Snape as Byronic Hero?

Tue Dec 17 06:44:58 UTC 2002

No: HPFGUIDX 48420

GulPlum wrote:

<<
Whilst going through the last several weeks of posts recently to 
catch up with HPFGU while I was too busy on the movie list to follow 
events daily, I found at least two descriptions of Snape as Byronic 
Hero (sorry, I haven't noted who it was).

I'll be perfectly honest and admit that I've been scratching my head 
trying to square that notion for the last couple of days.
>>

Well, here's a web resource on "Characteristics of the Byronic Hero:" 
[1]
http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/
CHARACTE.htm

I'll quote from the salient points, many of which overlap yours:

--> "He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer or is in exile 
of some kind."

Well, Snape appears to be a social exile. He's exiled from all his 
old friends; we never see him in a social situation in canon other 
than meals. He seems like a loner in his present capacity. He might 
have the respect and even admiration of some of his colleagues, but 
he doesn't seem to hang out with them at the Three Broomsticks. 

--> "Often the Byronic hero is moody by nature or passionate about a 
particular issue."

Snape is quite moody (are we arguing that? <g>) and he's passionate 
about the issues that push his buttons. Harry obviously constitutes 
the "particular issue" that sets him off, but Snape also looses it 
regarding anything that touches on the Marauders or James in 
particular. He tries to appear cool and calculating, but he looses 
his temper a little too often to really carry this effect off, IMO. 
And I'd say his efforts to support Dumbledore's cause show his 
passion about redeeming himself and fighting for the cause of good.

GulPlum says of the Byronic type:

<<
His personality is ruled by passion, far, far, above rational thought 
or consideration. He pursues his own ends according to his self-
generated moral code, against all opposition (of which he encounters 
a great deal!).
>>

But remarks of Snape:

<<
...his every action appears calculated and determined. To say that 
Snape is ruled by his passions just doesn't measure up.
>>

Well, Tabouli and Eloise can explain Snape's emotional side better 
than I can, but I think Snape fits the Byronic bill well enough. We 
can see his passionate, self-styled pursuit of an end, for instance, 
in PoA in his surveillance of Lupin. He tries over and over to alert 
Dumbledore to what he considers suspicious activity, but he gets 
nowhere. When he pursues Lupin into the Shack he's certainly rushing 
off in the pursuit of his own code of justice against what could be 
formidable opposition. When he finally encounters Lupin appearing to 
be in league with Sirius, nothing can convince him he's misled and he 
begins a magnificent, overblown, time-wasting rant before he's 
finally knocked out of commission. Finally, in desperation, he outs 
Lupin because a) Lupin's a dangerous werewolf, b) because he believes 
that Lupin was aiding and abetting a notorious murderer to gain 
access to Harry and c) because he can't get over his very deep-seated 
anger at Lupin for the Prank. That, to me, suggests a whopping 
combination of untamed emotion coupled with a self-generated sense of 
justice.

Furthermore, even if Snape imagines he's trying to cure Harry of 
behaving without common sense, as GulPlum points out, I don't feel 
that this rules out that Snape can also behave with irrational 
emotion. His obsession with Harry is certainly over-emotional. In 
fact, I find it quite noteworthy that Snape often accuses Harry of 
qualities he's guilty of himself, such as arrogance and 
foolhardiness.

Back to quoting from "Characteristics of the Byronic Hero:"

--> "He also has emotional and intellectual capacities, which are 
superior to the average man."

Well, we certainly get the idea that Snape has intellectual skills 
regarding potions, curses and the Dark Arts in general, as well as 
linguistically/poetic ones. Here we see the Byronic hero can be both 
emotional and intellectual; these don't cancel each other out. 

--> "These heightened abilities force the Byronic hero to be 
arrogant, confident, abnormally sensitive, and extremely conscious of 
himself."

Snape displays the odd combination that the Byronic type encompasses: 
he's both extremely arrogant and so sensitive about himself that it 
smacks of insecurity. For instance, he's very touchy about appearing 
to be vulnerable. He reacts irrationally and starts screaming when 
Harry discovers his injured leg in PS/SS. In GoF, he reacts with 
shame in front of Fake!Moody at what he seems to consider his own 
display of weakness in clutching his arm. He loathes having his 
authority questioned and reacts viciously when his students come near 
doing so. And this proud/insecure dichotomy explains his reaction to 
the Prank: he's humiliated because he's too arrogant to want to 
imagine himself as needing rescue, but he honors his debt to James 
anyway. 

Yet Snape really is confident of his magical abilities and his 
bravery and never thinks twice before rushing off in the face of 
danger. 

--> "Sometimes, this is to the point of nihilism resulting in his 
rebellion against life itself."

We get the idea he might have been more like that when he was young; 
now, the fact that he's willing to risk his life for Dumbledore at 
least gives him the same sort of sweeping drama and death-defiance.

--> "In one form or another, he rejects the values and moral codes of 
society and because of this he is often unrepentant by society's 
standards."

Snape is unrepentant when it comes to the snotty and cruel way he 
normally acts, as with his students. One gets the sense he's seen too 
much real cruelty to feel guilty over a few sarcastic remarks. This 
might be a petty form of Byronic rebellion, but so be it. On the 
other hand:

--> "Often the Byronic hero is characterized by a guilty memory of 
some unnamed sexual crime. Due to these characteristics, the Byronic 
hero is often a figure of repulsion, as well as fascination."

Well, if we substitute "stint with the Death Eaters" for his past 
crime, he fits the mold. He does appear to be very guilty over that, 
and the fact that he obviously was a criminal with a working 
knowledge of the Dark Arts lends him this aura as an object of 
repulsion and fascination. 

I'm sure there are legitimate ways in which Snape doesn't adhere to 
the Byronic ideal. Maybe he is too calculating. But I'd say that the 
way in which the Byronic archetype operates along the conflicted axes 
of guilt/defiance and intellect/passion suits Snape well enough to 
make the comparison. Of course this all depends on what 
characteristics readers privilege the most. To me, Snape's salient 
Byronic qualities include his moodiness, hypersensitivity, 
brilliance, tendency towards overblown, dramatic gestures, arrogance, 
cynicism and sense of remorse and regret over a dark past. Sure we 
can argue about the details, but the overall effect remains.

As to whether he's handsome enough to qualify as a Byronic hero... 
well... beauty is in the eye of the beholder. <g> I suspect there are 
a more than a few females out there for whom a large hooked nose and 
hair in need of shampoo do not serve as an effective deterrent. If 
JKR did intend to make Snape perfectly un-sexy, she failed. She would 
have been better off to describe him like Peter: fat, bald and 
squeaky-voiced like a eunuch. Besides, since Byronic heroes are often 
a source of repulsion as well as fascination, I'd say Snape's exotic 
dark looks and questionable hygiene put him squarely in the 
repulsive-but-fascinating category.

As to that other S-man -- I don't see Sirius as being quite Dark 
enough to be a convincing Byronic hero. He's close, but not quite 
morally ambiguous and scary enough. I guess by some definitions, the 
Byronic hero is exceedingly guilty over a past crime he overestimates 
his culpability in, but the Byronic hero can also run to the Dark end 
of the spectrum as with Milton's Satan in _Paradise Lost_. Sirius 
defenders are welcome to argue with me, but I always saw him as only 
being guilty of foolishness. The Prank, for instance, is exactly the 
sort of colossally dumb stunt that a 16 year old boy would try. But 
it wasn't eeeeevil, IMO. Similarly, his reliance on Peter as the 
Secret Keeper showed an error in judgment, but obviously Sirius never 
intended any harm to come to James and Lily. His heart was in the 
right place. On the other hand, Snape's joining the Death Eaters and 
serving with them was truly wrong. Snape is most likely guilty of 
real crimes, with real blood on his hands. This, for me, ups the 
stakes quite a bit and puts him more firmly in the realm of larger-
than-life Byronic melodrama. He's not just a bad boy, he's made 
enormous mistakes, and that contributes to the unsettling sense of 
darkness and moral ambiguity that I feel Snape embodies far more than 
Sirius.

Of course, Byronic heroes usually aren't frustrated schoolteachers, 
but I covered that aspect in another post. ;-)

~Porphyria

[1] From "A Hypertext on Charlotte Bronte's _Jane Eyre_"
http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/charweb/
TITLESPA.htm