Annabel

"Annabel was, like the writer, of mixed parentage: half-English, half-Dutch, in her case. I remember her features far less distinctly today than I did a few years ago, before I knew Lolita. There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as: "honey-colored skin," "thin arms," "brown bobbed hair," "long lashes," "big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita)." This passage comes at the beginning of section three, where Humbert Humbert gives us the initial description of Annabel. This is not the first reference to her; we see her first in the opening section, and the Annabel Lee allusion is made clear from the get go. Here though, it is furthered. First, in this passage, like the poem, there is a huge focus on eyes. Then, also like the poem, there is a focus on the supernatural, substituting the demons from the poem for ghosts here. Annabel is in the sepulchre of Humberts mind by this point.