[HPforGrownups] Re: Mirror of Erised

[Shelley Gardner]

No: HPFGUIDX 191303


>> Bart:
>>> My belief: He sees himself, looking at the mirror, looking at
>>> himself holding a pair of thick woolen socks.
>> Geoff:
>> Dumbledore says:
>> "It shows us nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate
>> desire of our hearts."
>> (PS "The Mirror of Erised" p.157 UK edition)
>>
>> Hm. Well, sorry, but I just don't believe his greatest and most
>> desperate desire is a pair of thick woollen socks.
>>
>> HIs excuse:
>> "One can never have enough socks... Another Christmas has come
>> and gone and I didn't get a single pair. People will insist on giving
>> me books."
>> (Ibid.)
>>
>> So what's to stop him nipping into Hogsmeade and buying himself half
>> a dozen pairs?
> Maybe a pair of hand-knitted woollen socks was his perennial Christmas
> present from his mother and/or sister.
>
>
> --Margaret Dean
>    <margdean56 at gmail.com>
This is my thought exactly. An item can have an emotional or sentimental 
value of it, a meaning much greater than the object itself. Books, DD's 
usually Christmas gift, represents that people think Dumbledore values 
knowledge most of all. Socks would carry an entirely different value- 
maybe memories of him being a boy, sitting in front of the fire, opening 
a gift from his mother- a very practical gift of woolen socks. It may 
convey to him warmth, family time, a time of peace and happiness, a life 
that was simple and uncomplicated, of having all your basic needs met, 
and of being loved very much. He may be seeing that scene again and 
simple wishes for socks to take him back to that memory, that place in 
time.

Yes, you can buy socks, but they wouldn't have the same value as ones 
given by someone close to you who cares, someone whom you share your 
life and daily struggles with.

Shelley