A neurotic behaviour?(was: Why to Like and Not Like OoP)

[iris_ft]

No: HPFGUIDX 71079

Sorry, I already posted this yesterday. I send it again, after 
correcting some careless mistakes about verbs (hem,hem! hope that's 
correct now)), and changing the title, because it's not actually 
about the original topic.

n03au wrote :

"The following reply was fantastic:
>I must not be adept enough to know or care. I
> don't try to push you to read it if it isn't appealing
> to you. Why do you feel you must try to lessen it for
> me?"

I'm too lazy to look through all the posts to find out who wrote the 
quote, but I'd like to thank her/him, because it exactly expresses 
what I feel about this debate.

I'd like now to add my two Knuts regarding Harry's behaviour in OotP.
Of course, I'm not specialised in the subject, so I don't think 
everyone will agree with my point of view. Maybe I'm completely out 
of topic; And it also could be nothing new. However, here it is.

   
nO3au wrote:
"1/ Psychology references.[skip] . There is no prescription for the 
manner 
in which people respond to crisis."

What is disturbing about Harry in this book is not his anger. It's 
his silence. As many of you wrote already, he doesn't want to speak 
of what happened in the graveyard, and he doesn't ask questions, 
when he should logically do it.
Instead of that, he bullies his cousin; he shouts at his best 
friends; he cuts himself off from the rest of the crowd.
It's a very risky business. OK, it's part of teenage behaviour. But 
IMO, there's something more about it. Let's see:

a)Harry bullies Dudley. He's looking for trouble with "Big D". What 
does he want? To evacuate his anger? Maybe. Couldn't he be also 
trying to make Dudley kick him? He would have a good reason to break 
the restriction about underage magic. Then, doesn't he try to get 
also into trouble with the Minister? Isn't he looking for what 
happens next, for this hearing that looks like a trial? Doesn't he 
need to hear that he is a criminal? That he is mad?

b)Harry shouts at Ron and Hermione, he often mistreats them; he also 
cuts off from the rest of the gang. 
They are trying to help him, but he acts as if he didn't want them 
to do it. Moreover: he acts as if he wanted them to turn aside from 
him.

c)He doesn't ask questions, whereas it could help him to cope with 
his problems. His silence keeps him in a permanent uncertainty, in a 
permanent feeling of discomfort. But what if he'd enjoy 
unconsciously the situation?

Here we are: isn't Harry suffering from masochism? How can we 
explain, otherwise, his stubbornness in behaving in such a way he's 
trapped into a kind of never ending suffering?
It can be only my own point of view, but when I read the book, I had 
the nauseating sensation that Harry didn't want the others to 
comfort him, and that, on the contrary, he was desperately, fiercely 
trying to punish himself.
Look at how he behaves: he doesn't care about himself (he looks like 
a tramp, he doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep), he often acts in such a 
way he gets into trouble. How can we consider the way he always 
provokes Prof. Umbridge? Isn't he looking for what follows, for 
those ominous detentions, with the dark quill cutting his hand while 
he's writing, always the same thing, "I must not tell lies"?
There's all a process of self-destruction, of self-degradation that 
appears in Harry's behaviour. 
Why? Because, as JKR explains in the Christmas chapters, he feels 
dirty.
And the problem doesn't come only from Voldemort's attempts upon his 
mind.
It first comes from what Harry lived in the graveyard. Here, I'm not 
telling you something new: I just refer to some previous post I 
found last summer lurking through the archive. They are 
titled "Perversion in the graveyard". They remind us what Voldemort, 
taking Harry's blood, really did: he committed a rape.
And IMO, what JKR depicts through Harry's behaviour all along OotP, 
is the disorder such a terrible experience can breed into a mind. 
Sometimes, and we all read articles, see reports about this (I, as a 
teacher, learned what it was like in a lecture a psychologist gave 
some years ago in our school)   the victim of a rape tends to 
degrade herself/himself even more, in order to cope with the trauma. 
And if she/he is so harsh with herself/himself, it's because the 
trauma takes root in shame and in the difficulty to confess it.

That's why, IMHO, Harry's behaviour is so different from what many 
of us expected it would be. He behaves like the depressive victim of 
a rape (not only of his body, but also of his soul). That's why he 
looks for trouble, that's why sometimes he's odd, that's why he 
doesn't speak. None of the others (except Ginny, but he's too 
depressive to realize it) would be able, according to his own point 
of view, to understand how he feels exactly. The worst is probably 
that he's conscious of the problem, but doesn't have the force yet 
to overpass it. And that, many times, a depression comprises a phase 
of self-satisfaction in suffering.

I'm not specialised in the problem, as I said. I'd like to read some 
more relevant remarks about it. I'm certain that some of you are 
able to put the right name on Harry's behaviour much better than I 
did. A neurotic behaviour?

Amicalement,

Iris