The House of Gaunt/The orphanage

[wickywackywoo2001]

No: HPFGUIDX 134408

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at m...>
wrote:

> -- Does anyone have any insight into the name "Merope"?  There seem to
>    be several of them in the Classical Mythology Phonebook.  The most
>    likely seems to be the Merope who is one of the Seven Sisters of
>    the Pleiades, but she seems not to have married a Muggle or given
>    birth to a psychotic manaic.
> 
I read that that Merope of the Pleiades did marry a mortal, however,
and that's why her star is the faintest in the constellation.

The other names are interesting, too:  Morfin I suspect to be a pun on
"morphing", though we had any powers as a metamorph, we didn't see
them.  "Morfin" is also, I believe, the German spelling for
"morphine".  And Marvolo is just very magical-sounding; I liked Mrs.
Cole's guess that maybe Merope had come from a circus!

Their last name is certainly an indication of their physical
circumstances, but maybe there's an overtone there of Shakespeare's
John of Gaunt - not so much the actual character, but the sense that
this is an old, old family, with deep roots in England.  And what is
the deal with their eyes looking in different directions?  Is that
just an element of ugliness, like saying they're cross-eyed, or does
it indicate some sort of power?  A contrast, anyway, with Lily's eyes.

I got some strong Dickensian vibes in the whole Merope story, too. 
Her stumbling to the orphanage in a snow-storm to give birth to a son
and die is straight out of Oliver Twist.  The orphanage, though, was
not nearly as bad as Oliver's workhouse.  It's interesting, but the
interview with Mrs. Cole seemed like a rare pro-Muggle interlude in
the story.  The orphanage isn't nice by any means, but I get the
feeling that Harry wouldn't have found it so bad, if he'd had to live
there.  There was a sense that somebody there cared about children,
even if the place was threadbare and poor.  Mrs. Cole wasn't a monster
- she was actually quite a smart woman, and she was gracious enough to
offer Dumbledore a drink, which was more than the Dursleys have ever
done.  Altogether, it changed my mind for the worse about Tom Riddle.
 I'd previously imagined him living in a filthy, abusive hellhole, and
thought that that might have warped him.  Now I don't think that that
is an excuse - he wasn't a good boy who was twisted by abuse and
suffering, and couldn't help himself.  He had no excuse for being
cruel and evil - it was something he chose for himself.

Wanda