# Literary characters who come to symbolize the opposite of how they were portrayed. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 24, 2010, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-characters-who-come-to-symbolize-the-opposite-of-how-they-were-portrayed/544304 "2010-06-24T01:52:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 100
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-characters-who-come-to-symbolize-the-opposite-of-how-they-were-portrayed/544304/100 "2010-06-25T14:44:21Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Lolita takes place in, what, 1940 something? It wouldn’t surprise me if the average age of onset of puberty was somewhat higher then than now. She may, at most, have had teensy-tiny little buds of breasts, but beyond that she would still have been a child. The book starts in 1947. We are given her vital statistics on her 12th birthday in partI:25. They are 27-23-29. She is 4’9" tall and weighs 78 pounds. That happens to be the exact height and weight of 12-year-old [Cameron Escalante](http://www.cameronescalante.moonfruit.com/) of _THE SUITE LIFE ON DECK: Crossing Jordin_ on The Disney Channel. She looks much younger in the YouTube reel that’s on that site than in her head shot. Check it out for the real Lolita. Yes, she is a prepubescent child. But much of Humbert’s argument in the book is that she has had a variety of experiences and so have her sixth-grade classmates. Even prepubescent children were not the asexual creatures that society considered them at the time. Self-serving or not, we now that to be totally true. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-characters-who-come-to-symbolize-the-opposite-of-how-they-were-portrayed/544304)._