Of cliches and characterisation

[meboriqua at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 20464

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Andrea <ra_1013 at y...> wrote:
> 
> It's a tribute to JKR's amazing skills that we *can*
> disect everything like this - a lesser writer wouldn't
> have nearly as many subtleties in her writing, and we
> would exhaust all possible avenues of discussion in
> short order.  Instead, we get to have this wonderful
> group!  Yes, we read to much into things.  And yes,
> it's just a work of fiction.  But reading too much
> into this particular work of fiction is what this
> group is all about. ;)


Here, here, Andrea!  I am completely agreeing with you!  I was so 
excited to find this group because I was the only adult I knew who 
couldn't stop reading HP and I needed to talk about and analyze the 
series.  When people say "Remember, it's *just* fiction", I get 
annoyed, because the HP series has obviously become a lot more than 
that to millions of people.  Kids are actually turning away from their 
tv shows to read these books - that's amazing.  The references to 
other literature and history that JKR makes throughout the stories is 
simply awesome and she inspires me to to write my own stories and to 
strive to be a better teacher as well.  I have also improved my own 
vocabulary and learned some Latin roots. 

Analyzing literature is fun and challenging to me.  Whenever I post 
something, I choose my words carefully because I know someone else 
will post something right back to tear my arguments to shreds - I love 
it.  It's good for me to work on defending and expressing myself in 
the best way possible.  When someone refers to something I said or 
agrees with me, I think "Ha!  I explained that well!"  

As a high school English teacher who works with kids who were kicked 
out of regular public high schools, it is a constant struggle to get 
kids engaged.  JKR has done that!  Some of my students tell me that 
their younger siblings and cousins are reading these books - and my 
students are all minorities who live in the worst neighborhoods in 
NYC.  How amazing it is that JKR has been able to reach even these 
children, especially when her stories do not take place in the inner 
city or even this country.  I'm willing to bet that Ebony as a fellow 
teacher knows exactly what I'm talking about :-).

I said this before, but if I want to use the "it's just fiction" 
argument, I can still say that because it's fiction, I can use my own 
imagination and question whether Snape is a vampire (never thought of 
that myself), or laugh at Dudley eating those Ton-Tongue Toffees (I 
hate bullies, having been bullied as a child), or even wish really, 
really hard as a 31 year old that the wizarding world really does 
exist (just like, when I was a kid, I hoped the front hall closet in 
my old house could take me to Narnia).  Escapism is definitely a good 
thing.

Yup, I'll keeping looking too closely into Harry Potter.

--jenny from ravenclaw***************