Why to Like and Not Like OoP

[m.steinberger]

No: HPFGUIDX 71105


> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "iris_ft" <iris_ft at y...> wrote:
> 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?"

Apologies to all who feel that way. I enjoy books more when I understand how
they work, and I was hoping that some OoP fans would respond with an
explanation of what works in OoP that I could relate to. Yours is the first
so far. I've plenty of experience with people suffering from all sorts of
torment, but not with rape victims. So I have to take you at your word.
Maybe Harry's behavior makes perfect sense in that context. If I get a
chance, I'll check it out.

Thank you,

The Admiring Skeptic

<Rest of original post follows:>
> 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 express
> 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 shout at his best
> friends; he cut 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
> cut 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, learnt 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