Was Tom Riddle, Sr. Selfish?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 148585

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "ericoppen" <oppen at ...> wrote:
>
> One of my learned colleagues *slamming my ears in the oven door for 
> forgetting just who* mentioned above that Tom Riddle, Sr. 
> was "selfish," apparently for his contemptuous dismissal of the 
> Gaunts as an old tramp and his family.
> 
> I'd like to pick up the cudgel in his defense, since I do think that 
> Tom Riddle, Sr. is one of the more tragic minor characters in the 
> Saga. Let's face it---the Gaunts' residence was, from the 
> description, a place that would make Tobacco Road look like 
> Buckingham Palace.  Not to mention, I doubt that the (male) Gaunts 
> would have reacted well to attempts to help them...can you imagine 
> what would have happened to some well-meaning local Muggles who, 
> say, tried to bring them some food, or carolled outside their house 
> at Christmastime?  For some reason, the image of a Chas. Addams 
> cartoon comes to mind...the one where the carollers are outside the 
> creepy old house, and the Addamses are about to pour boiling oil on 
> them from atop their tower.
> 
> So, you've got this weird old tramp and his two extremely weird 
> kids, living in this shack that you can't get rid of, who won't 
> accept help and act like they think everybody else around them is 
> garbage.  I don't think I'd be terribly friendly to them myself, or 
> (when speaking of them to a friend from a distance, as Riddle Sr. 
> apparently did to whats-her-face) very respectful in the terms I 
> used to describe them.  He's not selfish, or evil.  I imagine that 
> if he _were_ evil, he'd have turned up his nose at Merope when she 
> offered him That Drink...and we wouldn't have a story.  Kind of like 
> Cedric Diggory, his downfall came through his virtues.
>

Carol responds:
Cedric's death was unplanned and occurred because he was in the way--a
horrible, almost random murder of an innocent boy who had shown
himself to be a good sport and a thoroughly decent human being whose
good looks (in contrast to those of many other characters) did not
lead to arrogance. Even Crouch!Moody refers to him as "decent" (and
therefore easy to manipulate). Dumbledore speaks of him as "good and
kind and brave."

We have no evidence that Tom Sr. was similar to Cedric in any way
except that he, too, was handsome. No doubt you're right that Marvolo
Gaunt would have rejected an offer of money or employment or any
similar aid had it been offered, but where is the evidence that Tom
Sr. offered it? Yes, he was a victim of Morfin's hex, but he recovered
fully and didn't know that naything had happened. Yes, he accepted a
drink of what he thought was water from a wall-eyed, ugly girl who
could not distinguish love from infatuation and thought she could make
him love her, so in a sense he is her victim. But she, too, is a
victim, and I would argue that the abuse she suffered from her father
for most of her life, both physical and emotional, was at least as bad
as being seduced into marriage with an ugly, poor, uneducated woman
who had not been taught that you don't practice magic on Muggles. Tom,
quite understandably, rejected her and felt that he had been tricked,
but surely, once he pulled himself together, he could at least have
made some provision for his unborn child. He didn't suffer the
traumatic effects of forced sex or unwanted pregnancy that a woman
would have suffered, only the blow to his pride of having been
"hoodwinked" by the ugliest girl in the village (and perhaps in all of
England). 

His problem was not the unwanted sex, which he could easily have
gotten over, but the unwanted marriage. And I don't understand why he
didn't have the marriage annulled and marry his beloved Cecilia, who
was apparently rich and beautiful and of his social class--rather like
the preference of the purebloods for marriage partners who are also
purebloods. Instead, he returned to the house of his rich parents and
married no one. If Cecilia loved him before, wouldn't she still have
loved him? And if she only wanted him for his looks and his money, why
not marry him if he still had those, assuming that the marriage to
Merope could be annulled? And why didn't Tom keep an eye on Merope
(hire a private eye to follow her movements, if for no other reason
than to be sure that his child was born alive and taken care of)? If
he'd known that she was dead, he could have married Cecilia.

The evidence we have of his character is very limited--only the
contemptuous remarks about the Gaunts to his "darling" Cecilia and the
remarks of the villagers in GoF, which indicate that the entire Riddle
family (Tom Sr. and his parents) was arrogant. Their passing is not
mourned. There is no indication whatever that Tom or his parents were
humanitarians who would have helped the Gaunts had the Gaunts wanted
their help. In fact, the villagers' opinion of them indicates quite
the opposite:

"Nobody wasted their breath pretending to feel very sad about the
Riddles, for they had been most unpopular. Elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle
had been rich, snobbish, and rude, and their grown-up son, Tom, had
been, if anything, worse" (GoF Am. ed. 4). Admittedly this is the
summarized testimony of the third-person narrator, but it indicates
class pride and arrogance to match that of the Malfoys.

I do not for a moment condone Tom Jr.'s revenge on his father, much
less the additional murders of his grandparents or the torture implied
by their terrified expressions. Tom Jr. was already irredeemably evil
at sixteen, and nothing can justify his terrible act of vengeance or
the framing of Morfin for the murders. But I don't condone Tom Sr.'s
abandonment of an innocent baby, either--or his failure to understand
that Merope acted out of desperation and what she thought was love.
Had he done so, his son might not have grown up to murder him (shades
of Barty Crouch Jr. and Sr., who also shared a name). His selfish
error is by no means in the same league with his son's crimes, but it
was wrong, nonetheless, and it deprived his son of any chance to be loved.

Carol, whose sympathies lie mostly with Merope and who wonders what
Tom Sr. would have thought of his lookalike son had he chosen to raise him