Taking it seriously

[iris_ft]

No: HPFGUIDX 102087


First, I apology for bringing back an already `old' thread, and for 
not quoting all the previous messages. I'll just try to summarise 
the debate before replying: 
On one hand, Wanda wrote that, by some aspects (for example, Harry's 
life at the Dursleys) the series is rather `a satirical riot', 
that `comedy is never far away', and when JKR tries to write `a 
searing drama', she fails, like it happens in Book 5.
On the other hand, Lady Macbeth replied saying that in her opinion, 
it was quite the opposite, and that in Book 5, `Rowling was finally 
delving INTO the story of this boy', i.e, in tragedy.
Alla , continued the thread, saying: `Wanda, it is not your problem 
that you cannot take Harry's trials and tribulations seriously. It 
is your right.'
Then she added: `I cannot take Harry's life journey as a satire 
only. Actually, I cannot take it as a satire at all, humour -Yes, 
satire - not.'

I'll start saying that I wasn't surprised when I read OotP and 
discovered the tragic atmosphere within. I knew it would be like 
that, simply because JKR had warned us, writing the graveyard 
scenes, and making Harry say at the end of GoF:
`But I could do with a few laughs. We could all do with a few 
laughs. I've got the feeling we're going to need them more than 
usual before long'.
Harry isn't given many occasions to laugh in OotP, and that's 
probably one reason why the book is so uneasy to read. JKR treats us 
as rudely as she treats Harry.  We are actually helpless, facing 
this boy and his tragic story, and we don't have the escapes we 
would need, because we can't laugh as much as we expected. But 
that's probably a challenge we have to accept if we `follow' Harry.
 I think (but it's only my opinion) the Harry Potter series is 
essentially a tragedy (in the Greek meaning of the word), though it 
contains comedy elements. It doesn't depict a very shiny happy 
world, and I'm quite sure in OotP we are very close to the vision 
JKR has of human kind. At the same time, she's disillusioned (look 
what she writes regarding the wizard word in general), but she's 
still hoping things will go better (in this world, there are people 
like Harry, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, Luna, the twins, 
Dumbledore, Hagrid, Sirius, Remus, Snape –yes, even Snape! ). She 
perfectly matches the feelings and spirit of our time. 

I'd like also to talk more about satire, because, in my opinion (so 
it doesn't mean you necessarily will share it), it's not 
incompatible with tragedy.
When an artist uses laughs, it doesn't mean necessarily that his/her 
work is superficial or only intended as an entertainment.
Satire, that combination of laughs, ridiculousness, exaggeration, 
caricature, is by definition a very useful way to denunciation. 
Since the beginning, artists used it in order to denounce social or 
individual failings. See Hogarth's etchings (for 
example, `Credulity, superstition and bigotry'), or 
Goya's `Caprichos'; read some novels by Flaubert (`Bouvard et 
Pécuchet', for instance); or watch Chaplin's `Great Dictator'. They 
are all satiric works, by many aspects, but they all denounce very 
serious things.
We can find the same use of satire in the Harry Potter series', 
precisely with the Dursleys, as Wanda pointed out. The Dursleys are 
caricatures; they look ridiculous most of the time; we laugh at 
them, but reality behind laughs is not very bright, or comfortable.
The Dursleys are obsessed with respectability; they want their 
neighbours to think they are `normal' and very respectable, and they 
want to preserve their reputation at any cost, even if it implies 
child abuse (for example, making Harry live in a cupboard for nearly 
ten years). They are so obsessed with being `normal' and respectable 
that they become monstrous, because they are actually intolerant. 
That's in my opinion what JKR wants to make us understand when she 
depicts them using satire. Though she says her intention isn't to 
teach us a morality lesson, or to give us advices, she shows us with 
the Dursleys how `normality' can degenerate and become a `normative 
behaviour', which implies discrimination and intolerance, and 
finally leads to monstrosity. It's a paradox? Maybe, but we live it 
each day, when we go to work, when we walk in the street, every time 
we read a magazine or watch TV. Oh yes, we laugh at the Dursleys, 
and maybe we even look at them condescendingly; we say: `She 
exaggerates, it can't be possible'. But that's precisely because `it 
can't be possible' that it happens: why should we expect so normal, 
so respectable, so civilized people to behave like monsters? The way 
they abuse Harry, because he's different, makes them look inhuman.  
They are finally not very far from Voldemort and his Death Eaters, 
who are ready to torture and kill Muggles because they are not like 
them. The Dursleys and Voldemort look completely opposite at first 
glance, but they are actually two aspects of a same problem, i.e. 
intolerance. 
As you can see, satire is not there just to make us laugh; it's also 
there to denounce a very serious problem. Actually, JKR uses two 
denunciation ways, when she talks about intolerance: a tragic one, 
when she talks about Voldemort and C°, and a comic one, when she 
talks about the Dursleys. But the intention and the results are the 
same: whatever it looks like, whatever you call it, intolerance is 
intolerance. 
You can also wonder why JKR needs to write the same thing twice, but 
differently.
Maybe she decided to make us laugh with the Dursleys because she 
understood laugh happens to be sometimes the only weapon against 
horror, and it can save us, because it's a human special gift.
When Lupin teaches his students how to defeat a Boggart, he shows us 
we can fight our own fears with laughs. JKR acts like Lupin does 
when she stigmatizes the Dursleys. Remus makes his students laugh at 
their inner fears, and their inner fears vanish, though the students 
know they have to remain vigilant. JKR makes us laugh at 
the `respectable abusers', and their respectability vanishes, and 
their child abuses become evidences of their human weakness. We 
remain with the necessity of being vigilant, because we are human 
too
 
 Comedy isn't very far when you talk about the Dursleys, I agree, 
but it's serving a tragic story, and a tragic message. With their 
monstrosity rooting in their human weakness, the Dursley represent 
also a tragic element in the series. We don't always notice it, 
because it's hidden under the comedy mask.
But there again, it's part of JKR's writing habitude. She plays with 
us, and she often hides important thing under anecdotic aspects. 
Look what happens in the first book, when she `shows' us 
Dumbledore's Chocolate Frog card. At first glance, it's just a 
pleasant `folkloric' detail; later it happens to be the key element 
that helps Harry to understand the true stake in what he is living. 
We always tend to underestimate what makes us laugh or what looks 
anecdotic, and JKR knows it. It would be funny if what we currently 
consider as a trivial detail happened to be *the* key element of the 
story. Something apparently very anecdotic, we should better take 
seriously
 Of course it's only a supposition, but it would mean JKR 
did like the Alchemists, who used to hide their knowledge in 
apparently ludicrous books

I think it's time I re-read the whole series.

Amicalement,

Iris