In his mind, Humbert Humbert in Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov lives in a world of eternal nymphets and immutable time, of crystals and frozen glass. But reality is mobile and not fixed, and despite his best efforts to reject it, HH is forced to recognize the impermanence of the outside world through its mirror projection in his mind. Thus, HH strives to freeze time behind glass surfaces, only to be foiled by the harsh reflection of an ephemeral reality. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"? Get the original essay Humbert Humbert's misunderstanding of "Our Glass Lake", truly "Hourglass Lake", reveals his desire to end the the passage of time and the obstruction of this dream by the brutal reminder of reality reflected in mirrored surfaces. HH dreams of an “enchanted island” of “enchanted time” in which all the nymphets reside, eternally impervious to age (Nabokov 16-17). This desire to freeze time is underlined by HH's visions of frozen water If surging and rushing water suggests the incessant movement of time, then ice and crystallization evoke its cessation. Indeed, before visiting the Lake, HH imagines it as “covered with a layer of emerald ice” (54). At the edge of this freezing lake, HH dreamed of having a “quiet little orgy” with Lolita after having pretended to lose his “wristwatch” to escape Charlotte (54 years old). The loss of his timepiece further underlines HH's wish to make time disappear. Later, when he has glasses of whiskey and soda, he thinks of the ice cubes as "little pillow-shaped blocks...pillows for polar teddy bears, Lo" (97); he wants a frozen Lo, an eternal nymphet Lo, untouched by temporality, “imprisoned in… a crystal sleep” (123). Adding liquid to the glass produced “raucous, tortured sounds as the hot water loosened [the ice cubes] into their cells” (97). Thus, HH's predilection for crystallized, glassy surfaces and his aversion to flowing water reflect his desire to stop the flow of time. However, his fantasies of frozen time are shattered by mirrors that constantly remind him of the temporality of reality. Hourglass Lake is a “curious Mirage” (56). A mirage itself is “an optical effect sometimes seen at sea…which may have the appearance…of a mirror in which distant objects are seen inverted.” »[1] Thus Hourglass Lake appears like a mirror and, far from being frozen, actually resides in the “great heat” (81). The liquidity, warmth, and inverted mirror quality of Hourglass Lake reveal that it is the opposite of the crystallized HH Our Glass Lake envisioned in his mind. Its evocative real name further accentuates the temporality of reality which opposes HH's internal fantasies of frozen glass. Furthermore, while in his dreams he loses his wristwatch to have a date with Lolita, in reality his wristwatch remains on and perfectly intact, undamaged by moving water because it is "waterproof"; in the mirror lake, HH cannot physically destroy or escape time (89). Thus, the mirrors in reality diametrically oppose HH's internal fantasies and reveal to him the impossibility of his dreams of frozen time. HH's memories of Lolita in cinematic terms further reveal her desire to stop time. Motion picture films are formed from projecting light through a glass lens onto a reel of film on a screen. The replay of the film suggests a break in time, a reliving of past images which intrude into the present. The imagery of the glass thus returns to the lens and once again shows the struggle.