Perversion In the Graveyard (WAS: Sexuality in HP)

[ssk7882]

No: HPFGUIDX 40405

I suggested that there are a number of places in the graveyard 
sequence of GoF where the author seems to have deliberately chosen to 
use words with sexual, sensual, or erotic connotations.

Dicentra wrote:

> On the other hand, the problem with sexualized language is that it's
> not specialized language. 

No, it isn't.  But if enough words with romantic, erotic or sexual 
connotations are used in seemingly incongruous contexts (for 
Voldemort to be "caressing" *anything* strikes me as fairly 
incongruous, really, because the word itself connotes gentleness 
and tenderness, neither of which are qualities that Voldemort 
possesses), then I think that they do create a cumulative effect on 
the reader.  In the case of the graveyard sequence, that cumulative 
effect is to make the scene seem, as so many people have said, 
"creepy."  

I would go a bit further, actually.  I think that its effect is to 
make the scene strike readers as not merely creepy, but as actively 
perverse.  We do, I think, tend to read what happens to Harry in the 
graveyard as something above and beyond a terrible ordeal. We read it 
as a *violation.*  A violation, and a profound loss of innocence.  

As far as I can tell, this is by far the most common reading of the 
end of GoF.  It is the majority reading, the "normative reading," if 
you will.  Different interpretations are certainly possible, but I've 
not myself ever heard them articulated.  I therefore suspect that 
they are exceptionally rare.

I think that the majority of readers interprets these events in such 
a manner for a reason.  The author *directs* us towards that 
reading.  It does not happen by accident, nor simply because the bare-
bones facts of what happens to Harry at the end of GoF are 
intrinsically horrific.  They certainly *are* horrific.  Witnessing 
the cold-blooded murder of a peer, being helpless and tortured and 
gloated over, being forced to serve as the unwilling aid to your 
enemy's resurrection...all of these things are indeed "violating," 
and they can indeed be read as constituting a "loss of innocence."  
But a bare-bones recounting of this series of events would not have 
conveyed the idea nearly as *reliably,* nor as universally, nor with 
the same degree of emotional power.  The reading of graveyard-as-
violation is conveyed not merely through the events of the plot, but 
also through the specific words that the author uses to describe 
them. 

This brings us back to Rochelle's original Elephant In the Drawing 
Room: the reading of the graveyard sequence as a metaphoric rape.

I had been trying to avoid stealing Rochelle's Big Canon for this 
one, since I was under the impression that she had planned on coming 
back to this topic --- it was, after all, her pet elephant.  It's 
been a while now, though, so I'll just go for it.  Apologies to 
Rochelle if I'm in any way stepping on her toes here.

Okay.  Rochelle cited JKR's use of the word "penetrate" as evidence 
for her reading of the taking of Harry's blood as a metaphoric rape.  
She then commented that there was a lot more, but that she wasn't 
ready to go into it yet.

The really *big* signifier of the rape metaphor, to my mind, 
isn't "penetrated."  As others have pointed out, there aren't really 
all that many other words that JKR could have chosen to use 
here.  "Nicked," "pricked" (problematic in and of itself), and "cut" 
all leap to my mind immediately as other possibilities -- a thesaurus 
might suggest far more -- but none of these word choices would have 
been quite as accurate or appropriate.  The author's use of the 
verb "to penetrate" would therefore not strike me as necessarily
all that significant if it were standing all by itself.

In combination with the precise phrasing of the ritual, however, it 
*does* seem significant to me because the precise phrasing of the 
ritual sets forth the rape metaphor quite blatantly.

"Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken..."

I don't see how this could help but suggest rape to a native English 
speaker.  In English-speaking cultures, to "take by force" is a 
common euphemism for rape.  


Alley wrote:

> To a certain extent I agree but I also think that sexual undertones 
> pervade our lives and literature and we have created our language 
> and the connotations attached to our language accordingly. And one 
> should be aware of the connotations of the language you're using 
> even if that's not your primary intention. 

Yes, precisely.  Whether JKR was consciously aware of it at the time 
or not, using the phrase "forcibly taken" was a significant authorial 
choice.  Personally, I suspect that it was a conscious one.  But 
whether it was conscious or unconscious on the author's part is 
really not terribly relevant.  It has the same *effect* either way.

Nor, I would argue, does the question of whether or not the *reader* 
notices the analogy on any conscious level matter all that much.  
Whether the reader notices it consciously or not, the choice of 
phrase will nonetheless have a specific effect on the vast majority 
of the scene's readers.  "Forcibly taken" connotes rape, which in 
turn connotes violation, loss of innocence, and not merely sexuality 
but a *perversion* of sexuality.

The sense of perversion is important, IMO.  I don't think that the 
graveyard sequence is considered so "Dark" merely because it is 
violent, or because the protagonist remains helpless throughout so 
much of it (although both of these things certainly do contribute 
to its scariness).  I also think that people tend to react so 
strongly to this sequence because it comes across as perverse, as an 
offense, a *Wrongness.*  It is depicted as Abomination.

I believe that this sense of the circumstances surrounding 
Voldemort's rebirth as a "Wrongness," a fundamental and profound 
violation of natural law, is also strongly reinforced by the role 
that the shades of the dead play in opposing Voldemort at the end and 
aiding Harry in his escape.  The text gives us a perfectly "rational" 
magical explanation for why this happens: Priori Incantatem.

What the *subtext* says to me, though, is this: "What has just 
happened here is Abomination.  In the face of such offense, the dead 
themselves rise up in protest. In the face of such offense, even the 
silent dead are moved to speak."

Harry's heroism in recovering Cedric's body for proper disposal -- 
standing in stark contrast to Voldemort's use of his father's bones --
also comes into play here.  Conceptions of the proper treatment of 
and respect for the dead are powerful and deeply-rooted cultural 
constructs.  They have weight and history; they touch on some very 
ancient (and very fundamental) concepts of propriety and taboo.

Now, if as an author what you want (either consciously or 
subconsciously) is to encourage your readers to an interpretation of 
a scene as depicting a fundamental Wrongness -- violation, 
perversion, abomination, taboo -- then one way to do that is to 
strike at all of the hot button issues of your readership, and then 
to *twist* those issues, to pervert them.  Violating cultural taboos 
is what leads to that sense of instinctive revulsion that gets 
translated to an emotional response of: "Oh, this is just so *wrong.*"

Here are some issues that immediately leap to my mind as good 
candidates for this treatment.  

Sexuality.  Religion.  The Family.  Treatment of the dead.

The Graveyard sequence hits every one of them.


1) Sexuality.

Sexuality is a big one.  As this thread has amply demonstrated, 
people have strong emotional reactions to *any* discussion of 
sexuality.  It's a serious hot button issue.

So does Graveyard violate our conceptions of what constitutes 
"normal" or "acceptable" sexuality?

Yes.  It draws the rape analogy. It implies that Voldemort is 
experiencing some form of physical arousal or excitement from 
torturing a fourteen-year-old boy.  It uses words with sensual or 
erotic connotations in places where they seem inappropriate and 
disturbing.  

(It is not that a wand is "phallic" *per se* that makes 
Voldemort's "caressing" it "gently" so disturbing to me, by the way.  
Rather, it is that in Voldemort's hands, a wand is an implement of 
murder.  For a character to be described as "gently caressing" a 
yonic weapon, or even a starkly technological one -- like the 
proverbial Big Red Button -- would have had very much the same effect 
on me.  'Cause you know, sometimes even a donut can be a cigar.)  


2) Religion.

Religion is just as hot a button as sex, if not an even hotter one.  
On this list, for example, we tend to get even more nervous about 
discussions that raise the issue of religion than we do about those 
that raise the issue of sexuality.  Matters of faith and of religion 
are important to people, very important.  

So does Graveyard violate or pervert or "twist" religious concepts?  
Is it in any sense *blasphemous?*

Yes.  I think that it is that, as well.  Dicentra objected to my 
description of the Death Eaters' apparent ecstacy as sexual by 
pointing out that the same quasi-sexual language is also used to 
describe states of religious ecstacy.  Alley also commented on this 
fact.

True enough.  Leaving aside the entire question of whether the DEs' 
initially ecstatic response to seeing Voldemort returned is sexual or 
mystical, however -- or even whether there is all that significant a 
difference between these two states -- there are plenty of other uses 
of religious imagery and language in the graveyard sequence.  The type
of obeisance that Voldemort expects from his followers, for example, 
is quasi-religious.  Generally speaking, it is those rulers who have 
laid claims to a divine source of authority as well as a civil one 
who have historically received hem-kissing as a formalized gesture of
submission.

Religious imagery pervades this entire sequence.  Voldemort's 
cauldron of rebirth, particularly in the context of a novel entitled 
_Goblet of Fire,_ appears as a kind of Dark Grail.  It is a vessel of 
resurrection, but of resurrection through parricide and murder, 
rebirth through the sacrifice of others, rather than the sacrifice of 
the self.  His immersion in baby form is a perversion of the 
sacrament of baptism, and his use of Harry's blood is a perversion of 
the sacrament of communion.  Voldemort demands confessional from his 
followers and doles out penance, but he also describes himself as 
unforgiving ("I do not forgive.").  The rites of confessional are 
therefore perverted: atonement is rejected as impossible, thereby 
rendering confession itself empty, meaningless.  All of 
Voldemort's "faithful servant"ing has strong Biblical echoes.  

Also, and this may just be me, Pettigrew's depiction in the Graveyard 
sequence has always struck me as strongly reminiscent of a figure 
from an ancient mystery cult.  Hooded, balding, physically weak, 
symbolically self-castrated, he is granted a singular status of 
intimacy with his master.  As first Voldemort's nursemaid and then 
his valet, he tends to his *physical* needs: feeds him, carries him, 
dresses him.  We never see any of the other DEs come into direct 
physical contact with Voldemort.  They show their obeisance by 
kissing the hems of his robes, not his hand or even his feet.  
Pettigrew reminds me of a temple attendent, one of the castrated 
devotees permitted to enter sacred spaces which remain barred 
to uncut men.  He plays the eunuch acolyte to Voldemort's hierophant.

There is also literal sacrilege going on in this scene.  This 
graveyard is not merely a family plot; it is also a churchyard and 
thus consecrated ground.  The very first sentence describing the 
setting gives us this detail: "They were standing instead in a 
dark and overgrown graveyard; the black outline of a small church was 
visible beyond a large yew tree to their right."  This is almost 
certainly ground that was consecrated in a very specific Christian 
context, a context in which both the disturbance of the dead and the 
performance of malign ("Dark") magical rituals are anathema.  It is 
therefore not only blasphemous, but actively sacrilegious.


3) The Family.

The family is a hot-button issue as well, although not nearly so much 
so as sex and religion.  Nonetheless, messing with people's 
conceptions of appropriate familial relations often reaps a strong 
emotional response.

Graveyard messes with the family.  It messes with it in a big way.  
Voldemort speaks to his followers as a reproachful parent to erring 
children.  His response to their arrival is: "But look, Harry!  My 
*true* family returns...."

Voldemort is, of course, a parricide, and his "true family" is 
treacherous, disloyal, and scared to death of him.  They hold no 
genuine affection for him at all, nor does he treat them with any 
hint of parental love.  He is their "father," but this is a 
conception of paternity that reflects *only* its disciplinarian 
aspects -- Father as Punisher, Father as Critic, Father as Enforcer, 
Father as Judge.  Divorced from the loving aspects of the paternal 
role, this is a perversion of our conception of proper familial 
relations, and the fact that it is coming from somebody who brags 
about having himself committed parricide only makes it that much 
worse.


4) Proper Treatment of the Dead.

I covered this one above.  This is an ancient taboo, and JKR does not 
hesitate to make use of it.  Exuming ones father's bones for the 
purpose of using them in a self-serving magical ritual is Just Not 
Okay, and the fact that we are meant to read the treatment of the 
dead as important is then further reinforced by Cedric's request 
to have his own body brought back to his parents for proper disposal.


So, yeah.  Graveyard *is* creepy.  It's disturbing.  It's Dark.  And 
I think that it is all those things for reasons that go a bit deeper 
than the simple fact that it portrays violent events, or that bad 
things happen to Harry in it.  It's a very powerful scene indeed, and 
much of its power, IMO, derives from its deliberate perversions of 
concepts and institutions that we consider sacred.

And yes, BTW.  I worry about Harry's emotional condition at this 
point in the storyline too. 


-- Elkins