Sexuality as a theme in HP (long)

[cat_kind]

No: HPFGUIDX 119577


Olivier wrote:
> Some read HP books as mysteries, other like to see them as of the 
> adventure and fantasy genre, and some as fairy-tales. There are even 
> readers that see in them deep christian or symbolic meaning. In this 
> post, I try to explore the way I read them: as the journey from boyhood 
> to manhood, with an explicit reference to sexuality. Just as a 
> forewarning, I insist that the following will deal with adult theme. 
(snip)
>PoA, like CoS, is also incredibly concerned with sexuality. 
(snip)
> One is the graveyard scene (which can be seen as a rape) 
> and the other is the psyche of Barty Crouch Junior. I think an argument 
> can be made that Barty Junior has such a troubled mind because he never 
> resolved his oedipal desires for his mother. 
(snip)
> Definitely, Snape was not the right person to teach Harry to control 
> his sexual desires (half of Harry definitely wants to know what 
> mysteries Snape is trying to hide). Fatherly advices about sex should 
> have been Dumbledore's job, as he recognizes later.

catkind:  I have to admit, my first reaction to this post was to laugh
aloud.  You can Freudian-analyse anything, and a world full of wands
and broomsticks is asking for trouble. 

But to some extent I feel you're not even doing Freudian analysis so
much as playing the teenaged-boy-game of going "snigger, snigger,
nudge,nudge" whenever anyone says anything. For example, substituting
rape for every other kind of violence, and substituting sexual desire
for every other emotion (Harry is supposed to learn to control his
*anger*, as McG explicitly states elsewhere) as in the above quote, is
just not playing fair IMHO.

Another example where I feel you're pulling rabbit stew out of hats:
Barty Crouch's mother loved him, I don't recall anything in the book
to suggest he cared two pins for her, or why would he have left her to
die in Azkaban?  

The idea of Lupin representing paedophilia is interesting:  I'd say he
rather represents something like being HIV positive - he isn't in fact
dangerous to the children, with proper precautions, and certainly
shouldn't be prevented from teaching, but there is a lot of prejudice
against him and people are irrationally scared of him.  

I would strongly debate your claims that the books make "explicit
reference to sexuality" - perhaps explicit wasn't the word you were
looking for? Whatever messages you are reading into it, they're very
much implicit. 

I would also strongly debate that, for another random quote, "PoA,
like CoS, is also incredibly concerned with sexuality."  You have
written in the sexual symbolism yourself, it seems unlikely that it
was the author's intent. It is unfair to substitute everywhere the
word sex for the word magic and then to claim that the books are all
about sex. Okay, so this is an exaggeration of what you are doing, but
I hope you take my point.  I would be very reluctant to ascribe some
of your symbolisms even to Rowling's subconscious. 

It is indeed interesting to see what themes you find when you make
some of the more obvious Freudian substitutions.  However, some of the
messages that come out if we try to do this consistently are pretty
disturbing.  

For example, if snakes represent  sexuality, then what do you make of
the overbearing message that snakes are bad - Slytherin house, the
Basilisk, Voldemort himself looking like a snake?  

If the patronus symbolises what you suggest, what is the meaning of it
being such a powerful weapon?
I agree that the books are very much about growing up, but that is
true whether one substitutes sex for every other feature of adulthood
or not.  catkind, hoping it is not being offensive.