Chesterton on Voldemort?

[Horst or Rebecca J. Bohner]

No: HPFGUIDX 20237

I just came across a fascinating quote by G.K. Chesterton in the middle of
an essay on Charles Dickens, and was immediately reminded of Voldemort.
Given that JKR is a known GKC fan (she's even a member of the GKC society in
the UK, I'm told), I wouldn't be surprised if these remarks were,
consciously or subconsciously, an influence on her portrayal of the chief
villain in the Harry Potter books.  See what you think:

"This life of ours is a very enjoyable fight, but a very miserable truce.
And it appears strange to me that so few critics of Dickens or of other
romantic writers have noticed this philosophical meaning in the undiluted
villain.  The villain is not in the story to be a character; he is there to
be a danger -- a ceaseless, ruthless and uncompromising menace, like that of
the wild beasts or the sea. For the full satisfaction of the sense of
combat, which everywhere and always involves a sense of equality, it is
necessary to make the evil thing a man; but it is not always necessary, it
is not even always artistic to make him a mixed and probable man. In any
tale, the tone of which is at all symbolic, he may quite legitimately be
made an aboriginal and infernal energy. He must be a man only in the sense
that he must have a wit and will to be matched with the wit and will of the
man chiefly fighting. ..."

This approach to villainy may seem old-fashioned, but I think that there is
something to it.  JKR has given us hints of humanity in Voldemort's past --
the natural feelings of hurt and abandonment that he experienced as a
child -- but by giving Harry Potter a very similar background, she
skillfully diverts us from the temptation to view Tom Riddle's sufferings as
an excuse for Voldemort's atrocities.  After all, if Harry was also orphaned
at an early age and grew up in an abusive atmosphere, yet still chose not to
allow himself to be consumed by bitterness and hatred, then clearly
Voldemort's evil was by no means an inevitability, but rather a deliberate
choice.  There is no sympathy for the devil here:  Voldemort is a force of
pure and conscious wickedness, which must be opposed and defeated at all
costs.
--
Rebecca J. Bohner
rebeccaj at pobox.com
http://home.golden.net/~rebeccaj