[HPforGrownups] Re: JKR's dealing with emotions - Talking about Death

[Kemper]

No: HPFGUIDX 147505

On 2/2/06, amiabledorsai <amiabledorsai at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Kemper now:
>
> > The problem with Harry's coping of Sirius' death isn't that long,
> > Shakespearean soliloquies are absent from the text, it's that
> > Harry isn't shown waking with a tear-soaked pillow or something
> > similar to show the reader the depth of Harry's loss and how he
> > was hurting silently.  All JKR had to write was a short, simple
> > sentence and it would have been clear.
>
> Amiable Dorsai:
>
> Like maybe:
>
> "He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best
> part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had
> finally fallen asleep with one side of his face pressed against the
> cold windowpane, his glasses askew and his mouth wide open."  (HBP3)
>
> Or:
>
> 'He could tell that Dumbledore understood, that he might even suspect
> that until his letter arrived, Harry had spent nearly all his time at
> the Dursleys' lying on his bed, refusing meals, and staring at the
> misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to
> associate with dementors.
>
>    "It's just hard," Harry said finally, in a low voice, "to realize
> he won't write to me again."'(HBP4)
>
> Those kinds of sentences?
>
> This is not a failure of Rowling to show Harry's anguish, this is
> characterization. Think of Harry's upbringing--he would have learned
> not to cry before he learned how to read, and Rowling is showing us
> just that.
>
> "Half-Blood Prince" shows us the effects of the emotional brutality of
> Harry's early life again and again: He can't cry for the loss of
> Sirius...

..
.

Kemper now:

Your first quote from HBP3



"He had been sitting in a chair beside his bedroom window for the best
part of four hours, staring out at the darkening street, and had
finally fallen asleep with one side of his face pressed against the
cold windowpane, his glasses askew and his mouth wide open."



while good canon support for proof that Harry was anxiously waiting for the
arrival of Dumbledore, has absolutely nothing to do with Harry's grief of
Sirius.



However, your second canonical support has won me over.  Mostly.  I still
don't find this quote from Harry, a few weeks out from Sirius' death,
emotionally satisfying.  But then, I, too, didn't weep at Sirius' death, so
why should I hold Harry to different emotional standards?



But a question to those who've expressed similar losses at similar ages:  isn't
Harry supposed to have this great depth of Love, more so than any other
Witch or Wizard and presumably much more then any of us Muggles and Squibs.
I don't mean to discount anyone's loss.  I, too, have suffered.  But Harry
is not one of us, he's not an Everyman (Ron is), Harry is a Hero.  With so
much Love, you'd think Harry would experience loss to a heightened degree.



-Kemper


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