[HPforGrownups] Re: Harry at the Dursleys

[Kethryn]

No: HPFGUIDX 118344

> > "Dobby might have saved Harry from horrible  happenings at
> > Hogwarts, but the way things were going, he'd probably starve to
> > death anyway" - CoS, p.22, paperback.
> >
> > Pippin:
> > > > Miserable, yes, afraid he might die, yes, but not so unhappy
> > that  he wished he would. And what caused it? Interference from the
> > magical world, in the form of Dobby.
> >
> > Alla:
> > I am sorry? Child who is afraid that he will die of hunger is not
> > miserable enough?
>
> Alla, that's not what Pippin said.  Harry isn't laying on his bed
> WISHING he were dead; he's contemplating his situation.  Nor did
> Pippen say that Harry "is not miserable enough".
>
> I believe that JKR meant us not to take that line LITERALLY, not to
> believe that Harry really did think he'd starve to death.  How many
> times have you heard kids say (or you say yourself when you were a
> kid) "My mom's going to KILL me for doing that!"  Did you really
> believe your mom was going to kill you?  It was an expression, to
> hightlight an intense feeling.
>
> I agree with Pippen that we're exaggerating the Dursleys' "abuse".
> They're jerks.  Harry's not happy there.  No question.  But this is
> not a series about an abused child.  Whether we think JKR is playing
> down Harry's childhood traumsas or not, we just have to accept
> somethings so we can get on with the books.
>
> Magda

Kethryn now -

While I have always thought that the Dursleys are miserable jerks, I never
saw that they quite passed the border line into what I would definatly
consider to be child abuse (although I admit that Social Services would
probably not agree with me).  Let me try to explain why I feel this way.  In
The Sorcerer's Stone, on page 33,

"They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.
'Get the main, Dudley,' said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.  'Make
Harry get it.'  'Ge
the mail, Harry.'  'Make Dudley get it.'  'Poke him with your Smelting
stick, Dudley.'  Harry dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail."

Ok, now obviously this is the first book but this is where the pattern
developes.  Harry replies to a direct order with defiance (of course, so
does Dudley but he is the pampered Prince after all) and Vernon tells Dudley
to poke him.  Of course, Harry dodges it and I would bet money that Vernon
knew Harry was going to dodge it, having seen Harry escape from Dudley in
the past.  I would call Vernon an 'enabler' at this point; he enables and
encouraged Dudley to be a bully all throughout the books up to this point.
Does that make Vernon abusive?  Well that depends on your defination of the
word.  If anyone is abusive, it's Dudley but, for some reason, we never call
it abuse when it is from child to child.  We call it bullying or testing or
other cute aphorisms but never abuse and we expect the bullied child to deal
with it on their own (speaking from personal experience here) up until the
child is coming home with bruises.

The Dursleys treat Harry more like a servant than a son.  There is something
wrong with that, yes, but heck, I used to think that my parents used to
treat us like servants to.  They did, of course, but not to the extent that
I remember and it was a part of the life lessons that we all have to learn
(how to cook, how to clean, etc).   Of course, in this day and age, Social
Services would probably have come to the house at least once, especially if
they could learn to read minds.  I can't begin to tell you how many times I
HATED my parents growing up.  I thought they were mean, cruel, and definatly
unusual but I most certainly was not an abused child.  In our youth, when
whatever is going on at the time is life or death (or so it seems), we all
tend to blow things out of porportion and I think that is a great deal of
what is going on in terms of the borderline abuse happening at the Dursleys
and at the hands of Snape.  Harry has blown things up a bit, just enough, to
have us question what is really going on here and, since we only have his
thoughts and not an outside observer, we have no idea that what he is
telling us is entirely accurate.  Therefore, while I do question the
Dursley's and, to some extent, Snape's behavoir, I also take it with a grain
of salt because I do remember blowing things completely out of porportion.
Cleaning up after dinner was an ugly battle royal and I can definatly
remember thinking that I would rather die than clean the bathroom on more
than one occasion.

So anyway, my thoughts on the matter.

Kethryn - who knows that was kind of wandering stream of conscious writing
(she is much too tired to write coherantly at the moment) and apologizes if
it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.