CHAPTER DISCUSSION: Prisoner of Azkaban Chapter 2: Aunt Marge's Big Mistake

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 189417



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "dzturtleshell" <dzturtleshell at ...> wrote:
>
> Megan asks: "Seriously - what is wrong with Aunt Marge? What kind of person hits a 5-year old in the shins?"
> 
> AM responded: "But the idea that you shouldn't hit children is quite recent - I, and most of the kids I knew growing up were acquainted with the strap, hand, and ruler."
> 
> dzturtleshell responds: I understand it's a fairly new concept that hitting children can be abuse and shouldn't be done. But, was this situation ever really ok? I suppose I don't know being fairly young and sheltered, but it's very sad to think anyone would ever condone a woman hitting her sister-in-law's 5-year old nephew with a stick to keep him from winning a birthday party game against her own 5-year old nephew. It's one thing to discipline a misbehaving child, but this situation should have been beyond reproach in any day or age!

Pippin:
I was thinking it was about Marge wanting Dudley to get the prize, but it parallels Lucius buying brooms for the Slytherin team and Hermione hexing McLaggen, which, to take a slightly more generous view, might mean that Marge wanted to spare Dudley the humiliation of losing. Of course Harry's feelings didn't matter to her at all. But as Marge points out with her casual mention of drowning a pup, compassion for the helpless is by no means a given. 

That is one of the things JKR looks at: most of us don't consciously try to be cruel, so what controls whether we feel compassion or not? 


Pippin