The Sleeping Woman

[serenadust]

No: HPFGUIDX 37486

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "pippin_999" <foxmoth at q...> wrote:
> David wrote:
> 
> >>We have from time to time here discussed a number of 
> issues that I believe are related:
> -             Ginny's character is undeveloped;
> -             Lily has received far less treatment than James
> -             There is dissatisfaction among some listies with the 
way 
> women are presented in general in HP.
> 
> I believe the common thread is that JKR has been suppressing 
> femininity in the books, because this side of Harry's character, 
or 
> rather, of the reader's perception of themselves, is yet to 
> develop.<<


Pippin wrote:

> I would say it is not femininity which is being suppressed but 
> sexuality, both because explicit sexual content would be out of 
> keeping with the tone of the books and because this part of 
> Harry's psyche has not yet developed. Harry relates to females 
> as splintered, incomplete aspects of the mother he has lost, as 
> symbolized by the M in many of their names. He represses his 
> awareness of  their sexuality as much as he can. He seems to 
> wish his thoughts about Cho would just go away.  It is only at the 
> very end of GoF that he allows himself to enjoy the feeling he 
> gets while watching Fleur in the distance. 


Pippin, this post was just brilliant.  I've never really thought 
that there was a problem with the many undeveloped female characters 
because, of course Harry as an adolescent boy can not really be 
expected to really understand enough about them to do them justice 
up to this point.  I seriously doubt that he ever even knew any 
girls before meeting Hermione.  He has a long, long way to go before 
he's ready to deal with them as anything other than friends, and had 
Hermione not practically forced her way into his and Ron's 
friendship, he probably wouldn't have even spoken to any of them 
(except possibly Ginny) before GofF. 

Pippin again:
> However, as many have noticed, sexuality is not absent from the 
> novels. Instead, it is disguised. Using the traditional symbols of 
> fairy tales, such as toads and magical trances, Rowling deals 
> with sexual development in a non-threatening way. Consider  
> Hermione's first appearance in PS/SS. She arrives with Neville 
> under her wing, in search of a lost toad. Freudians will not need 
> to be told that the toad in fairy tales is a symbol of sexual 
> relations (Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment.)  In fairy tale 
> language, the toad is the part of Hermione's sexuality that is 
> "lost", ie not yet developed. As in the many tales where the toad, 
> or frog, becomes a handsome prince,  this little episode teaches 
> how what might  seem ugly and repulsive may be transformed 
> by love into something highly desireable. 
> 
> Hermione is far more comfortable with the nurturing aspects of 
> her femininity.  She exercises her maternal skills on  various 
> orphaned characters: Neville, Harry, Hagrid,  and Winky.  It is 
> interesting that Ron resists her attempts to mother him, and  that 
> she in turn accepts a date with Viktor Krum knowing that school 
> loyalty will forbid her to indulge her coaching instincts.


I really must read Bettelheim; I had never heard of the toad 
symbolism before.  I wonder if JKR really had that in mind when she 
wrote this (I also wonder if Tabouli's acronym generator would 
explode if it had to come up with one for this theory. TOADKEEPER, 
indeed!)
I've written before that I feel that Hermione is extremely maternal 
in her treatment of all the boys.  Ron resists, I think in part 
because he alone (of the males you've listed), has been thoroughly 
mothered in real life and doesn't need her for all that. I agree 
that it's interesting that she accepts a date with Krum, whom she 
cannot really mother.  I've never quite been able to fathom what 
Krum was doing in fancying her, though.  Perhaps all those fangirls 
were just too scary for the athletically brilliant but socially 
backward Krum.

More Pippin:
> Ginny, on the other hand, does not assume a maternal role 
> toward Harry (nor does she carry the ubiquitous M). I agree that 
> her immaturity and neediness are echoes of Harry's own and 
> that we will see her grow out of them just as Harry has.  Her 
> rescue may be seen as Harry rescuing his own feminine side, 
> but also as a symbolic defeat of Harry's sexual fears as 
> embodied in the traditional Serpent.
> 
>  As Harry grows into adulthood, his need for a surrogate mother 
> may diminish and he may come to desire a romantic rather than 
> nurturing relationship with a female friend. The Oedipal need to 
> separate his yearning for a mother from his sexual desires 
> might actually drive him away from Hermione at that point, 
> although her  kiss at the end of GoF may signal her desire to 
> have things otherwise.


Maybe this is why a romantic relationship between Harry and Hermione 
has always seemed to be so violently *wrong* somehow.  It seems that 
a mature Harry would not be able to romantically connect with such a 
maternal/domineering type.  I've never been one to believe that 
males *really* want to marry their mothers ;-).

I'm confident that in the remaining books, we will get much more 
interesting information concerning the currently underdeveloped 
female characters.  I really think that once we have the series as a 
whole, we'll be even more impressed with JK as a writer as the arc 
of the overall story is revealed.

Thanks, Pippin for one of the best posts I've seen recently.

Jo Serenadust