Theoretical boundaries / Dursleys' abuse/Narration

[sevenhundredandthirteen]

No: HPFGUIDX 120445


Laurasia (talking about ideas from this entire thread smooshed 
together):

The HP narrator in OotP gives the impression relating facts, not 
telling a story.  PS starts with a much more visible narrator,`On 
the dull, grey Tuesday our story starts
' which suggest that the 
whole HP saga is really just a constructed tale which never 
happened. OotP was much more "filmic," especially in it's
climax at the DoM, than any of the other books. OotP is more like a 
series of scenes- less is `cut out' and condensed, whereas PS
has many sections where entire weeks go by in only one or two 
sentences. IMO, part of the shift in narration/tone from PS to OotP 
is that the narrator `tells' less of the story, and just
`describes' it from an invisible sideline. 

By the time we reach OotP the narrator is has less of a presence in 
the story so we are left with the possibility of using our own 
judgment and emotional response, not relying so much on the 
narrator's.  Because of this, I would suggest that, at this point
in the series, JKR is actively encouraging people to use their own 
emotional response to the situation.  IMO, by making the narrator 
slip away we are left alone and are *forced* to engage emotionally 
with the story and project a bit of ourselves back into it.

Kneasy's assertion that people who project their own emotional 
values onto the story are missing the point of reading a story is 
very true for the first part of the HP series. However, the inverse 
opinion that one must respond emotionally to the situation to gain 
meaning from it is very true of the later part of the series. I 
think part of the reason why there are two distinct camps is because 
JKR hasn't been consistent.

I find this inconsistency a problem. Others won't call it an 
inconsistency, but a progression in tone and maturity of the story. 
But I agree with Del- changing the style of narration/genre partway 
through a series is dangerous. 

In contrast, Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate
Events" consistently uses an incredibly visible narrator, so
there is no ambiguity at all about how we are meant to respond to 
situations and characters. Lemony Snicket censors and interprets the 
story and lets the reader know when he does such things. If the HP 
narrator is censoring or interpreting the story, we are not aware of 
it. And ASOUE has a shift in tone as well- it started off with its 
evil guy as genuinely cruel, and made him comical. But because the 
narrator tells us all along, we just went with it. 

By changing the style of narration, maybe JKR wants people to start 
using their own emotional responses. Maybe she has specifically 
designed the story so the narrator slips away book by book and no 
longer gives his external point of view on the whole thing. Maybe 
she wants us to be left inside Harry's head more and more. Or
else, JKR thinks she is clearer than she is and has just naturally 
stopped using a visible narrator because she thinks it is no longer 
necessary. I think it's the latter. How many times has she told
us that we are wrong to like Draco? IMO, JKR believes that her 
intentions are clear, when they are open to interpretation.

I do not think that stories which use more visible narrators are 
worse or better than those which do not. Using a more 
objective/invisible narrator leaves much more ambiguity  (there is 
much more fanfic out there based on movies and TV shows, media which 
often use a more objective narrator, than there is on books). And 
using a visible/opinionated narrator means that there is no 
mistaking the author's intent.  But I do think that the more
visible the narrator, the more flaws in the story can be smoothed 
over. The more we are aware that `this is just a story' the
more we are prepared to forgive.

JKR has stopped using such a visible narrator who interprets events 
(like the Dursley's treatment of Harry) for us, and, to
compensate, she has had to become a much more visible author. She 
has had to tell us herself through her website which characters we 
are mean to like, which ones are misunderstood and which ones should 
never be tarnished.

~<(Laurasia)>~