Mothers (was Depression (was Re: DH reread CH 31

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 187496

 
> Potioncat:

> But they do make an interesting comparison. It is two different types of mothers for two different characters. It  has just crossed my mind that Merope and Lily may be two sides of JKR. 
> 

Pippin:
I've thought that too. Lily might be JKR in her wildest dreams: beautiful, charming, super-talented, tough, capable and protective, married into wealth and privilege. And Merope is the opposite: a woman deprived of every resource. By killing both characters, perhaps JKR symbolically put both those fantasies to rest.

 I think Lupin gives us a little insight into Merope and helps us see her as something more than a "bad" mom who abandoned her child. 

If Lupin could think that his child would have a better life without him, then imagine what Merope might have thought of herself: broke, friendless, uneducated, abandoned by the husband she'd forced into marriage, and the only family she knew in jail.

Pippin






> Merope has some events in common with JKR. In the same ABC interview, JKR said that she has not spoken with her father in years, that she was afraid of him when she was a child, and that she tried for too long to please him and earn his love. We know she had an unhappy marriage, had a child to raise on her own, with little money and was depressed. Sounds very similar to Merope's story. Yet, she also overcame adversity, took care of her daughter, and moved on.
>