FF Thursday November 10

Sydney Johnson: Notes for November 10, 2011

Today in class we again discussed J.K. Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” We started off the class by talking about the importance of magical creatures and objects in the novel and what they tell us about the wizarding world. Dementors seem to combine the Muggle life to the wizarding world in that Dementors personify the misery and hopelessness that everyone feels at some point. Dementors are also a barrier that Harry must overcome and by doing so he conquers his internal fears. Invisibility cloaks provide a metaphor of things in Harry’s world not being as they seem—for example, Sirius Black seems to be a murderer and Scabbers a harmless rat, while actually their true personalities and forms are hidden. The Marauder’s Map follows the pattern of not being as it seems—what appears to be an old bit of parchment is in reality a powerful magical object—but instead of concealing things it reveals the truth in a way that no one can truly hide from it. All three of these creatures and objects are a link to Harry’s parents—Harry channels James in using the cloak and the map for mischief and the Dementors provide him with sad memories of his parents.

Next we discussed Rowling’s representations of gender. The class decided that she created complex characters for each gender that have stereotypical as well as unique traits. For females, there seem to be three different trends. There is the strong, independent woman, for instance Professor McGonagall; the independent and honorable mother figure, like Mrs. Weasley; and the dreamy-eyed girls like Lavender Brown. However, all of the female characters with the exception of Bellatrix in the books have a motherly personality in some way, showing us the importance of mothers in the story; even the cruel Narcissa Malfoy shows love for her son. We also discussed transformations—Ginny Weasley starts out like Lavender but eventually grows bolder, and Hermione Granger begins as intense and sometimes annoying but grows into maturity. We also discussed that, in addition to the importance of mother figures, there is also the importance of father figures like Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. We said that Ron Weasley seems to be a quintessential teenager, with awkwardness, sarcastic humor and an unawareness of the effect of his actions. The hero Harry Potter, on the other hand, does not really have many actions that make him stereotypically masculine or feminine.

Next we compared Harry’s education to Ged’s education in “A Wizard of Earthsea,” talking about classes, exams, and responsibly using powers. We then discussed how Uncle Vernon truly dislikes Harry but Aunt Petunia loves Harry deep down and acts out of jealousy and influence from Uncle Vernon. We talked about how Harry was justified in his anger over Aunt Marge’s taunts about his parents and that his reaction was impulsive. We also talked about Draco Malfoy, who was influenced by his family but is very jealous of Harry. We said that Malfoy thinks he hates Harry until he learns what true hatred is, so that he is mean but not evil. We also talked about how Harry partly wants to meet Sirius out of curiosity and also for revenge. Even though Sirius apparently betrayed Harry’s family, he was also a link to his parents. The first thing Harry does when he learns this is look at pictures of Sirius and James at his parents’ wedding. We also said that Harry would have wanted revenge but that he never would have truly harmed Sirius Black; he has the chance and does not, and he also saves Peter Pettigrew’s life when he learns that Pettigrew is the real traitor.