Lolita Theory - Carrie Page’s life
The scene in the Return of Richard driving Carrie back to Twin Peaks really stuck with me, particularly when they worry about being followed. It reminded me overwhelmingly of the moment in Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita in which Dolores and her abuser Humbert are followed by her second abuser: Clare Quilty. If we can view moments in The Return as abstracted and jumbled representations of repressed memories in the real Laura’s life, it leads me to believe that Laura faced further abuse and trauma past leaving home. This is a recurring theme within other plot lines in Twin Peaks: Josie as a teenage runaway, only to be exploited and roped into prostitution in Hong Kong, Shelly’s seemingly endless cycle of involvement with abusive men, a generational issue beginning with Norma and continuing with Becky.
I think Laura faced another trauma in Odessa, and similarly to Lolita, it is the movement across state boundaries in which the trauma is contained and concealed. As established, the very beginning of Twin Peaks’ story is triggered when Ronette Pulaski moves across state lines and exposes the truth at the heart of the town of sexual abuse.
At the end of Lolita, Dolores reached out under a different name to her initial abuser Humbert to ask for money, as she is in a spot of hardship, similarly to Carrie Page deciding to travel with the FBI as SHE is in trouble and has a dead man in her house. Carrie’s conversation in the car is focussed exclusively on Odessa and the struggles she faced there. The fear and pain on the drive for her appears to stem from those particular memories and the possibility of being followed, potentially by her ‘Clare Quilty’ from the latter portion of her life after leaving Twin Peaks. Ultimately, in Lolita, Dolores chooses not to return to her initial trauma and go on another journey with Humbert. It is the various names she has ‘Dolores, Lolita, Lo, Dolly’ that fragments her into separate people and separate situations. The ‘Dolly Schiller’ at the end is a completely different person invented by herself to separate herself from the abuse sje faced at the hands of Humbert and Clare; Clare in particular promised her an escape from abuse only to rope her into further sexual exploitation and suffering. Is Cooper comparable to Clare, by pulling her back into a painful existence? Is there a separate person in Laura’s life like Leo Johnson, Andrew Packard, Thomas Eckhardt, Hank Jennings, Ben Horne, ect.?
I may do further research into this but I’d be grateful for any input! Thank you