[HPforGrownups] Re: Hermione as Harry's Anima (Was: Clues for SHIPS)

[Erika L.]

No: HPFGUIDX 99016

Sienna wrote:

>What follows is not a discussion on the totality of the 
>archetypal imagery within Harry Potter (of which there >is a lot). This essay focuses solely on the archetypal >imagery surrounding Hermione and her place within >the Harry Potter universe.
<snip very interesting essay>

Before beginning I thought I'd mention, for anyone interested, that this summer there's going to be a Harry Potter convention in Ottawa (www.conventionalley.org) and one of our presenters will be discussing Jungian archetypes in HP.

First I'd like to say congratulations on managing such a concise and accessible summary of archetypes and the anima and offering some really intriguing analysis of the text. Like you, though, I'd like to add a major disclaimer here and say that my knowledge of Jung is largely second hand. I have a general familiarity with the concepts due to having a mother who's a Jungian, and I've read bits and pieces. I'm not sure that I can really engage with you on the same level even, but I did a little reading in the last couple of days and thought I'd toss in a few random observations on the subject. I hope you'll forgive me, though, if I just end up looking like Luna reading the Quibbler upside down- or worse, sounding like Professor Binns ;)

There are a few issues I wanted to bring up related to the anima in HP. First is the fact that I think one could argue that the anima is represented by different characters at various point in the story, though I tend to agree that Hermione increasingly takes on this role. I was reading an argument recently which, while focussing on Hermione as anima, also pointed to other characters who take on the role of "maiden" (also called "Kore" in Jung). Again, I should stress my limited knowledge here as I'm basing most of my understanding on Jung's "The Psychological Aspects of the Kore." from _The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious_ . Ginny in CoS certainly is cast in the role of maiden (think damsel in distress). "The maiden's helplessness exposes her to all sorts of dangers, for instance of being devoured by reptiles or ritually slaughtered like a beast of sacrifice. Often there are bloody, cruel, and even obscene orgies to which the innocent child falls victim." (_The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious_ para 311) Sound familiar at all? Ginny's innocence makes her vulnerable to diary!Tom, which eventually leads to her being taken down into the Chamber, guarded of course by the Basilisk, where she becomes a quasi-sacrifice to diary!Tom. This process, I would argue, does represent a sort of loss of innocence for Ginny; she is more-or-less seduced by diary!Tom and the result is a gross mental/emotional violation. There's a certain parallel to Persephone who is raped by Hades and taken to the underworld to be his bride.

On the other hand, though Ginny takes clearly takes on the role of maiden in CoS, particularly of the damsel in distress variety, Hermione has as well. After all, Harry first becomes friends with Hermione thanks to the incident with the troll in which, for a brief time, she too becomes a damsel in distress.

>As a character, Hermione has come to increasingly >embody Harry's anima. In her essay, The Secrets of >Harry Potter 
>(http://www.cgjungpage.org/content/view/145/28/), >Jungian analyst Gail Grynbaum refers to Hermione as >a soror mystica:

>'At school, Harry goes through his Training with two >new friends, Hermione Granger, a soror mystica who >is also a lively, challenging presence, and Ron >Weasley, a good brother figure.'

>The term soror mystica literally means `mystical >sister' -- the female half of the male-female >partnership. In alchemical literature, these two >together seek the philosopher's stone. 
>Hermione's and Harry's shared muggle experience is >an important foundation for this mirroring. They both >enter as outsiders into the magical world.

I found the argument to be very interesting. I wanted to add a couple of ideas that I found while reading.

"In the products of unconscious activity, the anima appears equally ad maiden and mother"

"the anima is bipolar and can therefore appear positive one moment and negative the next; now young, now old, now mother, now maiden; now a good fairy, now a witch; now a saint, now a whore."

(_Archetypes _ para 356)

I thought this suggestion of the dual aspect of the anima was quite interesting in relation to Hermione as it oftentimes seems to me that she does have a very dualistic role in Harry's life. As I suggested earlier, she does take on the role of maiden, but is also at times the mother-hen. She can be regarded at one moment as a faithful helper to Harry and at the next, as an overprotective or nagging nuisance. Even the saint/whore dichotomy appears in GoF thanks to Rita Skeeter's articles where Hermione is portrayed first as Harry's loving girlfriend, and later as the treacherous scarlet woman.

Here's another bit which I found amusing, though I'm likely taking it out of context:

"Whenever she [the anima] emerges with some degree of clarity, she always has a peculiar relationship to time: as a rule she is more or less immortal, because outside of time. [...] In all these accounts, the anima is outside of time as we know it and consequently immensely old or a being who belongs to a different order of things." (_Archetypes _ para 356)

While I realize that Hermione doesn't really correspond with the types of female figures described above, ones who exist outside of time (would Dante's Beatrice qualify as such a figure perhaps?), I still found it amusing as we do see Hermione having "a peculiar relationship to time" in PoA thanks to her use of the time turner. Maybe not the most useful observation, but I got a kick out so it so I thought I'd throw it in.

I have to say that it is a bit tricky trying to make actual predictions based on a psychoanalytical approach to the text. If nothing else, Jungian interpretation is really meant to analyse dreams as well as myths and fairy tales, all of which are far more connected to the collective unconscious. Though unconscious elements work their way into the novels, it remains that they are a conscious creation and thus are subject to conscious intent far more than dreams. Then there's the further complication of the fact that, though we're dealing with a male protagonist, he is the creation of a female writer. This has interesting implications in terms of how we perceive Harry as a male ego figure. Actually, there's an article by Ximena Gallardo-C and C. Jason Smith which makes some interesting observation regarding gendering in the HP novels ("Cindefella: J.K. Rowling's Wily Web of Gender" from _Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays_ ed Giselle Liza Anatol)

All this to say that think I'll forego drawing specific conclusions from the varied observations I've made. Hope some bit of that was useful.

Best,

Erika (Wolfraven)


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