Lolita

The Enchanted Hunters is the name of the hotel where Humbert and Lolita first have sex as well as the name of Quilty’s play. At the Enchanted Hunters, Quilty sees Lolita and Humbert together, and he begins his quest to reunite with Lolita; through Lolita’s participation in the performance of Quilty’s play, the reunion takes place. For Quilty, the Enchanted Hunters is the place where a game begins, and he begins here to leave enigmatic clues behind for Humbert. Just the title of his play, The Enchanted Hunters, is a kind of joke he plays on Humbert, because, for Humbert, the Enchanted Hunters marks the start of his greatest romance.

Ironically, the enchanted hunters are Humbert and Quilty, who are hunters enchanted by their obsessive love of young girls. They are also enchanted in another way: both men have warped views of reality. Lolita, for instance, knows that what happened at the hotel is rape, but Humbert views the act as seduction on her part. As well, both men hunt each other at various points in the novel; Quilty follows Humbert for most of Part 2 and Humbert hunts Quilty down and kills him, referring to himself at this point in the novel as “an enchanted and very tight hunter” (294).