Harry's upbringing (LONG)

[Peg Kerr]

No: HPFGUIDX 30580

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Heidi Tandy" <heidit at n...> wrote:
>  nancyaw2001 said
> > Harry is an amazing kid. There's one bit in PofA, when
> > > Harry tells Lupin that he hears V. murdering his mother, that
makes
> > > me just want to grab him, hold him tight, and let him know that
> > > someone cares about him, and that he's deserving of love.
> > >
>
> I'm going into the WayBack machine for my response to this - all the
way
> to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/828 (message
828.
> Gack!)
>
> Way way back in September, 2000, this list had its first of many
varied and insightful discussions about abuse

<snip>

 And now.......
The Factors: <with snips>

Social competence . . .

Problem-solving skills . . .

Autonomy . . .

The development of resistance and of detachment . . .

Lastly, resilience is manifested in having a sense of purpose and a
belief in a bright future


 I do hope Peg comments as well - she's had some excellent insights in
the past, which have been shown in her Virtues essays as well.

Thanks, Heidi. Good message, and a good message from the archives.

I learned so much about the role of the Dursleys in the books from
writing the 7 Deadly Sins/7 Heavenly Virtues essays.  I don't think I
really understood until I did those essays how integral they are to the
story, and to the process of Harry's character development.
Specifically, the Dursleys are to Harry a warning example of what
happens when you allow free rein to your worst impulses (gluttony,
pride, sloth, etc.).  As I pointed out in one of those essays, this
inoculates Harry against temptation by Voldemort:  "Want all the money
you can have to buy whatever you want, Harry?  Power?  All the coke you
can stuff up your nose?"  Harry would reply, "No thanks.  I saw what
getting whatever you want did to my cousin.  Yuck."

Conversely, the Dursleys show Harry what it is like to live without each
of the 7 Heavenly Virtues.  To take the example from my Faith essay:

The process of growing in faith is often metaphorically described as the

undertaking of a journey.  The turning point for Harry in terms of faith

takes place at the beginning of his journey to Hogwarts.  The Dursleys
take Harry to King's Cross Station, moving him through the mundane,
muggle world that they know.  But because they are both faithless and
lack faith, they abandon him.  They literally think--and tell him--that
he is going nowhere.

Now is the point that faith is needed.  Harry must be proactive, not
just reactive, in order to begin his journey.  In order to find out what

to do, he turns to a newly introduced character, Mrs. Weasley, to solve
his problem, and the encounter is thematically extremely important:

"Excuse me," Harry said to the plump woman.

"Hello, dear," she said.  "First time at Hogwarts?  Ron's new, too."

She pointed to the last and youngest of her sons.  He was tall, thin,
and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.:

"Yes," said Harry.  "The thing is -- the think is, I don't know how to
--"

"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.

"Not to worry," she said, "All you have to do is walk straight at the
barrier between platforms nine and ten.  Don't stop and don't be scared
you'll crash into it, that's very important.  Best do it at a bit of a
run if you're nervous.  Go on, go now before Ron."

I think it is significant that Harry perceives Mrs. Weasley first as a
mother in this scene.  He lost his own mother at a very young age, a
very important blow to his moral development because an infant learns
the concept of  "trust," the first cornerstone of faith, in the course
of interacting with his or her own mother.  Mrs. Weasley will, over the
course of the series, become Harry's surrogate mother, and so it is
significant that she is the one to give him the instruction that
literally starts him on his faith journey.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Devika S. Lal" <devika at s...> wrote:
 I think that we should look at Harry's resilience not as being
> unrealistic, but as being the complete opposite of Tom Riddle's way
of coping with his childhood.  I think that this is JKR's way of
showing that two people can turn out to be completely different even
though they
may have had similar childhoods.  It all depends on what they want to
make of
their lives.  <Snip> Why did JKR bother to form the parallels between
Harry
and Tom? I think she uses the similarities as a device to prove to us
what
Dumbledore says:  that it is our choices that shape who we truly are and
who we
become.

Yes, exactly.  I believe it is because Harry has lived with the Dursleys
that he says "Not Slytherin" when he is sorted.  Living with the
Dursleys was horrible, but it has taught Harry clearly what he does NOT
want to be like.

One other point to make about Harry's upbringing, which I developed at
greater length in the Hope essay: in the Dursley household, Harry plays
the role of prisoner.  When I recently re-read PoA, I was struck by how
clearly Harry and Sirius's stories were mirrored, and the paralles were
so strong that I couldn't believe that I didn't understand right from
the beginning that Jo was signalling that Sirius was meant to be
trusted.  Harry is inadequately fed at the Dursleys; Sirius is gaunt in
his wanted poster.  Harry escapes from the Dursleys just as Sirius
escapes from Azkaban.  Harry hears how Sirius is a dangerous criminal
just as he hears all sorts of lies told about him by Uncle Vernon to
Aunt Marge--the implication is that what's being said about Sirius is
false, too.  Harry is on the run, convinced that he is an outcast from
the wizarding world, traveling under a false name, just as he is
learning about Sirius, on the run, an outcast of the wizarding world,
obviously traveling under disguise.

The theme of imprisonment and release actually plays through all books,
with various subplots (think of George and Fred tearing the bars off his
window in book Two, for example. But more than that, there's Sirius,
Dobby, Winky, Barty Crouch, Jr., Hagrid, even Buckbeak--all characters
who have experienced imprisonment, often wrongly.)  In growing up and
living through abuse, Harry is struggling toward his freedom, and being
free means that you have the freedom to make choices.  It is
Dumbledore's job to guide him so that he learns to make the right ones.

Another point, which I discussed at greater length in, I think, the
Faith essay: Harry does not emerge unscathed from his horrible
childhood.  Specifically, we see that at times it is difficult for him
to trust.  He does not open up to Dumbledore when he is invited to on
several occasions, probably his experience up until then has taught him,
painfully, that figures in authority are not to be trusted.  But he is
learning, slowly how to trust.  And I think he is turning into a
wonderful, moral person, despite his background.

This is spinning out of control, so I'll end it here.

Peg