Gum Wrappers

[Alex Boyd]

No: HPFGUIDX 112780

I, too, think that the gum wrappers are important, but doubt that they
contain a message (in the sense of Alice having written something on
them and deliberately concealed it).  I agree that Alice does not seem
sufficiently compos mentis to do something like that, and that if she
were, it would be cruel.  

However, I think that the gum wrappers *are* a message--to Neville as
well as to us-the-readers.  Neville, I think, inteprets the message to
be something like "I know you're my son and I care about you" (hence
he keeps every gum wrapper she gives him, even though he has enough to
paper his bedroom).  What Alice thinks the message is remains to be
seen.  It's possible she's trying to communicate something much more
complex than that and regards the symbolism of the Gum Wrappers as
transparently obvious.  (which it, of course, isn't.)

I've been mulling over What Alice Could Have Meant for some time,
without much result.  Gum wrappers are rubbish, but you ought to save
them so that you have something to wrap your gum in when you're done
chewing it, so maybe something about not discarding things too early?
 On the other hand, they're shiny, like a mirror, so maybe something
about knowing yourself?  Dunno.  It's also possible that Alice made
gum-wrapper chains as a child, and thinks Neville might like to do one.

I will be a bit disappointed as well if they turn out not to have any
big reason for being in the story--that scene stuck out as
significant.  However, there is the possibility that JKR's web site
has gum wrappers scattered around because her real deak does, and when
she was writing that scene she thought "Let's see, I have to have
Alice give Neville something that the readers couldn't *possibly*
interpret as significant...maybe a tongue depressor?  No, St. Mungoes
might not even use those..."  <authorial eye falls on litter of gum
wrappers surrounding desk>  "Gum wrapper, that's the ticket!"

But as I say, that would be a very disappointing explanation, so I
hope it isn't correct.

Alex