappears and Montag constantly asks about her. Their ghostly conversations repeat themselves in his mind.   This also leads to Montag’s exposure for the book hoarder that he truly is. He confides in his wife about the hidden books, who is greatly horrified. Were it not for the effect of Clarisse he never would have confided in her. This leads to his meeting with Faber, a fellow reader in hiding.  Beatty, the antagonist, dies in the end, which is another common denominator with Lolita because Quilty is killed by Humbert Humbert.  With Beatty’s death comes the realization that “Beatty had wanted to die. He had just stood there, not really trying to save himself (Bradbury, 122).”
           Lolita was a persona in his mind before Humbert Humbert even knew of her existence. This is seen through the mention of Annabel in the beginning of his narration. The power of the unattainable amplifies the lure of Lolita. The fact that Humbert Humbert kills Quilty towards the end, for kidnapping her, is another sign of her power. Even though Lolita is no longer in his life and pregnant with another man’s child, Humbert is still willing to take Lolita with him.   Toward the end of the book all his actions are driven by Lolita, as was Montag’s by Clarisse. Humber Humbert respects Lolita’s privacy, at the end, when he makes the statement “I make all the legal impact and support of a signed testament:  I wish this memoir to be published only when Lolita is no longer alive (Nabokov, 309).”
         The main characters Humbert and Montag are both influenced by women. Guy is troubled by Clarisse’s questions to the point that the hidden layers of his life are out in the open. It moves him to action. The main male characters, in both Lolita and Fahrenheit 451, kill the antagonists with their own hands. They both end up with a legacy: Guy with his entourage of fellow book readers and Humbert with his memoir. Regardless of how it initially began, all the events were kindled and sparked by two inexperienced girls, who swayed the two men with not only their beauty but also with the power of words.