Theory of theme & Jung's Archetypes & Love

[caspenzoe]

No: HPFGUIDX 111580

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sevenhundredandthirteen" 
<sevenhundredandthirteen at y...> wrote:
> Caspen wrote:
> 
> > I apprecate your response Laurasia, but I'm a littl confused. 
> > Nowhere have I said that "[although] ... the magic in the story 
> > symbolises this spiritual level of the world.... that this has 
all 
> > been consciously arranged by JKR, but yet the plots of her books 
> > haven't been." Nor did I say that "...any major characters' 
death 
> is 
> > not actually relevant to the story." If I thought so, perhaps 
I'd 
> be 
> > inclined to be more of an HP fundamentalist. 
> 
> 
> Laurasia:
> 
> Hi Caspen, sorry if I got a wrong impression of what you were 
trying 
> to say. I got the impression you felt that JKR was extremely 
> conscious of the metaphysical layers in HP by your frequent 
comments 
> such as (From your original post 111400): 
> 
> "(this is JKR'S raelly brilliant point)"
> "(and again this is what makes JKR brilliant, IMO)"
> "Very clever and skillful, IMO."
> 
> which to me gave me the impression that you were saying that if 
JKR 
> was truly to be clever, brilliant and skilled she *must* have been 
> consciously including all the multi-layers.
> 
*Snip!* 
> The last reference to the 'beheadings of major characters' gave me 
> the impression that you thought HP fans who consider, eg Sirius's 
> death absolutely relevant were just being too literal. > 
*Snip!*
> Caspen:
> 
> However, and more to the point, evaluating an 
> > author's "brilliance" based upon speculation about how 
consciously 
> > or not the themes developed in his/her work are, is just plain 
> > absurd. 
> 
> Laurasia:
> 
> And I'm afraid I disagree with you on how we should evaluate an 
> author's brilliance. I don't think its fair to evaluate a
> *work* on what the author's intentions were- the work should
> stand by itself. HOWEVER, I *do* think it's fair to evaluate an 
> author on what their intentions were. 
> 
> For example: If George Orwell just wrote a book about a farm and 
> pigs taking over (Animal Farm) then I would still allow the books 
> itself to be an allegory of Communism, but I would give Orwell no 
> credit for it as an author. 
*Snip!*
> I don't agree that JKR acts on a purely technical level. I think 
she 
> acts on an intuitive level- the reason she inserted Dumbledore 
> wasn't because she was unoriginal and couldn't think of any ideas. 
I 
> think it was because he 'felt' right- as a subconscious level, 
right 
> where Jung's archetypes operate. So, I agree with what you've said 
> about universal themes. However, that to me only reinforces my 
> opinion that JKR is not "brilliant, skilled and clever" but merely 
> responding to a human need which only operates on a subconscious 
> level.
*Snip!*
> Laurasia:
> 
> I feel JKR's writing style and process (from what she has shown us 
> in interviews) contradicts an anti-fundamentalist view. How can 
JKR 
> insert an anti-literalist theme in her books when she is a pro-
> literalist writer? That conclusion was based only on logic and 
> nothing else. I was referring to the one interpretation of theme 
> (about the place of metaphor, about anti-literalists/anti-
> fundamentalists) which you brought up as opposed to all themes in 
> general.
> 
> However, I should've perhaps chosen a different word 
> to 'accidental.' Maybe unconscious, intuitive, subconscious, 
> instinctive would have served my intent better. 

Well thanks again Luarasia, for a very interesting post. I think I 
am a little clearer on what the confusion is about. 

For starters, when I describe an author as "brilliant" (and I still 
maintain that JKR is brilliant in the fantasy genre - and certainly 
in the children's fantasy genre - though I would certainly hesitate 
at this point to classify her among the world's greatest authors - 
she has certain stylistic problems - but that's another post) - I'm 
referring to the quality of her "intuition" (to use your word) which 
allows her to resonate with human archtypes - major and deep ones - 
thus far very well - and not to any supposed ability on her part 
(though I'll add, once more that I've never supposed it) to explain 
all of her decisions about her story according to some formula - as 
a rocket scientist might be expected to be able to explain all of 
his/her calculations according to proven mathematical theories. Art 
doesn't work that way, nor is it created that way (although bad 
fiction does - recycling the same tired archtypes with no new or 
interesting content repeatedly, because they sell to bored and 
boring people).  

What continues to astound me, however is that you seem to insist on 
concluding  that an artist's "intuition" is accidental, precisely 
because their work - at it's best - is not strictly formulaic - like 
the rocket scientist's. Or, to use your new choice of words, JKR's  
instinctive and subconscious abilities somehow don't count 
for "brilliance" as far as your concerned. 

They do for me. Let me see if another example will help: William 
Shakespeare's "Hamlet" has been well-analysed in terms of Freud's 
formulation of the Oedipus complex, although all of his work 
precede's Freud's. Is it, therefore, an "accident" that Hamlet 
resonates so well with this particular theory of Freud's? I don't 
think so. I think it resonates so well, because both Shakespeare's 
and Freud's work is profound. Nevertheless, had Shakepeare been born 
in the nineteenth century and written in that century, I doubt he 
could have beaten Freud to the formulation of the theory of the 
Oedipus complex in psycho-analytic terms. Does he, therefore get no 
credit for anticipating Freud by three centuries? Seems, according 
to your principles, Shakespeare must just have been just lucky.

My reference to HP fundamentalists and "beheadings" is direct to a 
poster here, Hans Andrea, (I think I got that name right) who not 
too long ago asserted here that there was a 99% certainty that Ron 
and Hermione would be beheaded before the end of the series, based 
on his analysis of the HP series in alchemical terms (borrowing 
heavily, I believe from John Granger.) I thought that assertion 
absurd too - not only because these are childrens' (as well as 
adults' - and working-on-many-levels - as covered ad infinitum in 
other posts) books, but, because to me, it smacks of exactly the 
kind of "fundamentalism" for lack of a better word, that JKR's work, 
again IMO, deliberately (in the artistic sense of the word - i.e.: 
intuitively) condmens. 

As for your carefully drawn distinction about the evaluation of an 
an artist's work as opposed to the artist him/herself, it is, 
unfortunately, devoid of a difference. You say that "I don't think 
its fair to evaluate a *work* on what the author's intentions were- 
the work should stand by itself. HOWEVER, I *do* think it's fair to 
evaluate an author on what their intentions were." Leaving aside the 
question of whether and how you and I can really know and understand 
JKR'S intentions, for now, as well as what "intentions" amount to in 
the creative process, I agree with you that the work stands alone. 
What I fail to understand, however is how you purport to have 
evaluated the artist's brilliance as an artist separate from the 
artist's work, which is the only context in which we are discussing 
JKR. Being bad at "maths" as the British put it, I doubt she's a 
brilliant rocket scientist, but rocket science ability is simply not 
the measure of brilliance for fiction writers.

As far as "intentions" go, it's fair to evaluate a work in terms of 
what an author was shooting for and whether the author achieves it. 
It's done all the time. For example, it's fair to evaluate an author 
who intendes to write a satire about middle-class morality on 
whether or not the work is satirically effective, funny, etc., as 
opposed to whether or not it undermines values altogether. It's not 
fair, however to judge the author less brilliant if the author goes 
on to make a good case for more meaningful values as well, although 
the work was intended primarily to satirize. It may, in fact do so; 
and if it does so well, the author gets credit for it. Again, 
intentions, in and of themselves have nothing to do 
with "brilliance." Would a stated intention on JKR's part "to be 
brilliant" make it so? 

Conversely, using one of your examples this time, if a monkey 
playing on a PC had produced Animal Farm instead of George Orwell, 
I'd think the monkey would have a very hard time getting any 
publisher to read it. But assuming the monkey did, and it was 
published under the monkey's own name, I, personally would be too 
amazed to trouble myself overly about the actual I.Q. of the monkey. 
Nevertheless, if pressed, I think I'd be inclined to assume that the 
monkey's I.Q. was quite high, regardless of the monkey's "maths" 
ability, or even of it's "intentions." I think JKR should be 
accorded at least the same courtesy.

Finally, JKR has briefly described what are years and years of work 
and a lot of unpublished material in a few interviews. How, 
therefore, have you determined that she, a fiction writer writing 
fiction about a boy who can do magic and dwell in a magical world, 
determined that she (or any other fiction writer, for that matter) 
is a "literalist" writer? I think you've missed the irony: she 
writes about these things (magical boy/magical world) not only 
because they make a good story and provide ample opportunity for 
whimsical fun, but also, because she has something to say about the 
concept of a supernatural altogether. Otherwise, she wouldn't chose 
these as her setting and subject matter while making it clear all 
along what dubious propsitions she believes most of what the real-
world occult has to offer to be. In addition, she wouldn't have 
filled it with such delicious archetypes as the rule-bound Percy, 
and the fanatically righteous Crouch who ends up alienating and 
condemning his own son. She wouldn't, for that matter have raised 
the issue of whether and to what extent the supernatural exists in 
the first chapters of her first book via Vernon Dursely, IMO, either.

Caspen