The Dursleys: the missing piece?
Bart Lidofsky
bartl at sprynet.com
Wed Apr 11 18:31:27 UTC 2007
No: HPFGUIDX 167357
Bart:
When the first Star Wars movies came out, a film professor pointed out to what was either not spotted by many film historians, or, probably more likely, film historians were afraid to write about in the open. It was about the character, C3P0. Although he was given gold "skin", and a British accent, he was modeled after a different sort of character that used to be much more common in the movies: the wide-eyed always fearful black servant. Of course, if he used lines like "Don' go in thar Artoo! You get us both in a heap o'trubba!" the movie would have been, well, blacklisted. By making him British and a bit over-refined, it made the character less offensive to the audiences.
I have been puzzled by the Dursleys. A materialistic family like that would not be so dead set against magic; if anything, they would want to use it to their advantage. Their behavior towards Harry goes way beyond wanting to be "normal". Yet, there is an stereotype that WOULD behave the way the Dursleys would: the hypocritical pseudo-fundamentalist Christian, who act in very un-Christian manners themselves, but expect everybody else to toe the line defined by their faith. They would consider magic to be Satanic, and would absolutely punish a child for showing signs of difference that were not of the child's making, considering the child to be one of Satan.
I suggest thinking through the novels again, thinking about the actions of the Dursleys, and seeing if their behavior towards Harry makes more or less sense based on my surmise of the personality traits that were removed as an afterthought.
Bart
More information about the HPforGrownups
archive