Theoretical boundaries / Dursleys' abuse

[ms_luna_knows]

No: HPFGUIDX 120419


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "delwynmarch"
<delwynmarch at y...> wrote:
> 
> Ms. Luna wrote: 
> "We have to remember that the main character in the series is changing
> and with that his perceptions change.  The first few books are seen 
> through the eyes of a child the next few the child is becoming a 
> teenager and with that he is seeing things through a teenager's eyes.
>  And the perception of a teenager IS darker..."
> 
> Del replies:
> I disagree, in that the books are not seen through Harry's eyes, but
> through the narrator's eyes, who is NOT Harry.
> 
> For example, in PS/SS, the narrator presents most of the abuse Harry
> is going through as *funny*, something that Harry would definitely not
> do! Harry might not be aware he's being abused, but there's no way he
> can find his childhood amusing.

Ms. luna,
WHo said his childhood was amusing?  Harry was obviously not happy with his situation, but he also did not know much outside of Privet Drive.  He was told all of his life he was less than everyone else in the house, and he didn't really find out different until he was outside that house, made friends of his own, before he realized that he was more than he was being lead to believe.  
> 
>> Ms. Luna wrote:
> " Harry is also learning through his new experiences outside of the
> Dursley home that the treatment he received at the Dursleys' was abusive."
> 
> Del replies:
> *Harry* is learning that, but the *narrator* knew it all along. Proof
> is : he picked out the abusive episodes in Harry's childhood,
> something Harry himself would probably have been quite unable to do,
> if as you suggest he was barely aware he was being abused.
<snip>

>> Ms. Luna wrote:
> "Again, through Harry's eyes....as he grows and changes and learns,
> things do become more serious and tragic..."
> 
> Del replies:
> Harry is changing and that's normal. What highly disconcerting for me,
> though, is that the *narrator* is changing as well. The narrator of
> OoP is not the same narrator that told us the story of PS/SS. He
> changed in the meantime, became more involved with Harry. He now
> identifies much more strongly with Harry than he did back in the first
> books. IMO only of course.
> 
> Ms. Luna wrote:
> "teenagers ARE emotionally charged and are hard to read"
> 
> Del replies:
> Abuse is emotionally charged and should be hard to read. And yet in
> the first books, the Dursley abuse was singularly non-emotionally
> charged and very easy and funny to read.
> 
> It's not the subject : it's the way it's presented. It's not Harry,
> it's the narrator.


Ms. Luna:

 Okay, I take your point about not directly from Harry's eyes do we see everything, but most of Harry's own story is from Harry's perspective.  The background of the story, his history with the Dursley's and other back story is definately not Harry, but from Harry's POV we know his feelings about different experiences, we know what Harry is thinking, his confusion, anger, frustration, the conversations he has, the misunderstandings, his dreams, the secrets he keeps,....etc.   

So, yes, there is a narrator telling the story, but it IS from Harry's perspective, and as Harry grows and changes, so to must the style of 
narration.