Puzzling Dursleys(Re: end of Dursleys)

[Iris FT]

No: HPFGUIDX 46029


 
 
 

Barb wrote:

“Just as JKR seems to have deliberately drawn parallels between Dudley and Draco Malfoy, she may also be drawing parallels between Snape, an unlikable character who nonetheless protects Harry, and the Dursleys, equally unlikable folks who also serve to protect Harry.”

 

That reminds me two sequences from PS/SS and GoF, I don’t know if they have been commented yet. They puzzle me since my first reading of the series. In PS/SS, Uncle Vernon declares to Hagrid:

“We swore when we took him in we’d put a stop to that rubbish,(
) swore we’d stamp it out of him!” (quote from Bloomsbury edition, p 43).

Does he want to criticise the wizarding world, or does he want to protect his nephew? At first glance, the first explanation could be the right one, for the Dursleys hate and despise magic. However, it could be also a protective reaction. We don’t know what was in the letter Dumbledore left to the Dursleys the night he decided to choose them as Harry’s guardians, but we can assert they knew how the Potters died when Petunia says about Lily:

“
 she went and got herself blown up “ (op.cit, p 44).

Vernon Dursley doesn’t want Harry back to the WW because he knows it means danger, particularly death danger. Of course, he wants to protect his family; he doesn’t want to suffer an attack from any kind of wizard.

But why doesn’t he tell it to Hagrid instead of talking about Harry? He doesn’t say, for example: “We swore we wouldn’t have any contact with the WW”. He says “(we) swore wed stamp it out of him”, as if he were talking about a disease, or a malediction he had to stop, as if he wanted a “normal” life for his nephew. Why does he say twice “swore”? This is not a light word. Why does he use it about Harry if the boy doesn’t mean anything to him?

I’m not saying there the Dursleys have to be absolved; they are unforgivable in the way they abuse Harry. However, I can’t help thinking Vernon’s reaction is very odd. Of course, if we consider the Potter series shares many points with legends and fairytales (I don’t remember who quoted Joseph Campbell) we can say that’s the classical opposition the hero has to face when he’s about to begin his adventures; there’s always someone to tell him he’d better stay where he is. And it’s obvious the Dursleys, “proud to say they are perfectly normal”, don’t want anything to perturb their own representation of normality, so they don’t accept their nephew to be quite the opposite. Nevertheless, JKR put those words in the mouth of Uncle Vernon, and they make me wonder whether there’s only hatred in Vernon’s opposition to Harry going to Hogwarts. It’s obvious he’s a mean guy, but is he mean so that he would be able to put deliberately his nephew’s life into danger?

A friend of mine told me one day that what she likes in JKR’s writing is her sense of uncertainty. We never can say firmly: “That’s it, this character, this event have to be interpreted in that way”. I’d like to add this is also the way baroque authors used to write. That’s also why I enjoy her books.

Back to the Dursleys, more precisely to Aunt Petunia in GoF. 

Barb points out parallels between Dudley and Malfoy (that’s right;  according to a psychoanalyst who wrote an essay about Harry Potter, they are the two faces of a same figure).

Did anyone notice the parallel she drew between Petunia and Lily in GoF?

When Arthur Weasley wants to sort Dudley out from Ton Tongue effects, “advancing on him with his wand outstretched” that’s what JKR writes about Petunia: “ 
 Aunt Petunia screamed worse than ever and threw herself on top of Dudley, shielding him from Mr Weasley”.

It’s a burlesque scene, but the fact is Petunia acts just the same way Lily did when she wanted to protect Harry from Voldemort. Though Petunia is as mean as Vernon, she’s got the same protective instinct as Lily’s. She doesn’t understand Arthur Weasley only wants to help Dudley, and considers magic as a terrible thing. She doesn’t think about herself when she sees that her son is in what she believes to be danger and “shields” him. For the first time in the series, we don’t see her as a shrew, but as a loving mother, ready to sacrifice herself for her son. For the first time, the caricature turns into a tragically figure. Of course we laugh at reading the scene. But the moment when Petunia reproduces Lily’s reaction facing a menace changes its whole perspective and our perception of the character.

 

Hem
 At least that’s my point of view. Maybe the forthcoming book (quousque tandem, JKR, quousque tandem!) will prove I’m completely wrong


 

Iris     

    

  


 



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