Parenting and Popular Culture

Paper Summary:

This paper compares Nabokov's "Lolita" with Puig's "Kiss of the Spider Woman". The author discusses the unconventional parent-child relationships between the main characters and their mothers, and how such characters were viewed as abnormal by society's standards. The paper examines how parental behavior toward offspring, as well as popular culture, can affect an individual's sexuality. The author frequently quotes both novels in the essay.

From the Paper:

"Kiss of the Spider Woman and Lolita examine the effects of ineffective parenting while attempting to show that society is the cause of the very behaviors it condemns. Molina's close relationship with his mother, through no intentional fault on her part, causes Molina's homosexuality and feminine behavior. Molina does not have any other role model besides his mother from whom to learn interpersonal skills, and therefore wants all relationships to be as satisfying as his relationship with her. Charlotte and Lolita have very different temperaments, resulting in a parent-child dyad that causes Charlotte to constantly criticize Lolita's actions, forcing Lolita to respond through rebellion. Both Puig and Nabokov attempt to show that while society shuns homosexuality and adolescent promiscuity in their respective characters, popular culture is the origin of the behaviors that it condemns and that these behaviors are socially learned."

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