[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry and the chocolate egg

[Erika L.]

No: HPFGUIDX 89724

greatlit2003 wrote:

>Right now, I have found one clue: When >Harry bites into his Easter 
>egg, he feels a lump in his throat, and >wonders why some chocolate 
>is making him so emotional

<snip>

>It is easy to gloss over this little >clue because it is placed 
>right among all the other emotions >Harry is having: regarding his 
>father, Snape and Cho. Yet nothing has >happened that should 
>logically make Harry cry at that point: >He had a recent argument 
>with Cho, but doesn't dwell on it much. >He is unsure of his feelings 
>for her, and even tells Ginny that he >wants to talk to Sirius, not 
>Cho. Harry was upset by what he saw in >the Pensieve, but it made him 
>angry and disturbed, not tearful. And >considering Snape's behavior 
>towards him in the aftermath, Harry was >relieved that Snape did not 
>talk to him much. Therefore, why did >Harry feel like crying? I think 
>the answer lies with the chocolate egg. >Mrs. Weasley sends him one 
>every year, and perhaps he knew that >this would be the last one he 
>ever got from her, similar to the bad >feelings he had when he left 
>Grimmauld Pl after the Christmas >holidays.

Now me Erika (Wolfraven):

Actually, I do think the lump in Harry's throat has a lot to do with the Pensieve scene. You see, the way I read the passage, it's not the egg itself, but the Snitches on the wrapping that causes it.

  She handed him a handsome chocolate egg decorated with small, iced Snitches [...] Harry looked at it for a moment, then, to his horror, felt a lump rise in his throat. (577 UK)

James Potter was toying with a Snitch in the Pensieve scene so I think the sight of the them on the wrapping reminds him of his father and what he saw in the Pensieve. And while it's true that Harry was angered by what he saw I think he likely also felt disappointed. After all, up until that point he had only ever heard good things about his father and he'd essentially set him on a pedestal. He had an idealized vision of his father, and seeing how James acted in the Pensieve scene was certainly a huge disappointment. So I really must disagree that "nothing has happened that should logically make Harry cry". He already lost James as a real father and in OoP he also loses him as am ideal father-figure. The same thing happens with Sirius, and, if anything, I think the egg can be seen as a faint foreshadowing of it.

Now I'm not sure if the egg in this scene could also foreshadow the death of Mrs Weasley, as was suggested, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I do think there's something sinister about eggs in the series as a whole. Usually eggs are symbolically associated with promise and new life. In HP, they seem to have a reverse symbolism as they're consistently associated with disappointment and death.

Here are a couple of minor examples. First, Mrs Weasley's Easter eggs in GoF... When Hermione receives hers and discovers it to be considerably smaller than those sent to the boys, she realizes that Mrs. Weasley believes Skeeter's article and is obviously quite upset by this. So, instead of promise, we get disappointment. We also get to see a dragon egg in PS. There again we see disaster associated with eggs. Hagrid's excited at first but he ends up disappointed while Harry and Hermione end up quite miserable due to the loss of house points resulting from the whole Norbert debacle.

But here's the really good example: the golden egg in GoF. Cedric gives Harry a big clue about how to solve the puzzle of the egg. This is part of the growing friendship, or cooperation at the very least, between these two competitors; it works very well with the theme of unity which comes up at the end of GoF and during OoP. But how does that end? Cedric dies as a result of his cooperation with Harry. If Harry had gone for the cup alone, Cedric would have lived. So, whatever promise there might have been is replaced by death. To further this connection, there's the fact that Moaning Myrtle is also tied to the egg. She's in the bathroom when Harry tries to work out the clue, and she's the one who suggests that he put the egg underwater . So there's another link between the egg and death rather than rebirth.

So, I think if we go back to Norbert for a moment we can see his hatching as emblematic of what eggs represent in the series: they seem to offer promise, but what hatches for them is violent and dangerous. The same is true in CoS. After all, Basilisks are born from chickens' eggs. So again, the egg, which normally promises new life, only results in the birth of something monstrous. If you look at this pattern it's also interesting to note that the Phoenix, which is clearly a symbol of new life or resurrection, is a bird which doesn't lay eggs as it rises from its own ashes.

All right then, end of ramble.

Best,

Erika (Wolfraven)


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