[HPforGrownups] Envy and Respect

[Jen Faulkner]

No: HPFGUIDX 13148

On Wed, 28 Feb 2001 meboriqua at aol.com wrote:

> JKR is creating a realistic and complicated situation because Harry 
> envied Cedric (rightfully so) for being what Harry (as a typical 14 
> year old) wants to be.  Yet Cedric is a good guy - a really good guy, 
> and he dies.  Now Harry is left with the guilt of having not liked 
> Cedric too much when he was alive and having been forced to witness 
> his death.

Actually, I think the portrayal in GoF of Harry's feelings towards
Cedric is actually a little more complicated than just this envy/respect
tension (though certainly, both of these elements are present).  It
seems to me that one of the dominant modes in which Harry's feelings are
presented is the homoerotic.

(This argument is one I've made before, on hpslash, so I'm basically
cutting and pasting here.  Apologies.  Also, this is not an argument
about slash, but about how to read the text.  I'm *not* saying that
Harry the character is 'gay', but rather talking about in what way his
reactions to Cedric are portrayed (a literary discussion, not a social
one).  I'm also not making any claims about JKR's intentionality --
impossible to ever ascertain and not necessarily relevant.)

Let's look at the scene where Harry asks Cho to the dance:
At first, he's nervous: 
	
	"Harry turned to look at her and his stomach gave a weird
	lurch as though he had missed a step going downstairs."  (GoF,
	American ed., 396)

But when he's turned down, the fluttering in his stomach actually stops
(from relief?):       

	"'Oh', said Harry.	
	
	"It was odd; a moment before his insides had been writhing
	like snakes, but suddenly he didn't seem to have any insides
	at all.  
	
	"'Oh okay', he said, 'no problem'." (GoF 397) 

Now there's no real reason for Harry to be completely shocked beyond
belief at the news that she's going with someone else, so that
'numbness' which the lack of 'insides' suggests shouldn't be from
absolute shock.  He really seems mostly fine with the idea that he
can't go with her, but perhaps he is feeling relief, a sudden
lack/release of tension.

But his reaction is intense when he finds out who she is going with:

	  "'Oh -- Cedric', she said.  'Cedric Diggory.'  	  

	  "'Oh right', said Harry.  

	  "His insides had come back again.  It felt as though they
	  had been filled with lead in their absence.  

	  "Completely forgetting about dinner, he walked slowly back
	  up to Gryffindor Tower, Cho's voice echoing in his ears with
	  every step he took.  '*Cedric -- Cedric Diggory*'. He had
	  been starting to quite like Cedric -- prepared to overlook
	  the fact that he had once beaten him at Quidditch, and was
	  handsome, and popular, and nearly everone's favorite
	  champion.  Now he suddenly realized Cedric was in fact a
	  useless pretty boy who didn't have enough brains to fill an
	  eggcup."  (GoF 397f.)

First, the stomach makes its third appearance as an indicator of H's
emotions; he now feels like he's filled with lead, heavy.  This seems
to be a more serious reaction than just being turned down by Cho --
his body has been invaded by a foreign substance, he's not remembering
to eat, and he's unable to get Cedric's name out of his head.  One
should note especially that it's not her words of rejection that he
keeps hearing, but the name of his rival.

The emphasis on Cedric's appearance is rather telling since Harry
thinks of him as not only "handsome," but as a "pretty boy," both
positive physical attributes which have presumably caused Cho to
desire him.  Even while postionally Cedric is a desiring subject
in relation to Cho, Harry is casting him as the desired object,
replacing Cedric's subjectivity with his own.  

This positional ambiguity which the rival-relationship gives rise to
is precisely what makes the scene have homoerotic tensions.  Harry
continues to emphasize Cedric as desired object, rather than
desiring subject:  

	  "'...I bet you just walked past when [Fleur Delacour] was
	  turning on the old charm for Diggory and got a blast of it
	  -- but she was wasting her time.  He's going with Cho
	  Chang."  (GoF 399)

Harry is portraying Cedric here as a passive recipient (object) of
Fleur's "charm" (desire), again perceiving him in the role of desired
object.  Because it is framed in terms of another's desire (Fleur's,
Cho's), it is not his own, and therefore acceptable.  But the
portrayal is not necessarily accurate (other than Harry's, there has
been no suggestion that Fleur was trying to seduce Cedric), and arises
from Harry's perception of Cedric as desirable/ed object, rather than
from any 'objective' statement in Ron's account (who should surely
have mentioned it were that the case that Fleur desired Cedric, since
Cedric would then be his rival as well).

To my mind, this scene more than meets criteria for homoeroticism.  
I've certainly read more obvious scenes in terms of word choice, for
instance, but the insistence with which Harry repeatedly places Cedric
(for no necessary reason) in the position of desired object, rather than
rival subject, seems to me unmistakable.  And some of the word choice
even ("pretty boy") does have homoerotic overtones.

I find it especially intersting in light of this dynamic in their
relationship that it was Cedric, and not say Viktor or Fleur, who
died...

--jen :)

* * * * * * 
Jen's HP fics:
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