Humbert Humbert’s sexualised puns on place names represents the imposition of sex onto setting; it is an aesthetic renaming, separate from the plot of the novel. Nabokov uses sexualised setting in order to further emphasise Humbert’s personal transgression; perhaps on a first reading it only seeps into the reader’s sub-conscious, creating an atmosphere of all consuming sexuality. On a closer analysis of almost every single place which is mentioned, it becomes more apparent the depraved lens with which Humbert views the world. Obviously the world is not as sexualised as Humbert views it, but by virtue of the fact that he acknowledges changing names and place settings in order to preserve anonymity, it conveys to the reader the inner machinations of his psyche. This emphasis on sexualised setting does not replace the plot but simply draws the focus of the reader to be more holistic in order to view the character of Humbert as not solely the product of his actions. Perhaps more importantly, his well chosen selection of nominative sexualisation is an art form within the novel; a creative process concerning the aesthetic, not the descriptive.

Linguistics
Humbert Humbert again alludes to the aesthetic nature of the novel when he acknowledges that he has ‘only words to play with’. This becomes dominant through Lolita: wordplay taunts the reader, the jury, even the degraded memory of the deceased Lolita. ‘Lolita’ entered the Oxford English Dictionary after the publication of the eponymous novel and has come to be synonymous with the type of ‘precocious schoolgirl’ of Nabokov’s creation. Were he a real figure, perhaps he would be gratified that not only the memory of Dolores Haze, but specifically his version of Dolly—Lolita—pervad