Depictions of Mental Illness (WAS: Moaning Myrtle)

[ssk7882 <skelkins@attbi.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51443

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, srsiriusblack at a... wrote:

Snuffles wrote (of Moaning Myrtle):

> Actually, I never really thought of how much her character bothers 
> me until your post.

> We have discussed a lot of stereotyping in the books in these 
> discussions, and perhaps I am biased as I despise seeing mentally 
> ill people portrayed constantly in degrading stereotypes.. but I 
> think I might be on to something here...
>
> ideas?

What an interesting question, Snuffles!

You know, I think that characters who display behaviors that suggest
symptoms of RL mental illness actually get a pretty *good* shake in 
JKR, compared with most other writers?

I mean, true, adolescent depressive Moaning Myrtle is played for 
laughs, and schizoid Barty Jr. isn't precisely portrayed as a paragon 
of human virtue, and charming sociopath Tom Riddle is not someone 
we're supposed to admire.  All true.

But then, when you look at the series' designated good guys, I think 
that you see a lot of traits that similarly resemble or hint at such
RL problems -- and the author expects us to love them anyway.  She
allows them to be more than the sum of their symptoms.

Remus Lupin seems to have some serious non-compliance issues when it 
comes to his Wolfsbane Potion, and I think that you can make a very 
strong case (as the Pip!Squeak has, in the past) that his lycanthropy 
is actually far more kin to medicable psychosis than it is to either 
chronic illness or HIV (the other diseases most often cited as the RL 
analogues).  And yet JKR loves him, and his portrayal is 
overwhelmingly sympathetic.

And then there's Sirius Black.  PTSD?  Maybe, maybe not, but 
whatever's wrong with him, I'm almost certain that he would be 
certifiable by our standards.  Certainly in PoA, he is a danger to 
himself and others. Even by GoF, he doesn't seem precisely stable.  
But again, he's very sympathetically portrayed, and I think that the 
reader is supposed to care quite deeply for him. 

Hagrid bursts into tears at the slightest provocation, has problems
controlling his temper, and has a drinking problem.  Percy shows 
signs of incipient obsessive-compulsive disorder.  The Twins are 
oppositional defiants with a marked lack of compassion; and if they 
were growing up in the contemporary Muggle US, I suspect that they 
would have been put on Ritalin sometime around when they started 
Hogwarts.  ;-)

As readers, we don't always all like those characters equally -- or 
even at *all.*  But I think that JKR likes them, and I don't think 
that their mental quirks (not even Percy's) are portrayed as at all 
contemptible.  They are portrayed as problems for the characters, but 
not as the sum of their personalities, which cannot always be said 
for such depictions in other works of fiction.

And then there's Severus Snape, who I would say has some rather
serious difficulties and possibly always has had.  What sort of
person knows all of those curses at the tender age of eleven?  Snape 
not only doesn't look to his personal hygiene now; it seems from 
Sirius' comments about him that he never did, not even as a 
schoolboy.  In the real world, that's often a sign of mental 
illness.  Snape is not in full control of his emotions, and he shows 
strong obsessive tendencies.  But (while I know that some here would 
contest this) I do think that his portrayal is in its own way quite 
sympathetic.  In fact, I think that it is generally when he is at his 
least "sane" (end of PoA, Egg and the Eye) that the narrative voice 
invites the *most* sympathy for him.

Lucius Malfoy, on the other hand, doesn't seem to me to show any 
particular symptoms of RL mental illness.  He's just plain venal.  
Quirrell was only *pretending* to be suffering from emotional 
trauma.  Lockhart at his most "normal" is also Lockhart revealed to 
be chillingly capable of murder.  Brain-blasted!Lockhart, on the 
other hand, is harmless.

Really, I think that JKR's a lot less down on the mentally ill
than many writers are.

Although we schizoids might want to have a little *word* with her 
about the defamatory aspects of her portrayal of Barty Junior.  ;-)


Elkins