Tanizaki’s Naomi, Nabokov’s Lolita, and Naomi’s Lolita:

Exoticism of a New Era

Lingjun Jiang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

ABSTRACT

Exoticism is a recurring motif in Japanese novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s Naomi or Chijin no ai A Fool’s
Love (1924), in Russian American writer Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), as well as in the Lolita
subculture fashion today. The concept of Exoticism in this article refers to an act of seeking an ideal and
otherized figure that is missing in the perceiver’s reality. However, such an act is expressed in different
forms in these three worlds, revealing their socio-historical contexts and gender relations. The Exoticism
presented in Naomi and Lolita is manipulated through the male gaze and the protagonists’ fascination
with their otherized and objectified female partners. Meanwhile, the self-performative Exoticism in the
Lolita fashion today is an act of resistance against the male gaze, demonstrating autonomous female
agency with a wish to escape reality and remain in a romanticized, imagined childhood. The topics
examined in this article are limited to 20th-century literatures and to contemporary subculture fashion.
From a comparative analysis perspective, it is suggested that there is progress in gender and identity
awareness today in the field of humanities.

KEYWORDS
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, Tanizaki Jun’ichiro, Naomi, A Fool’s Love, Taisho Modernism, Popular
Culture, Subculture, Fashion, Girlhood, The Male Gaze, Exoticism, Identity
Introduction
Lolita and Naomi, two exotic feminine names, both have three syllables that contain the vowels
of a, i, and o. They are titles of the two notorious novels; Naomi by Tanizaki Jun’ichirō
(originally Chijin no ai 痴人の愛, A Fool’s Love), and Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Naomi
illustrates the mass culture in Taisho-period Japan (1912-1926), and Lolita, first published in
1955, made the name renowned and connotation enriched across multidisciplinary studies.
Meanwhile, a subculture fashion called Lolita was born in early 21 -century Japan (fig. 1). The
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image of a Japanese girl named Naomi and a Westernized illusion of Lolita seems to overlap
with each other, but the name Lolita connotes very differently in Japan and the West.
This paper explores cultural critiques in the two novels before examining the Lolita
fashion. Exoticism, although expressed in particular forms and contexts, is a similar motif in
Naomi, Lolita, as well as in Lolita fashion. The Exoticism presents a person’s search for an ideal
and outlandish figure that lacks in one’s real life. Meanwhile, the Exoticism in Lolita fashion is
different in that it is a self-performative act. It indicates the autonomous female agency
emancipated from the male gaze. It is noteworthy that the moral debates related to Lolita in
general are not the focus in this paper.

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Fig. 1. (Left) A set of Lolita outfit in Wa-Lolita和ロリータ “Japanese Lolita” style, which is a
variant in Lolita fashion. Wa-Lolita features a fusion of Western and traditional Japanese designs
and patterns, reminding of the Taisho modern fashion in Tanizaki’s Naomi. Photo courtesy of the
author.

Fig. 2. (Right) A poster of a contemporary fashion exhibition that replicates kimono in Taisho-
modern style as described in in Tanizaki’s oeuvre. “Tanizaki Jun’ichiro bungaku no kimono wo
miru 谷崎潤一郎文学の着物を見る [Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s. “Kimono.” Literature]”Yayo
Museum & Takehisa Yumeji Museum. http://www.yayoi-yumeji-
museum.jp/yayoi/exhibition/past_detail.html?id=640. Accessed 23 Mar. 2018.

Tanizaki’s Naomi and Nabokov’s Lolita: When the Old Meets the New
The novel Lolita tells a tragic story in the mid-20 century of a middle-aged European
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immigrant: Humbert Humbert’s pathological love towards an American teenager Dolores Haze,
who is nicknamed Lolita. Similar to Lolita, with an translated title coincidentally using the
female character’s name, Naomi narrates a story in Taisho-period Japan (1912-1926) of a rural-

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born white-collar worker Kawai Jōji’s obsession with Naomi, the Westernized mogaモガ(modan
gāru モダンガール, “modern girl”) in the populated and urbanizing Tokyo.
This section compares the two novels by examining authors’ biographies and looking into
the cultural aspects, conflicts, and gender relations depicted in the stories. Then, the analysis
defines and demonstrates the Exoticism revealed through Tanizaki’s Naomi and Nabokov’s
Lolita. The Exoticism in both works conveys an outsider’s interest in possessing an ideal but
unreachable figure who owns what the protagonist lacks, as the rural vagabond Jōji to the Taisho
moga Naomi, and the European immigrant Humbert to the American teenager Lolita.

Synopses
Tanizaki’s Naomi takes place in the Taisho period Japan, when popular Western culture
flourished with cafés, restaurants, dancing halls, and new fashion for moga “modern girls” (see
fig. 2 for a visualization of the Taisho fashion). Naomi is a typical moga, with “definitely
something Western about her appearance” (Tanizaki 1), described by the protagonist Kawai Jōji.
Jōji is a newly arrived white-collar worker to the city, enjoying the Westernization and
urbanization of Tokyo. He encounters the fifteen-year-old Naomi at a café, and he is soon
captivated by the beauty of the exotic, Western-looking Naomi. He hopes to further cultivate her
into his ideal Western woman, just like Pygmalion in the Greek myth. Jōji provides Naomi a
house, as he lives with her and pleases her with exquisite clothes and gourmet meals. Although
Naomi later marries Jōji, she does not turn into a housewife, but continues her extravagant
lifestyle. Eventually, Naomi deceives Jōji by having affairs with her peers and other Westerners.
Though furious at Naomi’s dishonesty, Jōji is still obsessed with her. To Jōji, Naomi appears to
be a more westernized, deified figure. He gradually comes under Naomi’s control, “The more I
think of her as fickle and selfish, the more adorable she becomes, and the more deeply I am
ensnared by her” (Tanizaki 125). Naomi is about a man’s obsession with Westernization and
modernization of the Taisho Japan. The protagonist Jōji projects his idealized West onto the
modern girl Naomi, and he is eventually enslaved by Naomi’s exotic “Eurasian” beauty.
A similar obsession and projection happen in Nabokov’s Lolita. The novel is set in 1950s
America. The intellectual Humbert Humbert is a new immigrant from Europe to America. He is
attracted by girls between nine and fourteen, calling them “nymphets” (Nabokov 16). He meets
the twelve-year-old Dolores, whom later he nicknames “Lolita.” In order to approach Lolita,
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Humbert marries her mother Charlotte, an American woman whom he dislikes for her poor
imitation of European manners. Later, Charlotte senses Humbert’s illicit passion for Lolita, but
she soon dies in a car accident. Humbert picks up Lolita from her summer camp and lies to her
that Charlotte is in the hospital. On the way to the hospital, they stop at a hotel where Humbert
has a sexual affair with Lolita. Then, Humbert tells the truth and forces her to accept him as her
only protector. The second part of the story starts with Humbert and Lolita’s journey driving
through the States and staying at motels at night. Later, they settle down at a town, and Humbert
attempts to control Lolita’s activities. Lolita quarrels with Humbert against his restraints. After
another argument, Lolita decides to start another journey with Humbert, but she actually holds a
secret plan to flee to her favorite celebrity Clare Quilty, who has been contacting Lolita behind
Humbert’s back. In the second journey, Lolita runs away from Humbert, as she and Quilty have
planned. Humbert spends years looking for her. In the end, he finds the seventeen-year-old
Lolita. Although now pregnant and living with a lower-class worker in poverty, Lolita refuses to
go with Humbert. Her refusal aggravates him to look for the abductor Clare Quilty, who is in fact
the evil antagonist, a typical pedophile. Quilty has taken advantage of Lolita by forcing her into
pornography. Humbert finally takes revenge by shooting Quilty to death. It is a dramatic death,
wrapping up the story with dark humor. The stories end is written in the fictional foreword of the
novel, mentioning Humbert’s death “in legal captivity of coronary thrombosis” (3) and Lolita’s
death “in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl” (4).
Jōji and Humbert both end in tragedy due to their wicked passion for their young lovers,
Naomi and Lolita. Though portrayed as ignorant by the two unreliable narrators, the two
heroines are both nimble in tricking their older lovers, as McCarthy summarizes in his article
comparing the two novels (133). In spite of the similarities, the two stories take place in different
social and historical settings. What attract the men in both stories are certainly their femme
fatales or the “disastrous women”, Naomi and Lolita. But further, these two girls serve as a
metaphor of their culture, which is the Taisho modernism and the postwar America. The two
girls are cultivated in a new era: fresh, fascinating, and exotic to the two older protagonists, Jōji
and Humbert.
Furthermore, the two novels display different gender relations between the male and
female protagonists in their social and historical settings. The older protagonists’ doomed
infatuation functions as a metaphor for a cultural conflict and transformation from an old era to a

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new one. Jōji in Naomi is a rural-born exile that faces the Westernizing and modernizing Japan
in the early 20 century; Humbert in Lolita is an upper-class immigrant from Europe, exposed to
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the young American culture in the postwar 1950s. Through these two unreliable, enchanted
narrators, Tanizaki and Nabokov presented a rich illustration, marking a memorable arrival of a
new age in their time.

Tanizaki and Nabokov: Biography of the Two Authors

Naomi was said to be a milestone of Tanizaki Jun’ichiro’s early authorhood, while Lolita became
one of the most renowned works by Vladimir Nabokov. The two novels both had impact on
these two authors’ careers. The two authors were attentive cultural observers, composing their
works based on life experience.
Tanizaki lived in a time of cultural transformations when Japan was faced with
Westernization and modernization. Similar to Jōji in Naomi, Tanizaki favored Western culture.
He was an admirer of the prominent novelist Nagai Kafū (1879-1959), mentioned by Ito in his
book on Tanizaki’s career (42). Kafū studied abroad and became astounded by the West. An
occurring subject in Kafū’s work was Exoticism, which might be called Occidentalism in
contrast to Orientalism in the West (Ito 42). Likewise, Tanizaki’s early works before Naomi were
also concerned with Occidentalism, but as a novelist who had never been to the West (McCarthy
132), his Exoticism was a distorted and blended one. “His knowledge of those continents was
gained from extensive reading, and from those elements of contemporary Western culture that
had been exported to and taken root in Japan” (132). Tanizaki perceived the Westernization of
Japan as an inner process, and that “cultural aspiration involves obeisance and distant admiration
as much as possession and participation” (Ito 63).
Such ideas were prominent in the Taisho-period popular culture (taishū bunka 大衆文化
), which incorporated Western culture into Japanese mass culture that gave birth to the mogas,
“modern girls”. Tanizaki was a faithful supporter of the Taisho-period popular culture, and he
had collaborated with movie producers in Tokyo during the Taisho period.
Just like Humbert Humbert in Lolita, Nabokov himself was an immigrant (precisely, an
émigré) coming to the U.S. from Europe. Engaged in various aspects of the Western culture,
Nabokov was a polyglot and became a lecturer in literature in universities in the U.S. The New

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World, America, was once unfamiliar to Nabokov, but he immersed himself in this new land and
soon started writing in English.
Nabokov made an effort to become an American writer when writing Lolita. In
Nabokov’s afterword of the novel, he states that he did “build a number of North American sets”,
researching about American culture and landscapes for the book ( 315). The highways and
motels that became a symbol of the mid-50s America are prominent in Lolita, as Nabokov says,
“I chose American motels instead of Swiss hotels or English inns only because I am trying to be
an American writer and claim only the same rights that other American writers enjoy” (315).
Both authors used their experience to illustrate a cultural landscape in their fictions,
including the cultural conflict that is presented through the transform of relationships between
the male and female protagonists. Naomi and Lolita, who are cultivated by their time and
society, become a personification of the culture exotic to their old lovers.

Illustrating the Culture in Naomi and Lolita

Although Nabokov in his essay has declared that “it is childish to study a work of fiction in order
to gain information about a country or about a social class or about the author” (316), these
works still present a facet of a culture and time in which their protagonists live. These cultural
settings come from the authors’ attentive observation of daily life, as Ito comments on Tanizaki’s
Naomi, “Chijin no ai (Naomi) exhibits a peculiar connectedness to a certain social reality, the
low bunka (culture) of the Taisho period and its fascination with the ‘West’. The novel rests
upon an incisive understanding of popular culture, and it deserves to be read as the story not only
of a personal obsession, but of a societal one” (Ito 78).

Naomi’s Taisho Modernism

The character of Naomi suggests a strong Western impact and Jōji’s fascination with the exotic
“Eurasian girl”. Naomi first appears as a jyokyū 女給 (“waitress” or “hostess”) in a café, which
was new to the popular culture in the Taisho era. The novel presents many scenes and elements
of Taisho modernism, such as an English lesson in which Naomi “practice[s] English
conversation and reading with an American woman” (Tanizaki 9), Naomi’s music class, and a
social-dance club.

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 Moreover, Naomi’s name itself has been exotic and irresistible to Jōji since the first time
they met. He describes Naomi’s name [奈緒美in kanji Chinese characters] that “if written in
Roman letters [ナオミ] … could be a Western name” (Tanizaki 4). Jōji repetitively refers to
Western actresses when he talks about Naomi. For instance, Mary Pickford is like an alias of
Naomi that Jōji keeps bringing up and comparing with Naomi. Locations like movie theatres and
Western-style restaurants also keep recurring as places where Jōji and Naomi go on a date. These
places consist of a prevalent part of the Taisho culture of the early 20 century. Besides
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immersing Naomi and himself in the Westernizing and urbanizing Taisho-period Japan, Jōji
makes an effort to shape Naomi into a Western woman when he signs her up for English and
dance classes.
However, Naomi seems to lack talent in her learning. She socializes well and meets
young Japanese and foreign men. As their relationship proceeds, Jōji gradually loses control over
Naomi’s self-Westernizing. She cheats on Jōji more frequently, yet Jōji, despite his early fury,
appears to be rather pleased with it. He once stated:

The greatest weakness of Japanese women is that they lack confidence. As a result, they
look timorous compared to Western women. For the modern beauty, an intelligent, quick-
witted expression and attitude are more important that lovely features. If she lacks true
confidence, simple vanity is enough: to think “I’m smart” or “I’m beautiful,” makes a
woman beautiful…. I maneuvered her toward ever greater confidence. (Tanizaki 51-52)

Jōji thinks in such way, and he is “willing to endure the humiliation”, Toyama says in her essay
that analyzes the relationship between Jōji and Naomi (130). It is because he believes that the
deceitfulness ensures Naomi’s Westernization that shapes her into a more attractive and exotic
woman.

In addition to the Westernization in the Taisho mass culture, fashions of Taisho “modern
girl” are also depicted through Naomi. She squanders Jōji’s money on kimonos of fashionable
patterns and accessories of elegant designs. Naomi’s outfits are one of the highlights of the
novel. She is dressed up in a “dark blue cashmere formal skirt over a silk kimono,” with hair
styled “in braids, tied with a ribbon,” and “she never did her hair in Japanese style anymore”
(Tanizaki 9). In a later part, Jōji gives another vivid description on Naomi’s adorable fashion as a

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Taisho modern girl when he viewed her photographs (which are a new trend entering the Taisho
era as well):
… she appeared in a glittering satin kimono and jacket, with a narrow sash high on her
torso and a ribbon for a neckpiece. Then followed all sorts of expressions and movements
and imitations of movie actresses—Mary Pickford’s smile; Gloria Swason’s eyes; Pola
Negri’s wrath; Bebe Daniels’ suave affectation. (Tanizaki 92)

Jōji does not forget to refer to the Western popular actresses. He is bewildered by Naomi, the
Taisho modern girl in the new era. Surrounded by the arriving Western culture, Naomi is the
very manifestation of an exotic existence to the rural-born Jōji, who longs for modernism and
dreams about Westernization.

Lolita’s Postwar America

The story of Lolita takes place in postwar America, where Humbert from Europe encounters
“Lolita” Dolores Haze in the new world. It is a continent unfamiliar and exotic to this
sophisticated scholar, who becomes an equally exotic outsider to the U.S. However, unlike Jōji,
Humbert is attracted by Lolita not because of the culture that raised her, but due to his illicit
affair resulting from his failed childhood love. Nevertheless, through Humbert’s narrative,
readers see an illustration of American teenage culture in the postwar era; and a portraiture of
Lolita, who is an American teenager with “lovely, slangy speech, her casual-to-the-point-of-
sloppiness dress, and her impudent, wayward manner” (McCarthy 138).
Lolita is a typical American teenage girl. She likes “sweet hot jazz, square dancing,
gooey fudge sundaes, musicals, movie magazines and so forth” (Nabokov 156), and she enjoys
roller-skating with friends in her “blue jeans and white high shoes, as most of the other girls did”
(Nabokov 169). Besides the teenage culture in America in the 1950s, street views and country
roads are also present in the novel. On their journey across the country, Humbert and Lolita pass
by motels, inns, gift shops and restaurants. They have been to numerous places of interest across
the States, the depiction of which presents a magnificent American landscape. Moreover, the use
of language in the novel suggests a cultural characteristic of the post-war America. McCarthy
praises that “the interplay between Humbert’s European learned/pedantic, consciously aesthetic

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language and the middle-brow-striving-after-high-culture town of Mrs. Charlotte Haze or the
vividly vulgar slang of her daughter Lolita is one of the great charms in the novel” (134).

The Enchanted Pygmalions and the Exotic Nymphs: Conflicts and Relations
The two stories both start with men’s obsession with young girls, and they both end with tragic
disillusion but when presented with dark humor, results from conflicts between the men’s
unrealistic fascination and female protagonists’ transformation and resistance. Jōji’s plan of
transforming Naomi into his exotic, Western goddess eventually gets out of his control; Lolita
matures, finally escapes from Humbert, and the disillusioned Humbert finishes his revenge and
leads to a tragic end.

Metaphor as Cultural Conflicts

The conflicts in the relations between the men and the young girls are metaphors of cultural
conflicts. In Naomi, it is the conflict of a traditional Japan that is faced with modernity and the
rapid Westernization in the Taisho period. In Lolita, the conflict is revealed through the old
European Humbert’s disdain towards American mundanity that imitates Europe and generates its
own teenage popular culture.
Jōji in Naomi was born in a rural area, but he receives training and works in Tokyo. He
enjoys the modernizing life in the Taisho modern Japan and appreciates the Western-ness of
almost everything including the “Eurasian” Naomi. However, the ideal exotic girl Naomi is also
influenced by the materialism of the West, as he spends Jōji’s money excessively. Eventually, it
falls out of this middle-aged man’s control. Naomi cheats on Jōji and dates with her peers and
even Westerners as she finalizes her own Westernization.
In spite of his mania for the Western modernization, Jōji remains distant from the real
West, as if the Exotic needs to be kept unreachable. When he encounters an actual Western
woman, Madame Shlemskaya the Russian countess, he is thrilled and overwhelmed by her
complete Western-ness, as the lady “fulfills all Jōji’s fantasies about the beauty, sexuality,
power, and size of the white race” (Ito 87). Jōji is already engulfed when he first meets Madam
Shlemskaya. He associates her odor with “unknown lands across the sea” and “exquisite, exotic
flower gardens” (Tanizaki 69). And later, she is described as “sublime”, “elusive”, and

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“dreamlike”, as if a goddess from an exotic land, far beyond reach (Tanizaki 99). Jōji only wants
to “look at her quietly, from a distance, without touching her” (Tanizaki 99). He needs a distance
between the Western lady and himself. Distance implies a kind of taboo that defines both beauty,
eroticism, as well as exoticism (Ito 87-89). The Exoticism in Madam Shlemskaya urges him to
access this “another world, separate from one’s own mundane reality” (Ito 89-90).
From Jōji’s point of view, facing the exotic, somewhat superior West, he seems to have
an inferiority complex regarding his nation and culture. He admires the West, but he wishes to
keep it at a distance. Consequently, the Japanese girl Naomi becomes a substitute for the
authentic Western image, a Japanized West. Jōji becomes the “Japanese Pygmalion” who longs
to transform Naomi into his idealized, exotic “Western Vamp” (Toyama). He does so by first
naming Naomi—not her name Naomi奈緒美 written in kanji Chinese character, but Naomiナオ
ミin katakana— that represents imported, Japanized Western words. Yet, as Toyama observes,
Naomi’s original name suggests her position as Jōji’s femme fatale:
The first character, “na” [奈], can indicate the question, “what?” The character for “o” [緒],
“cord”, and “mi” [美], “beauty.” Could the kanji for the name “Naomi” have suggested the
danger of beauty becoming a kind of strangling cord? Perhaps her given name written this way
was too much of a prophetic warning for Jōji (129). Jōji projects his desire of Westernization and
his fetish of Exoticism, which is the hope to escape from mundanity and inferiority, onto Naomi.
In the end, Jōji does successfully transform Naomi into his exotic goddess. She turns into Jōji’s
Westernized ideal, but the distance between the couple is elongated. There is a reversal in their
relationship, in which Jōji is a masochist and obeys whatever Naomi commands. The more
Naomi demands and betrays Jōji, the more he finds her charming and irresistible, because now
Naomi has gained confidence like a Western woman, as Jōji has wished.
As in Lolita, the conservative European man, Humbert, gives a rather disdainful attitude
towards the American culture. For instance, Humbert has implied his dislike towards the poor
Charlotte Haze, the American woman who tries to imitate European etiquettes. He cynically
mentions the premature “heterosexual experience” between Lolita and other American teens
(Nabokov 133). Humbert is tired of superficial popular songs that Lolita likes, “all of them as
similar to my ear as her various candies were to my palate” (Nabokov 156).
Throughout the story, the European elite Humbert maintains a feeling of superiority over
this new land and the American culture. According to Ahlberg in his article on representations of
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American girls in European literature in the 20 century, the conflict between the European man
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Humbert and the young American girl Lolita is like a metaphor that she “challenges her
European ‘benefactor’ through her New World independence and expressivity,” and Lolita
“becomes the embodiment of everything Europe does not, cannot, understand about America,
her femininity a marker of the unattainable, the obscure and the attractive” (64).
Nonetheless, Humbert also adores the American girl Lolita, Dolores Haze, the girl onto
whom he projects his idealized Nymphet. Just like the Japanese Pygmalion Jōji in Naomi,
Humbert tries to pursue his Nymphet Lolita, hoping to shape her into an elegant, knowledgeable
young lady by cultivating her through literature and signing her up for dance class. Again,
similar to Jōji, Humbert pursues the girl-child Dolores as he objectifies her with the enchanting
name Lolita, a three-syllable name which is the first and the last word in the novel.
But what Humbert chases after is not an actual girl. Instead, it is an illusion born of his
childhood trauma; the prematurely dead Annabel Leigh, who is the “precursor” of Lolita and the
prototype of Humbert’s Nymphet that never ages (Nabokov 9). Humbert hopes for an illusion
that does not belong to reality. Apparently, Humbert fails as a lover and guardian. He does not
realize that his step-daughter is not an idealized, outlandish Nymphet or the sculpture by
Pygmalion. Lolita is not his object, but a teenager named Dolores and who shall have her own
life and autonomy in control. Not until the last moment that Humbert acknowledges such a fact,
though it is too late. The girl’s faded teenage years are impossible to be compensated.
The concept of distance that defines both beauty and taboo is present in Naomi and
Lolita. The elimination of distance brings disillusion and tragic endings to the two men. In
Naomi, Jōji’s contact with the Western woman Madame Shlemskaya intimidates him, as the
actual West becomes too powerful and beautiful to approach beyond his fascination. In the end,
his Westernized goddess Naomi induces a seeming power reversal in their relationship. In Lolita,
after Humbert has possessed Lolita, the relationship changes; Lolita’s enigma fades away from
Humbert, who gradually loses control of Lolita.
To the two men, Naomi and Lolita are the exotic nymphs from a new era that is once
unfamiliar and distant. Both Jōji and Humbert are disillusioned by the new era and new
environment, caused by their ill-fated affairs with their lovers and their hyper-confidence in what
they could control as outsiders who came into a time and culture change.

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The Male Dominance and Power Imbalance in Gender Relations
The two novels have similar themes about obsession with teenage girls, the unreachable distance,
and the possession and disillusion of the femme fatales that act as a metaphor of an unfamiliar
culture and time to the narrators. Moreover, the stories are narrated through patriarchal
dominance and the male gaze. Jōji and Humbert are two unreliable narrators driven by their
obsessions, with an imbalance of power involved. Naomi is a confession narrated by the
protagonist based on his misperception; the novel sets itself as a didactic and voyeuristic story,
and Jōji believes his readers “will find it instructive, too” (Tanizaki 4). Meanwhile, Lolita is also
identified as “the Confession of a White Widowed Male” stated in the fictitious preface by Dr.
John Ray, Jr. (Nabokov 3).
The acts of looking and possessing consist of the two stories. Jōji likes to take
photographs for Naomi, keeping a journal entitled “Naomi Grows Up” (Tanizaki 175), just as
Humbert does, as if the girls are powerless animals under surveillance. The male gaze possesses
the girls. Jōji’s metaphorical cannibalism, refers to Naomi not only as “a maid”, “a bird”, or “a
rare, precious doll”, but even food. Eating is an act of possession, as Ito articulates that “the only
way one can be sure of anything is to possess it, and the ultimate form of possession is
consumption” (100). It is coincidental to Humbert’s gorgeous yet grotesque and notorious
exclamation about how he desires Lolita, “my only grudge against nature was that I could not
turn my Lolita inside out and apply voracious lips to her young matrix, her unknown heart, her
nacreous liver, the sea-grapes of her lungs, her comely twin kidneys” (Nabokov 165). Humbert’s
monstrous desire of objectifying, controlling, and possessing the powerless Lolita is poetically
expressed by Nabokov.
Although it appears that both Naomi and Lolita have gained their autonomy in the end
and escaped from the men’s restraint, the two girls are in a passive position, economically
inferior to their partners. Jōji seems to be enslaved under Naomi’s Westernized beauty, but he
still has economic control over Naomi. Because of Jōji’s financial support, Naomi is able to
purchase fashionable clothes and accessories, go to theatres and restaurants, take expensive
English and dance classes, and meet with foreigners.
Naomi was born in a lower-class family, with a potential destiny of ending up in a
brothel. Her job as a hostess in a café in Tokyo offers her the opportunity to work “at a new
occupation in a new recreation facility that participated in the Japanese “‘West,’” hence a hope

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of upward mobility (Ito 81-82). The financial support from Jōji, who is a white-collar worker
with stable income, will further ensure Naomi a secured life. Without Jōji’s economic power,
Naomi, who has quit her job after she meets Jōji, does not depend on anybody. She has to come
back to Jōji, in spite of her betrayal in dating other young men. In one scene, Jōji discovers
Naomi’s deception, and he asks her to leave the house. Naomi begs, leaves, but then comes back
again. Naomi could not enjoy her extravagant Taisho modern life without Jōji, just as the
obsessed Jōji could not live on without his crafted Western goddess Naomi. Nevertheless, Jōji is
the one who has the material control over her, whereas Naomi “never has much choice”, as Slade
points out in an article regarding the power relation between Jōji and Naomi (93). Naomi can
only become the Westernized object shaped by Jōji the Pygmalion as he wishes. A power and
economic disparity between their relationship is apparent.
The same relationship takes place in Lolita, which is a more unequal case. Lolita is a
passive minority, unable to work or support herself. She could only be protected by Humbert,
who is now her sole guardian. Humbert has complete patriarchal power control over Lolita,
trying to “instruct” his step-daughter like a traditional European upper-class father. Lolita is
inevitably a feminine, powerless character designed in representation of “the virgin land” of
America (Ahlberg 65). She is hence the metaphorically vulnerable, feminine rendition of the new
world—the progressive America in the postwar era, while Humbert is the dogmatic, patriarchal
European lover who tries to govern her with prejudice and superiority. Such relation is structured
to “compensate for the inadequacies (real and imagined) felt by many Europeans during and after
the World Wars” (Ahlberg 68).
Both Humbert and Jōji are searching for their lack in their female victims. Humbert
misses his youthful, immortal girl-child nymph, envious of the progressive new world of postwar
America. Jōji is obsessed with young women with Western features, coveting the modernity in
Japan brought by urbanization and Westernization. As a solution, the old European Humbert
attempts to seek for the outlandish and immortal nymphet in the youthful American Lolita.
Meanwhile, the rural-born vagabond Jōji endeavors to shape the modern girl Naomi into his
ideal, Japanized Western goddess. Through the relationships with their young lovers who belong
to a different time and culture, Jōji and Humbert are searching for something exotic that is
lacking in their mundane everyday life.

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Exoticism in Naomi and Lolita
Naomi and Lolita are the vehicles of their partners’ desire for compensation and possession.
What Jōji and Humbert are lacking lies in the Exoticism they have found in the two girls. Yet,
the connotations of Exoticism are slightly different in these two novels.
In Western literature, Exoticism is connected to Colonialism and Orientalism in late 19 - th

century Europe. An early philosophical discourse on Exoticism appeared in Victor Segalen’s

“Essay on Exoticism”, based on colonialism theories. Kuehn, in her article “Exoticism in 19 - th

Century Literature”, further discusses Exoticism. She explains that Exoticism is concerned with
the perception and description of difference or “otherness”. According to Kuehn, in 19 -century
th

literature, Exoticism “was primarily understood through geographic remoteness and Europe’s
(scholarly and political) interests in foreign nations”.
If Exoticism means the perception and description of difference, the Exoticism in Naomi
comes from Jōji’s fascination with the Western culture, as well as the Westernizing Tokyo in the
Taisho period. Naomi, the moga and the femme fatale, is the manifestation of this Exoticism.
Towards the end of the story, Jōji’s shaping of such Western illusion is completed through
turning Naomi into a Westernized figure that he could no longer approach with intimacy. The
Exoticism is alluring to Jōji, with an unreachable distance that remains.
In Lolita, the Exoticism is illustrated from the protagonist Humbert’s point of view, about
his disinterest and remoteness from the American culture. The Exoticism is the uneasiness to
Humbert the Outsider. The postwar, flourishing America in the mid-20 century would have been
th

a refreshing land filled with hope and potential to European immigrants. Yet Humbert is not in
favor of this young American culture. He does not like this land of difference and otherness that
are also visible in Lolita, who is a child cultivated in the youthful American culture. He tries to
“instruct” Lolita in his European manner as a way to compensate for what his culture might have
lost in the postwar era—progression and youthfulness. Lolita is the “American femininity”,
perceived by Humbert as “dysfunctional, and culturally and intellectually immature”, in order to
ensure “the resurrection of a functioning and sophisticated Europe” (Ahlberg 68). Consequently,
Humbert hopes to possess and transform Lolita into his everlasting Nymphet that transcends an
ordinary girl-child. The Exoticism finally leads to disillusion for Humbert.
The two men acknowledge the alluring Exoticism in their young lovers, and they have
tried to resolve the urge by possessing the girls. In both novels, such attempts turn out as

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disillusions in black humor, and both novels feign themselves as voyeuristic memoirs with
instructive advice for readers. At the same time, the stories reveal the Exoticism as a developing,
progressing culture of a new era that brings the exotic girls to the men. Through Naomi the
charming Taisho modern girl under Jōji’s narration, Tanizaki presents readers with a fascinating
view of the Taisho period in Japan. In Lolita, narrated by Humbert the enchanted hunter,
Nabokov illustrates the leisure life and grandiose landscapes in the flourishing, postwar America.
The two novels, as satirical they are, do not intend to be any kind of moral lessons but
pure fictions that present unique aspects of the culture and society of their time. It is with the two
fascinating female protagonists, as well as the detailed cultural depictions in their works, that
Tanizaki and Nabokov have marked the memorable arrival of a new era.

Naomi’s Lolita: The Lolita Fashion in Japanese Visual Culture

The Spanish diminutive name “Lolita” became known through Nabokov’s virtuosic masterpiece.
Meanwhile, the name is accompanied with several controversies, not to mention stigmas, which
resulted from countless misinterpretations and misusages associated with pedophilia. Yet, a few
decades after the birth of Lolita, a subculture fashion also named Lolita was born in Japan. Now,
what “Lolita” connotes in this Japanese fashion is quite different from the one interpreted by
Western popular culture. This section will trace the interpretations of Lolita in the West and in
Japan, and more specifically in the Lolita fashion today. The Lolita subculture fashion and its
Exoticism will be examined in comparison to the Exoticism revealed in Naomi and Lolita. The
Exoticism in Lolita fashion today is a self-performative, ritualistic act carried out by female
audiences, indicating an autonomous agency to define one’s identity that wishes to detach itself
from the quotidian.

Connotations of Lolita in the West and in Japan; Stigmas: Lolita as a Western

Vamp, Lolicon as a Pedophile
The connotation of Lolita in the West was provided with a historical setting of the mid-20 th

century, when social movements started to sprouted; For example, the Sexual Liberation in the
1960s. Lolita as a seductive teenage girl was gradually formed through its movie adaptations
(1962 and 1997) of Nabokov’s 1955 Lolita. In these movies, Lolita is portrayed not as a girl-

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child but as a sexually-maturing, manipulative teenager, “flirting with and kissing the buttoned-
up Humbert”, as described by Hinton in an article that analyzes the different receptions of Lolita
in Japan and the West (1585). The poster for the movie adaptation in 1962 even made the heart-
shaped sunglasses and lollipop-sucking symbolic to Lolita, suggesting a sexy and seducing

teenage vamp (fig. 3).

Fig. 3. The 1962 movie adaptation of Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), directed by Stanley Kubrick. The
heart-shaped sunglasses and lollipop-sucking became an iconic symbol defining Lolita in
Western popular culture. Lolita, 1962, IMDb, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056193/. Accessed
22 Mar. 2018.

Earlier in Simone de Beauvoir’s 1959 essay, “Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome”,
Beauvoir further emphasized the image of Lolita as a half-matured, half-adolescent woman-child
(instead of a “girl-child” in Lolita to suggest her sexual capability). As an advocate of sexual
equality and autonomy, Beauvoir seemed to appreciate the attentive Nymphet traits seen in the
French actress Brigitte Bardot. She is “interested in the disruptive power of Bardot as a
combination of ‘femme fatale’ and ‘nymphette’” (qtd. in Hinton 1586).

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 Note that in the novel, it is the ill-minded Humbert who strongly believes Lolita to
initiate seduction. Furthermore, the sexual awakening of schoolgirls is among a few cynical
critiques by Humbert regarding American youth culture (the contraceptives that Lolita and her
fellow girls take at the summer camp!). There were hints told by the unreliable narrator in the
novel, and there were media distortions in movie adaptations and cover designs for the novel in
association with popular culture since the 1960s. In such a context, Lolita is inexorably aligned
with a lively, deteriorative, and seductive teenage vamp.
Later terms associated with Lolita seem to worsen the reputation: such as the Lolita
Complex, or rorikon/lolicon in Japanese otaku subculture, which is related to anime, manga, and
game fictions. Although Humbert’s standard age of Nymphet ranges between 12 to 14, in the
lolicon subgenre in erotic comics (eromanga in Japanese), the highly manga-stylized female
characters are often portrayed as more child-like figures with obedience. Such depictions further
suggest a desire of fulfilling one’s fantasy of a sole control over an objectified subject. To the
otaku readers, these fantasies are detached from reality, but serve as a means to escape from
responsibilities in the adult world (Hinton). Nonetheless, viewed by the Western media, the
lolicon subgenre is often considered to be a synonym of pedophile, associated with
“transgressive male sexual imagery aligned to Humbert Humbert”, although the image of Lolita
has already been driven too far away from the original in Nabokov’s artistic novel (qtd. in
Hinton 1594).

Lolita as a Romanticized Shōjo

Such type of child-like character design has actually been prevalent in Japanese anime and
manga industries as a stylistic choice, whereas the lolicon subgenre in eromanga only takes a
minor part compared to the whole industry. The childlike style might appear to be infantile to the
West, but it goes to the Japanese kawaii “cute” culture, which embodies a wider meaning of
designs and elements that are soft, colorful, gentle, round, and cuddly (Hinton). The kawaii
culture is particularly popular among shōjo少女 “teen girls” (right about Lolita and Naomi’s age
range), as well as young women who now have to face the real world with stress and challenges.
Consequently, the kawaii culture acts like “a vehicle for expressing a romanticized imaginary
childhood that influenced toys, art, fashion”, a solution to a nostalgia for the present and the past

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(qtd. in Hinton 1592). The word Shōjo also becomes a romantic symbol filled with fantasy and
wish of youthfulness, carefreeness, and elegance.
Furthermore, the Western stigma of the Lolita- or Naomi-type story of old man meeting
young girl does not seem too controversial in Japan. The combination is more reminiscent of a
story in Tale of Genji, which is an 11 -century classic by Murasaki Shikibu. One story included
th

in the literature is about the protagonist Prince Genji’s affair with Murasaki no Ue, who is taken
to Genji’s household as a child and trained to become Genji’s ideal wife. A similar relation is
apparent in Naomi between Naomi and Jōji, who fanatically wants to shape Naomi into his
Western goddess. A term called Hikarugenji Keikaku (光源氏計画 “The Hikarugenji Plan”) is
used to describe the “Naomi-Jōji” or “Murasaki no Ue-Genji” kind of relation, in which an older
man raises up a girl with education and financial support to shape her into his ideal wife. With
this mindset, Japanese audiences of Lolita would have seen a parallel between Humbert and Jōji,
who are similar in that they both search for a nostalgic or ideal woman in their young lovers. In
Humbert’s case, the nostalgic ghost lies in his Nymphet and prematurely dead childhood lover
Annabel. For Jōji, the ideal is born of his obsession and fetishism with the imagined West. This
is a romanticized interpretation of a power-imbalanced relationship. Also, with such a mindset,
the two men’s failure becomes ironic.
The image of Lolita, combined with the shōjo and kawaii culture, is interpreted as a
positive and romantic one in Japan. Rather than the teenage vamp image of Lolita in Western
media, the Lolita interpreted in Japan “bears a closer resemblance to the Lolita in the book—a
girl who wishes to enjoy her girlhood pleasures of celebrities, magazines, soda fountains, and
tennis” (qtd. in Hinton 1598). The concept of Lolita in Japan is closer to a resisting attitude
towards reality and mundanity, and it “positively represents the young shōjo dealing with, or
attempting to escape from, an unpleasant adult world” (qtd. in 1598).

The Lolita Fashion: Lolita becomes a Naomi-like “Modern Girl”

The romantic reading of Lolita and the idea about searching for the ideal and resisting against the
mundane would certainly be appealing to shōjo audiences today. The Lolita fashion manifested
in this interpretation is presenting a romantic, dreamy, and juvenile style of clothes and
accessories, particularly known for its Sweet Lolita, or Ama-Loli subcategory (fig. 4).
Meanwhile, as a fashion originating in Japan, Lolita fashion seems somewhat parallel with the
Volume 5, Issue 1 | 2018 62
Taisho-modern fashion that it is a Japanized style of designs based on Western fashion. The Wa-
Lolita (fig. 1) features a fusion of Western and traditional Japanese designs and patterns,
reminding of Naomi’s fancy kimono, Western-style dress, and funky accessories described in
Tanizaki’s Naomi.
Bernal did an attentive study of the Gothic and Lolita subculture in 2011, in which she
defines the Lolita culture, or Gothic Lolita in general, as a Neo-Gothic subculture originating in
Japan, with multiple variants. The Lolita subculture is a demonstration of “a reluctance to move
into the uncertain adult world, a wish to escape reality, and a subconscious desire to remain in, or
return to, the security of childhood”, and hence “symbolized in the impulse to dress as a child”
(Bernal 51).

Fig. 4. (Left) A set of Lolita outfit in Ama-loli甘ロリ “Sweet Lolita” style, which is a variant in
Lolita fashion. (Right) Another set of the Sweet Lolita style that looks more quotidian without
ruffle or petticoat under the dress. Sweets, fruits, and cakes are typical design elements for a
Sweet Lolita dress, often with Alice/fairytale references and in pastel tone (Bernal 64). Photo
courtesy of the author.

Lolita fashion “taps into the Japanese shōjo fantasy of an idyllic childhood” (qtd. in
Hinton 1596). In contrast to the Western-vamp reading of Lolita, Lolita fashion displays
Volume 5, Issue 1 | 2018 63
modesty, purity, and innocence of an idealized, carefree child, eliminating any sexually
suggestive elements in design. Lolita dresses associate itself with dolls and children’s clothes in
European Rococo and Victorian styles. The most representative design is the Classic Lolita (an
example in fig. 5), which has “specific rules and regulations… in regard to authenticity” with
“high neckline, a hemline no shorter than just below knee-length, layers and layers of petticoats,
long sleeves and very long socks or full tights” (Bernal 55).
The Classic Lolita, as well as the Country Lolita (fig. 6), are much inspired by doll and
children’s dresses seen in Victorian-style costumes (fig. 7) and storybooks. An example would
be Alice’s dress in the popular story Alice in Wonderland. The story of Alice as well as Alice
herself also has become a symbol of a shōjo and her fantasy world, “where such a childhood
exists” (qtd. in Hinton 1596).

Fig. 5. (Left) A set of Classic Lolita outfit that makes the person appear to be a vintage Victorian
doll or child in storybook. “The bodice should finish at the natural waist or just above it,
exaggerating the impression of the Child’s physique, and the skirt of the dress will be full-circled
or bell-shaped. A headdress is expected and may be in the form of a Victorian-style band,
bonnet, or bow headband” (Bernal 55). Photo courtesy of the author.

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Fig. 6. (Right) A set of Country Lolita outfit, such design is generally inspired by the countryside
and Victorian farms, marked by floral pattern, frill, sometimes an apron, and with accessories
such as a straw hat, as shown in the figure. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig. 7. “Illustration depicting fashions throughout the 19 century” in “Victorian Fashion”.

th

Detail. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Fashions.jpg. Accessed

23 Mar. 2018.

To consumers of Lolita fashion today, the Lolita fashion is like the voguish outfits to the
mogas like Naomi in the Taisho period. In particular, the Lolita style is neither traditionally
Japanese nor authentically Western; rather, it is a Japanized West, an imagined Victorian
childhood romance in an exotic land, keeping a distance from reality. This aspect is also
resembles the Taisho modernism presented in Naomi. The adapted, synthesized, and distanced
Exotic West makes the style more appealing, as Tanizaki at the time would have appraised. The
Tanizaki-type relationship of the Taisho modernism is marked by the attempt to call into being
culture itself and to possess an alternative world that satisfies fantasy, as Ito critiques regarding
Tanizaki’s work that Naomi is “the story of a ‘West’ that can be manipulated, objectified, and
even consumed” (100). Similarly, the Lolita fashion creates a different identity for its consumers
and brings them into an outlandish, fantastical space, with a sense of non-everydayness that
distinguishes from the real world. But now, the Exotic is driven by its female audiences.

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The Resisting Lolita in Subculture Fashion: Exoticism of a New Era
As one of the earliest scholars to write about fashion, Roland Barthes in The Fashion System has
offered an analysis of fashion regarding its linguistic structure. Fashion is a functional language,
“a system of signs”, assigning an identity and signifying a social position of a person (qtd. in
Frykhamn “Fashion Grammar: Making a Case for Re-reading Barthes”). In a sense, the Lolita
fashion also becomes an identifier for a group of consumers. By providing a persona and
presenting an idealized self, the Lolita dress compensates for what the user is lacking in the
everyday life, guiding them into an alternative reality.
It is clear that there is also a type of Exoticism in Lolita fashion, similar to the Exoticism
in Naomi and Lolita in which a seeker searches for the ideal and the eternal in something as a
means to make up what he/she is missing and losing in reality. However, the Exoticism in Lolita
fashion conveys a transformation in the agency. The shōjo and young women around Lolita and
Naomi’s age range are the main consumer force. The Lolita fashion consumers perform the
Exoticism out of their free will. This is in contrast to the passive subjects of Naomi and Lolita in
the two novels that are narrated by the didactic and patriarchal men through the male gaze, who
are like Pygmalion in hopes of transforming the girls into an idealized figure that meets their
standards.
Lolita fashion becomes an agent for consumers in this subculture to resist against social
norms and fight for their own identity in the mundane. Hinton describes how a Lolita fashion
consumer would feel, …in that space where a real girl puts on her Lolita clothes, she is able to
take on the identity of an imaginary resourceful shōjo in her cosplay until she is required to make
her inevitable return to the ordinary, responsible life dictated by her role in the culture (1597).
But furthermore, most of the Lolita fashion consumers would not agree that Lolita is merely a
costume or a kind of role play. In Bernal’s interviews with these consumers and many Lolita
designers, a fashion designer states that Lolita is “never costume but his ‘day-to-day clothes’”
(71). In my personal experience also as a Lolita fashion consumer, a Lolita friend once claimed
that Lolita was her “daily combat suit” that she would put on to face the mundane everyday: “it
is a lifestyle.” Lolita fashion is not merely about the pastel-toned, doll-like dress and accessories,
but such fashion also requires one to put themselves into the persona of a Lolita shōjo with
elegant etiquettes in a romantic, idealistic world detached from reality.

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 A person can identify themselves through fashion, specifically, by what a person wears
and how a person looks in a particular time and space. The act of wearing is self-performative
and ritualistic, for it delivers a visual message to convey meaning and describe oneself within a
social and cultural norm. Likewise, the Lolita fashion, with the subculture it contains, has such
power to alienate its user from the everyday outfit. It provides a temporary relief from reality that
is overloaded with problems and stress. The self-performative act provides the Lolita fashion
consumers with confidence and courage to enter a fantastical world and to become an imagined,
eternal shōjo with a wish of staying young and carefree. In this way, the Exoticism in Lolita
fashion today turns into an autonomous act of alienation to escape from mundanity and chase
after eternality, conveying a timeless pursuit of beauty and vitality.

Conclusion
By examining Tanizaki’s Naomi, Nabokov’s Lolita, and the Lolita fashion today, we have built
a connection among the three topics with the concept of Exoticism. The Exoticism of a new era
is therefore explained in these three contexts. In similarity, the Exoticism stands for the interest
in the ideal and outlandish, driving one to seek the unattainable figure that is missing in reality.
The three topics are all provided with a transformation that occurs in culture and society. In
Naomi, it is the rural bumpkin Jōji facing the Westernizing urban Japan in the 1920s in search of
his Japanized Western goddess Naomi. In Lolita, it is the arrogant immigrant Humbert pursuing
an illusion of his immortal Nymphet in Lolita, who is simply an American teenager cultivated in
the progressing postwar popular culture. In Lolita fashion today, it is the young woman who are
confronted with a stressful reality, resisting mundanity by putting up the Lolita shōjo persona to
enter an imagined, dream-like Neverland.
Furthermore, through the literary analysis of Naomi and Lolita, it is clear that the
relationship between male and female protagonists is a manipulative and power-imbalanced one.
The two stories are told through dominating, patriarchal narrators who scrutinize their partners
with an objectifying male gaze. However, the narrative that Lolita fashion has developed is much
different. Lolita fashion is a romantic fantasy constructed by shōjo instead of men. Driven by
female audiences, Lolita fashion becomes a self-performative act that indicates autonomy and
identity.

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