Parody of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita in Umberto Eco’s ‘Granita’

Abstract

ABSTRACT Parody is regarded as a ‘beside-or-against’ song. Based on the theories of parody and intertextuality, this paper analyses the parodic means adopted in Umberto Eco’s short story ‘Granita,’ which is meant to be a parody of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. The study proceeds from three aspects: parody as imitation, parody as reconstruction and intertextuality as text of pleasure and jouissance. The imitation can be reflected through creation of characters, rhetorical devices, narrative strategy and arrangement of plots. The reconstruction is realised through readers’ unfulfilled expectations and intertextual interpretations. The text of bliss is embodied in readers’ decoding of the signifieds of the two texts from the signifiers of the phonological, lexical, textual and cultural layers. By parodying Nabokov’s Lolita, Eco aims to criticise the hypocrisy and absurdity of modern world, and at the same time, to affirm the aesthetic beauty of art.