Lolita’s mother is killed off as a matter of necessity for Humbert Humbert to whisk her away on the road trip. In addition to these similarities, the character of the mothers of both young girls are similarly constructed as being barely there. This obsession with Americana is further intensified by the theatrical intrusion of an off-stage voice announcing a sort of subtitle to certain sequences subtitles such as “Driving in First Gear” and “You and the Reverse Gear.” Despite being limited by stage convention and as well as much more restricted setting than Lolita, cars loom large in both stories. There is no road trip per se in Vogel’s play, but the title indicates that automobiles also play a part here. While most infamous as a (wildly misapprehended) story of pedophilia, much of the satisfaction for the serious reader of Lolita comes from its satirical crazy-quilt portrait of America as seen through a road trip with stops at cheap motels along the motels.
They don’t exactly sound the same, but they are close enough that the relationship becomes obvious. The underage object of the desire of a middle-aged man in Nabokov’s story is known as Lolita and the underage object of desire of a middle-aged man in the play is known as Li’l Bit. One need not necessarily have read Vladimir Nabokov’s novel that is so controversial that even people who do not know Lolita is a novel are familiar with the general idea in order to appreciate Paula Vogel’s play How I Learned to Drive, but it certainly does not hurt. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own. These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community.
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