Incest in Thackeray's Vanity Fair, Nabokov's Lolita and Allan Poe's Annabel Lee

In modern literature there are many examples of incest. Incest is presented in the plots of many books. Of course it is not in its classical form as it is in Oedipus legend. The form is changed but incest as such can be recognized . Here are two excerpts to display the latter. One is from Nabokov's Lolita, the other is from Thackeray's Vanity Fair.
   " I had thought that months, perhaps years, would escape before I dared to reveal myself to Dolores Haze; but by 6 she was wide awake, and by 6.15 we were technically lovers. I am going to tell you something very strange: it was she who seduced me." Her age ia twelve.
   " Rebecca Sharp never had been a girl, she said; she had been a woman since she was eight years old ..."
   According to Freud the problem of incest is a subconscious one. Incest is always desired subconsciously. Its prohibition saves man from two aspirations: to kill the father and marry the mother. A triangle father-mother-child is brought out. This triangle can be used to show the transformations which in the classical Oedipus legend undergoes in modern writings. In the Greek myth Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. I avoid mentioning the circumstances deliberately because I  concentrate on the triangle father-mother-child, which is the classical form under which incest appears. In the above mentioned literary works the classical triangle has undergone two changes. First, instead of son we have daughter. Second the mothers of the girls are dead. So the triangle is reduced to the lineal connection father-daughter.
   According to L. Stros incest does not always depend on the real, genetic kind-ship; it also depends on the social connections among people, in the cases when a given individual is raised to the rank of father, mother, son or sister. So in Lolita, it is also a case of incest but between are a surrogate father and daughter.
   The similarities of themes both in European (in particular Greek and British literature) and American literature exhibit the cyclic effect in literature: the themes are old and the form is which is new. It could not be said that a given text definitely belongs to a given country. The text has cultural influences which are not indigenous. Different authors are influenced to different extend. Some are said to be international as is the case of Nabokov. Irony, which is very often his main character's attitude in Lolita, makes Nabokov seem with different mentality from that of the Americans, it makes his text seem different, not typical for an American writer. Nabokov reveals an absurd situation, which is not short in the run of time, when one can be in an incestuous relation with a girl-child, negligently of law. Probably this is the most shocking and repelling to the American readers of Nabokov's Lolita, who are faced to the bitter fact of corrupted American dream. But Nabo!
kov does not stop up to here, he broadens and deepens the theme by expatiating upon its romantic alternative. Nabokov reveals the growth of incest to love. Having the incest not occurred, Humbert Humbert would never have asked himself many questions, and would never have answered them. This question-and-answer train of thoughts leads to his if not moral, his spiritual purification. His sensuous love to Lolita is diverted to platonic love, which Dante feels to Beatrice and Petrarch to Laura.
   In an attempt to support the latter I'll use as a resource Edgar Allan Poe's poem Annabel Lee. Before I begin the comparison the following has to be clarified: I unify the images of Annabel and Lolita. These are the two nymphets Humbert Humbert is in love with. This is not a voluntary and random idea of mine. Allusions for this can be found in the text:
   "I am convinced, however, that in a certain and fateful way Lolita began with Annabel...and that little girl...haunted me ever since - until at last twenty four years later, I broke her spell by incarnating her in another."
   Humbert Humbert and Annabel are spiritually and physically blended to a perfection.They have had a thorough spiritual closeness to their having the same dreams, the same strange experience with a canary the same year, when absolutely unknown to each other. The spiritual contact remains even after Annabel's death, when the physical one is broken. It is broken only in the literal sense, since Humbert's liking for nymphets - little girls. So I think that Lolita - the nymphet - is never Lolita alone for Humbert Humbert, she is Annabel as well. Moreover Humbert never achieves a mutual spiritual closeness with Lolita, it is only the physical one that is achieved. But it becomes clear form the text that that exact spiritual closeness Humbert Humbert cannot forget " Oh, Lolita had you loved me thus!". And this is the reason why when Humbert Humbert thinks in his question - and - answer mode, he brings back to Annabel and calls her a precursor of Lolita. Had he had a spiritual clo!
seness with Lolita he would have probably forgotten Annabel whom he never possessed physically. Here it is proper some more to be emphasized on the spiritual. At the end of the book the last Humbert Humbert's conclusion is:
   "...and then I knew that the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord".
        Here the voice is used as a symbol of the Platonic. There is no physical desire, it is only the spiritual that is left. Also the beginning of the beginning of the book can be considered a confession. This highly spiritual form of narrative implies frankness. It implies the conviction having confessed one could be forgiven. So it could be drawn out that the motive of spiritual appears in the beginning and at the end of the book. The spiritual is accentuated by means of different techniques. The beginning is a confession, and everything that comes after is a reminiscence. A reminiscence of a foul and lewd nature which only makes the confession more elevated. Since mind and soul must have gone a long way before the "write of passage" is achieved.
        Concerned with the way Lolita is written - Lo.Lee.Ta., and in order to bespeak the unified image of the two girls  the new name name Annabel Lee is coined out.
        Having in mind all the latter the first exact similarity with Poe's poem can be brought out. It has for a title Annabel Lee. Nabokov's novel has for a title Lolita, which can be substituted with Annabel Lee. 
        It was many and many a year ago, (Poe)
        Oh when? As about as many years before Lolita was born as my age the summer (Nabokov)
        That a maiden there lived whom you may know
        By the name of Annabel Lee; (Poe)
        Both Annabel and Lolita are children. Lolita is 12. Annabel, 
        "she was a lovely child a few months my junior" (Nabokov)
        And this maiden she lived with no other thought.
        Than to love and e loved by me. (Poe)
        "... there might have been no Lolita at all had i not loved, one summer a certain initial girl-child. 
        ...The spiritual and the physical had been blended in us with a perfection..." (Nabokov)
        She was a child and i was a child, 
        In this kingdom by the sea, (Poe)
        The same in Nabokov.
        But we loved with a love that was more than love.
        I and my Annabel Lee - 
        With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
        Coveted her and me. (Poe)
        ...The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
        Went envying her and me.
        Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns. (Nabokov)
        And this was the reason that, long ago,
        In this kingdom by the sea,
        A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
        My beautiful Annabel Lee (Poe)
        ...four months later she (Annabel) died of typhus in Corfu (Nabokov)
        This is the physical death of Annabel and the spiritual death of Lolita to Humbert Humbert. Since the image of the two girls is unified it can be accepted as death or not as death. Death has left its mark on Humbert Humbert's future liking for nymphets. No death in the sense that spiritual closeness is ever after looked for.
        In Poe's poem death cannot kill love.
        In both texts it is a spoiled balance between the reality itself and the inward reality which is personal, individual,subjective. Seraphs and angels are symbolic of Heavens. They are relevant to God . God is envious. He doesn't give, help, he takes. Even though he has taken the most precious - the beloved girl, he cannot sever the souls of those who love. God is cruel. Man is left alone in the unjust world. World that is material and ugly in its nature because man has lost the love. But his love is within. So man makes a world of his own. This world keeps his love intact and pure, keeps his precious memories. Man is alienated to God and the reality. Man has found his own seclusion. Seclusion which is akin to love. Seclusion where there is a balance. A balance between the inward reality and love. Love which cannot exist, survive in the real world, where God is cruel, envious and greedy, where there is no justice. The collision between reality and individual aspiration has fo!
rced man to escape and find asylum somewhere else. This very place, by me, are the thoughts. The romantic setting "in a kingdom / princedom by the sea" symbolizes freedom, especially the freedom of mind. Water is a power unchangeable by time. Whatever happens to man he can dive in waters' debris and find a permanent state of being. Permanent state of mind. Mind preoccupied by the idea of love puts love into eternity. The cruelty and corruptedness of reality is overemphasized in Nabokov's Lolita by the epithets "misinformed, simple seraphs". Seraphs are relevant to God. God rules lives of people no more because God is misinformed and simple. World is in a state of chaos. Once, man cannot expect justice from God and second, man cannot expect understanding. The role of God is not underestimated, when Humbert Humbert refers to him, as an exhibit number one. Added to this that he is making a confession. It is his strong desire to inform God and make him understanding. It is not f!
or the sake for the whole world, but for the sake of his love, as it could be inferred from the book. Love that has flourished in his young years with a "certain initial" child, that has gone through the pains of an incestuous relation with a child and has turned to Platonic one. 
        If it happens anyhow God to be lost, killed or sacrificed, there still remains the love, hope and believe. Even when man is godless, deep inside and perfunctory on the surface he is a believer. And this is what makes man seek God, not that God exists.