I. Introduction
Harry Potter’s ‘reality’ closely coincides with the symptoms of widely recognized psychological disorders, specifically paranoia, schizophrenia and narcissistic personality disorder.
Madness and Harry Potter are one: this is a grave diagnosis, even a grave accusation. Before we accept it, let us step back and consider the problems that Harry’s lawyers might highlight. They might and should argue that Harry is not mad because he really is persecuted by a villain and a shadowy ministry, and because the school bully who bugs him really is in cahoots with an supernatural villain, and because that Harry’s parents really were heroes who left him a pile of gold bullion, and because he really does save the world and the voices in his head are real and so on and so on.
Unfortunately, paranoiacs, schizophrenics and persons suffering from narcissistic personality disorders also believe that everything they imagine is real. Moreover, the reality/delusion issue is secondary. My primary concern is that children, by reading Harry Potter, enjoy identifying with an experience that is indistinguishable from the experiences of psychiatric patients.
Two questions arise from this troubling conclusion: first, what has predisposed children to identify with such a character? Second, will their identification with him promote their sanity or insanity?
Such questions, of course, don’t belong in a work of literary criticism, but I wished to raise them before readers began perusing my literary evidence of Harry’s unsuitability as a hero and role model. Admittedly, the evidence is not always consistent with the symptoms of any known psychiatric disorder, but even then, I think it might raise questions.
II. The Unjust Worlds
Injustice lies at the root Harry’s psyche. His parents were murdered when he was 15 months and his stepfamily, while indulging in gastronomic excesses, seems malicious, paranoid, and without any ability to nurture a young mind. Psychologists understand that childhood conditions like these can cause people to suffer the kind of delusions experienced by Harry, and, as is true of Harry’s delusional fantasy world, this world is often as frightening as the real world. Harry might escape into a fantasy world, but this fantasy conserves and replicates the world he seeks to escape. Its prisons replace the Dursley closet, incidents of magical-corporeal punishment replace spankings, murder replaces murder, criminals proliferate, Malfoy replaces young Dursley, and so on and so on.
In short, Hogwarts replaces the Dursley home, and so the harmful effect of life in at Hogwarts spare no one, not even Hermione or Malfoy. Enraged at Malfoy for mocking Hagrid “[s]he had slapped Malfoy around the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered” (TPOA 216). Yes, Malfoy staggered, but he was not improved. In fact, what Hermione did was entirely inappropriate and silly. It was silly because Hagrid is an adult and a giant, and therefore should defend his own ego. It was inappropriate because Hermione could have reported Malfoy to Dumbledore or could have organized a fantastically massive and non-violent student protest against bullying. She could even have redirected Malfoy’s negative energy with a joke or a question about why Malfoy hopes to accomplish by mocking a giant. But Hogwarts has not taught her such useful skills, and its professors also resort to violence, so what else could we expect?
Thanks to the media, children witness so much violence that they cannot possibly respond emotively to violence or learn to reflect on the causes and consequences of violence. Consequently, they have little choice but to put their faith in effortless and instantaneous religious and secular solutions. Take Azkaban as an example. Half Hell and half prison, it is the ultimate fantasy solution to crime. But Rowling’s Azkaban is such an extreme solution that it also sounds like a critique of prison justice. The prisoners in Azkaban frequently lose their minds. The Dementors, its prison guards, “suck peace, hope and happiness out of the air around them” [187 TPA]. And the shady minister of justice is Fudge, a man whose name belies his habit of fudging the truth. Sadly, this inhumane, corrupt and all-too-real world is Harry’s fantasy world! Small wonder then, that fear and paranoia dominate his life.
The author might have implied a criticism of prison justice, but the young characters do not, and Harry and friends learn to ignore it. Thus, when Harry desires personal revenge against an adult, Sirius, Hermione dissuades him by saying, “There’s nothing you can do! … The Dementors will catch Black and he’ll go back to Azkaban [i.e. prison]” (TPOA 159). Harry answers, “He [Black] can go to Azkaban … just don’t kill him” (275). Now Harry also wants him back in prison. Has he forgotten how he felt when he was locked in the Dursley closet? “Just don’t kill him” – Why not, when death might be preferable? In other words, Harry’s plea to spare Black’s life is a case of pity and good intentions paving the way to the worst possible outcome. But what else would you expect from a young man whose school teaches him nothing about the world’s justice system and does nothing to teach students to think calmly and objectively about personal and upsetting matters?
Other images of normalized violence include acts of violence committed during the Quidditch matches. As in rugby, hockey, American football, boxing, and other sports, Quidditch violence is excused on the grounds of being a normal and acceptable expression of the desire for victory. Scenes of graphic violence include: “Flint’s nose smashed into the handle of his broom and began to bleed”; and “Bole and Derrick collided with a sickening crunch” (TPOA 226, 227). While these collisions have a visceral effect they elicit no moral indignation from the characters or the narrator. Bludgers are expected to harm other players, and the Slytherin team perpetrates most of the illicit violence in order to win their matches without skill. Perhaps their failure was intended as a moral lesson about cheating, but it is not a moral lesson about violence, as the game requires violence.
Superficially speaking, the Weasley twins’ failure to use magic to cheat their way into the Triwizard Tournament is a critique of unjust uses of magic and of cheating in general. However, the nature of their punishment is both magical and violent, and not in proportion to the crime: “[they are] hurled out of the golden circle” and land “painfully, ten feet away on the cold stone floor” (TGOF 229). The result seems to describe the consequence of an exploding land mine or a charging bull, and its use in a school tournament is unjustifiable and sets a woeful example for students.
After Sirius Black persuades Harry that he is the boy’s protector and that the unconscious Professor Snape is his true enemy, he uses the spectacle of magic to normalize his cruel and sadistic treatment of Snape’s body: “[it] kept bumping his lolling head on the low ceiling”; and “Snape’s head was scraping the ceiling but Sirius didn’t seem to care” (TPOA 277, 278). This violence goes unpunished yet so unnecessary, unwarranted, and gratuitous, especially in children’s literature, I shudder to guess at the author’s intentions—or lack thereof.
From Sirius’ Black’s treatment of Snape, Malfoy, and Ron, we know Sirius is no pacifist. Nevertheless, Black criticises Crouch, the minister of magic, for fighting “violence with violence [and for authorising] the use of the Unforgivable Curses against suspects” (TGOF 457). This sounds hypocritical coming from Sirius, and it ironically hypocritical (a new species of irony?) in a book that relies so heavily on violent scenes.
Does Rowling make a mockery of the penal justice system and, in doing so, satirize it and imply a critical position? Consider that Sirius Black and Hagrid are unjustly imprisoned, and Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew escape. Moreover, the legal trials witnessed by Harry through the Pensieve do not reflect well on the legal process (see TGOF 509-518). And Karkaroff betrays his own friends in the hope of receiving a lighter sentence; Bagman’s sentence is retracted on account of his status as a celebrity; and without a fair trial Crouch condemns four people, his son included, to life in prison. All these acts of ‘justice’ make a mockery of justice, and with the exception of the last one, they are completely realistic. Of course, this realism highlights the worst aspects of our justice system, and in that sense they seem calculated to criticize, and given the nature of the educational environment, we can easily surmise the reason for the injustice system. The nature of education and justice in Harry’s world is hardly hidden from the children who read Rowling’s words, but if they have not taken critical notice of their nature, and continue floating like zombies through Harry-world, and our teachers and librarians take no notice, whose behaviour is begging for correction?
The failed execution of Hagrid’s Hippogriff reads like a critique of the death penalty and of the deadly method whereby governments deal with wild and domestic animals. While violent and cruel over-reactions are rampant through the series, the Hippogriff is a notable exception, and, unlike Harry, barely harms Malfoy after being insulted by him. While I believe a healthy ego should be immune to verbal insults, and that no reaction was warranted by the offended Hippogriff, Malfoy’s complaint to the authorities results in a death sentence—for the Hippogriff. Fortunately, Harry, Ron and Hermione come to the rescue. In fact, they do more to try to save the poor mythological beast than they do to save any Earthly creature, humans included. Thus, again and again, the subtext heaps irony upon absurdity and hypocrisy, until the intention nearly escapes me.
“It happened in a flash of steely talons; Malfoy let out a high pitched scream and … lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes” (TPOA 90). The metaphorical “blood blossoming” links the botanical world to a violent form of justice. The floral metaphor beautifies the violence. The metaphor is reminiscent of ones found in The Illiad and The Song of Roland, about which we might also ask: Why did their authors endeavour to normalize and beautify an avoidable violence by comparing it to a normal event like the blossoming of flowers?
In addition to seducing readers with metaphors, Rowling normalizes violence and vengeance with a tasteless veneer of comedy that includes scenes of blowing people up—presumably with air (TPS) and a car crash into a ‘dangerous’ tree (The Whomping Willow). And, consider the following:
There was a dazzling flash of scarlet light and Lockhart was blasted off his feet: he flew backwards off the stage, smashed into the wall and slid down it to sprawl on the floor. …
“Do you think he’s alright?”
“Who cares?” said Harry and Ron together. (TCOS 142)
Perhaps this is supposed to be funny, or perhaps vain Lockhart’s ‘misfortune’ is something young readers can gloat over. And yet, even to call it a misfortune is to overlook the point that Snape’s violent reaction was unwarranted and unjust, and that Harry and Ron’s crass indifference to injustice is reprehensible.
III. Harry’s Fall into Violence
Harry Potter may not be psychopathic any more than, say, certain publicly supported military forces, but his frequent recourse to violence in the name of justice is not acceptable and does not represent a plausible to solution to anything. Why, in contrast to many other fantasy heroes, does Harry resort to violence? He does so to resolve conflict and vent anger. As an action-fantasy hero, he is entitled to anger and he must resolve conflicts, well, not conflicts between others (he is hardly capable of resolving problems between others; he is too self-centered and, in his defense, he’s too young) but strictly conflicts between himself and others.
While Harry starts with no ability to even address the conflict with his stepfamily, in his fantasy world he imagines himself able to confront a villain of mythological proportions, a villain who requires and demands violence of epic proportions. Consequently, Harry’s increasing dependency on violence shouldn’t surprise us.
The adult world that influences all children does not provide Harry with any alternatives to violence. In TCOS we witness violence between the fathers of two students. Mr Malfoy and Mr Weasley argue and come to blows before a group of children. The fight is instantly resolved by the timely physical intervention of a more powerful being, the semi-giant Hagrid. Scenes wherein parents and professors behave like three-year olds are common, and consequently Harry naturally becomes like them. In Harry’s magical world, the best adult role models offer no alternatives to the violent solution that is, at best, a temporary solution and is, at worst, a curse on imagination and conscience.
Harry’s frequent recourse to violence is shocking because initially he is not disposed to commit violence. In the first book, when he first loses his temper, he uses the harmless Tickling Charm against Malfoy (TCOS 145). And, in the same book, he prevents Ron from committing violence.
The second book tells a different tale. Harry has turned to uttering death threats at Dobby the elf: “You’d better clear off before my bones come back, Dobby, or I might strangle you” (133).
In the third book, during Aunt Marge’s visit to the Dursleys, Harry tries to suppress his temper “by forcing himself to think about his Handbook of Do-it-Yourself Broomcare” (TPOA 25). But this method fails, and Harry takes vengeance against Aunt Marge with magic. She immediately inflates “like a monstrous balloon” and floats to the ceiling (27). Later, Harry throws a punch that “collided with the side of Black’s head” (TPOA 249, 250). The narrator speculates that Black was caught off guard because of the “shock of Harry doing something so stupid” (249). In what sense is it stupid? Immediately prior to the stupid punch the bemused and bemusing narrator tells us that Harry had become so angry that he forgot he was “short and skinny and thirteen.” The point might not be that children should postpone violence until they are big adults, but that anger leads to stupidity. A valid and commendable point to make in a book of children’s literature, but the point is poorly communicated and flagrantly ignored by the hero’s leading obsession with Lord Voldemort.
In the fourth book, when Harry cannot remember a password, he desperately invents one after another, still fails to get past the stone gargoyle, and kicks it so hard that he achieves “nothing but an excruciating pain in his big toe” (502). Later, Malfoy’s insults cause him so much rage that Harry loses the power to speak, and he uses a painful magical curse against Malfoy (TGOF 262). When Malfoy mocks Hagrid, Harry uses his magical invisibility cloak to commit a ‘dirty trick’ by throwing a mud-ball at Malfoy’s head and a slime-ball at Crabbe and Goyle. In the last chapter, Malfoy mocks, or rather teases, Harry and Hermione, and for this relatively harmless gesture Harry, Hermione, and Ron retaliate disproportionately, striking Malfoy unconscious and inflicting the same cruelty on his two friends—and, still not satisfied, they “kick, roll, and push” them (633). Can we still speak of heroism after all this? Why, not one of Harry’s ill-conceived reactions will solve anything; they only guarantee that he will continue suffer, perhaps more than ever.
Books five through seven hardly reverse the trend, in fact, the trend culminates with the epic final battle against Lord Voldemort, a battle during which the young hypocrite, Harry, commands Voldemort to feel remorse.
In conclusion, Harry Potter’s descent into violence does more than blur the difference between good and evil, it challenges us to complicate simplified notions of the moral order in HP.
Ultimately, we need to stop reading HP as a simple narrative of good versus evil and understand that the poles are constantly in flux. If we can be critical of Dudley’s love of blowing up imaginary aliens (TPS 35), we can be even more critical of Harry for ‘blowing up’ his aunt and for approaching other problems in a similar manner.
IV. Harry’s Verbal Deficiency
A person diagnosed with schizophrenia may demonstrate auditory hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized and unusual thinking and speech; this may range from loss of train of thought and subject flow, with sentences only loosely connected in meaning, to incoherence[.] Wikipedia. Schizophrenia (Aug. 17, 09).
Harry Potter is a poor speaker and a poor organiser of words. In his first recorded attempt to converse, despite being ten years old he speaks like an infant. In what can hardly be called a conversation, Harry contributes a one-word sentence, a groan, and an incomplete sentence of two identical words (TPS 20). Regrettably, his Hogwarts education includes no language classes and so, is unlikely to improve his speaking or thinking skills. And, considering his stepparents and the nature of a Hogwarts education, poor Harry has little hope of improving.
Rowling herself suggests that violent language and violent actions are the same. Her narrator says of Harry, “The injustice of it made him want to curse Snape into a thousand slimy pieces” (TGOF 263). The second line shows that Harry cannot distinguish words and violence, and relates to them as being morally indistinguishable: “Harry … wasn’t sure whether he wanted to talk to him or hit him, both seemed quite appealing” (273). In other words, Harry’s inability to do anything intelligent with language, and his growing dependency on violence, might be linked.
A symptom of narcissistic personality disorder is the inability to entertain criticism and, consequently, a predisposition to violent overreactions. Thus, when the three ruffians Malfoy, Goyle, and Crabbe attempt to make Harry their friend and tell him that Ron is the wrong friend, Harry misses the pun entirely. Moreover, since he hardly knows Ron he might at least ask why they seem critical of his choice, and not reply with this flatfooted bit of sarcasm: “I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks” (TPS 81; italics mine). His response betrays an excessive sensitivity and vulnerability to criticism and a narcissistic personality disorder, a fact which naturally goes unnoticed by young readers being raised in a culture where self-esteem is an advertised right and rarely distinguishable from narcissism? Moreover, where would our children learn the skills needed to respond better than Harry? At our schools and televisions?
Harry and friends, none of whom can bear being criticized or teased by anyone, regularly and without hesitation, call others “stupid” (TPS 25, TGOF 35, 54, 313, 394). Perhaps Rowling’s insensitive young readers enjoy this kind of schoolyard trash talk and have not considered how they would feel on the receiving end. Of course, Joanne is partly to blame for doing so little to encourage a change in perspective.
On the subject of insensitivity, consider how Harry treats Draco Malfoy. When Malfoy finds Neville’s glassy eye-like “Remembrall” in the grass, Harry, being quick to judge, assumes Draco will do something wrong with it. “Give that here, Malfoy,” Harry says, addressing the boy with the impolite moniker, the boy’s surname. “Give it here!” Harry adds before adding an antagonizing threat for good measure: “or I’ll knock you off that broom!” (TPS 110). And all this might have been avoided if Harry had explained that little glass objects are not worth fighting for, even if those objects mirror your serised.
In the third book Harry has another encounter with Malfoy. This time Malfoy mocks Harry’s friend Hagrid, and Harry, with a characteristically stupid response, says, “Shut up, Malfoy” (87). Draco continues, and Harry repeats his most common refrain in the entire series, “Shut up, Malfoy.” How ironic that a boy lacking verbal skills resorts to trying to censor what others say. While such responses pass for conscientious rebuttals, they actually ensure conflict. A more ideal, or shall I say fantastic response would consist of a deflection by turning the mockery upon oneself or by inquiring exactly what Malfoy hopes to accomplish by insulting a giant.
When Snape says that Harry’s father strutted, Harry denies it. But Snape speaks from memory, while Harry only speaks from desire. So, when Snape continues to dismantle Harry’s idealized father-image Harry shouts “SHUT UP!” and “I told you to shut up about my dad!” (TPOA 209-10) A few chapters later Harry has a vision of a horse that saves him from some Dementors. First Harry idealizes this vision by assuming that the horse is his father, but afterwards he finds an even more flattering interpretation: he assumes that the horse symbolises himself, and he brags, “I just saved all our lives” (301). In other words, Harry’s verbal deficiency is a product of his narcissistic personality disorder.
In the fourth book Harry’s intellect still shows no signs of progress. When Draco jokes about Ron Weasley’s house, Harry says, “Get stuffed, Malfoy” (180). The metaphorical “Get stuffed” might be more poetical than the earlier colloquial “Shut up!” but it is not good poetry, Indeed, as if to assure us that he has not changed, Harry follows his “Get stuffed!” with the brilliant “Keep your fat mouth shut” (180). Harry’s repertoire of insulting language might be developing, but this hardly validates three-years at Hogwarts.
How to Help Children with Common Problems will show that many common problems, including daydreaming, coincide with Harry’s and— by extension—with any reader who identifies with him. In Artful Mediation, the authors list five causes of violent and awful conflicts. Harry’s behaviour closely corresponds to two, and less to two others. They are, respectively,
Avoiding direct discussion.
Wishing the conflict (or the other person) would go away.
Forming coalitions with others and complaining about the opposition.
Unrelenting rounds of “dirty” tricks to make others look foolish … just to get even. (Yarbrough & Wilmot 2)
Harry’s verbal deficiency is usually exhibited in response to jibes that would be relatively harmless to an intelligent child. But Harry is not intelligent. Given his fluency in Parseltongue, he might not be entirely human. And Rowling teasingly jokes at Harry’s expense by associating him with spiders, first by suggesting that he is comfortable living with spiders in the cupboard beneath the Dursley stairs, and by repeatedly reminding us that the black spider who lived in the Secret Chamber is hairy: “hairy body” (184), “mad and hairy” (186), hairy legs” and “hairy, gigantic” (204). If this isn’t sufficient, the good author informs us that, as a baby Harry’s head had “a tuft of jet-black hair” and that, ten years later, he “must have had more haircuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his hair simply grew that way – all over the place” (TPS 16, 20-21).
V. Harry’s Mental Deficiency
Paranoia is a thought process characterized by excessive anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs concerning a perceived threat towards oneself […] that the person is on a special quest or has been chosen by God; […] that shadowy agencies are operating against them. Dictionary-psychology.com (Aug.-17-09).
Although the evidence collected in this section is redundant, we absolutely must entertain Joanne’s claim that Harry is smart (Newsweek 23) and not dismiss it as the product of maternal pride.
One eminent commentator with no relation to Harry, and therefore more likely to view him objectively, has written the following: “Harry learns nothing from his mistakes about his teacher [Snape]” (Tucker 226]. To be honest, even Harry’s fellow students know he is not a top student (TGOF 276). During Professor Trelawney’s class, Harry’s thoughts drifted because “the perfumed fire always made him feel sleepy and dull-witted, and Professor Trelawney … never held him exactly spellbound” (177). Actually, Harry is spellbound by the professor’s words; he cannot stop “thinking about what she had just said to him.” Just how he thinks about her words is not clear; however, judging from the italicised verbatim repetition of her words, Harry’s notion of thinking about a Professor’s words means senselessly repeating them.
Certain ‘extra-curricular subjects’ also exceed poor Harry’s mental ability. When he hears new details about the murder of his parents his “brain seemed to be sagging under the weight of what he was hearing” (TPOA 267). When Harry finds his favourite professor preparing to leave, we find Harry “trying to think of a good argument to make him stay,” and failing because he cannot admit the truth about his love for Lupin (TPOA 309). And Harry “was finding it hard to think about the future at all” (TGOF 275). When someone asks him if he has reflected on the fact that many champions die, he implies the negative. Hermione struggles to teach him the Summoning Charm, and the narrator tells us that Harry had “developed something of a block about them” (278) because he is afraid to summon up memories of his dead parents. Apparently, one special emotion dominates Harry’s mind, not love but fear, a fear of death so powerful that his mind has become afraid of itself, of its own power to “summon” or imagine monsters, a mind which, nevertheless, requires objects of fear that, unlike death, it can defeat or control. However, until he learns to understand death, he won’t have sufficient control over his own mind to ensure that it does not lead him into a living nightmare (therefore the giant who lead Harry into his dreamworld, is ‘Hagrid’ which comes from a word for nightmare).
Tragically, Harry’s nightmare-fantasy world is also the tragic fulfillment of his desire to escape. Concerning this fantasy world, Dumbledore says,
It [is] nothing more or less than the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts … However, [it] will give us neither knowledge or truth. … It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that. (TPS 157; italics mine).
Clearly, Dumbledore counsels Harry to return to the real world and get a life as the children say.
Unfortunately, Harry seems to misinterpret Dumbledore’s advice not to dwell on the symbolic reflecting glass (after Lewis Carroll’s looking-glass). Instead of understanding it as I have, he makes no effort to return to or reflect on the real world and chooses not to reflect on anything.
Harry’s thoughtlessness results in an inability to articulate his thoughts, thoughts that hardly exist, of course. In the following quote Harry claims to be thinking, but judge for yourself: “‘Sir?’ said Harry. ‘I’ve been thinking … Sir – even if the Stone’s gone, Vol – I mean” (TPS 215-16). After Harry finally verbalises his badly organized thoughts Dumbledore tells him that Voldemort is still alive, and apparently this thought, combined with the action of nodding, “made [Harry’s] head hurt.”
In Chapter Fifteen of TGOF we learn that Harry’s “sleeping brain had been working on [a plan] all night” (201). This plan, however, is the rather stupid one of denying, in a letter to Sirius, that his scar ever hurt. And despite the fact that the throbbing scar is most certainly a schizophrenic’s symptom, in this same letter he insists “my head feels completely normal.” Nevertheless, Rowling sweetens the comedy by writing, some three pages later, that a voice in Harry’s head told him his desire to jump is stupid (i.e. not normal).
Fear is really part of desire, as objects of desire help diffuse energies repressed by fear, and anything one desires one is determined to fear losing. As a young male student at Hogwarts, Harry naturally desires a pretty girl, and suffers from the common fear of losing the girl he desires. Thanks to this inner torment, he sounds particularly stupid in her presence (TGOF 223) and whenever his mind is on her (338). When she, Cho Chang, wishes him well, he is speechless and feels “extremely stupid” (277). Utterly distracted by her, and possibly afraid to reveal his un-athletic body, he—ironically—forgets to disrobe for the second task and swims in his robe.
Although Harry considers writing to Dumbledore about his throbbing scar, he thinks that “[e]ven in his head the words sounded stupid” (25). This is odd. While this represents a rare instance of self-criticism, either he knows that no one else believes in his scar, or he is an incompetent writer (a likely possibility given his ‘education’). However, when fear of Voldemort overcomes his shame of admitting his fear, he makes the dubious decision to write to Sirius instead. In that letter he criticises his cousin for destroying the one gadget that helped him “take his mind off things” (27). This is hypocritical because ‘taking his mind off things’ (i.e. Voldemort, i.e. death) is precisely what Harry decides to do when he accepts the invitation to the inane Quidditch World Cup.
During the Quit-it World Cup, Harry meets the ultimate distraction for a young man with much mental work to do, a girl. Mesmerized by the sexy Veela, “half formed thoughts started chasing through Harry’s dazed mind”, inspiring him to do something really courageous, I mean stupid (94), which he accidentally does by losing his phallic symbol, his wand, of course.
Lack of empathy is listed as a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder, but it is likely symptomatic of a variety of disorders, the Harry Potter Disorder included. Consider his lack of empathy when, upon learning of poor Ron’s jealousy, he responds with self-pitying anger. More pointedly, when Hermione tries to help Harry think he cries, “will you shut up for a bit, please? I’m trying to concentrate.” But “all that happened, when Hermione fell silent, was that Harry’s brain filled with a sort of blank buzzing” (TGOF 296).
In “The Pensieve” Harry admits he’s never been pensive, and in the next chapter his head reels with thoughts he cannot organize because he has no sieve to strain them with, and no pen with which to “siphon them off” for study. Two pages later, Hermione expresses her frustration with his brain, which does not seem to work, and has again forgotten that Muggle “things don’t work around Hogwarts” (TGOF 529).
In “The Egg and the Eye” Harry’s brain receives a rare compliment from—of all people—the mentally unstable, paranoid Moody. This needs no further comment.
How can we reconcile the fact that Harry is so stunningly stupid with the upside-down fact that he solves the Sphinx’s riddle in the Third Task (TGOF)? Look closely and note that, prior to finding the Sphinx, the “world turned upside-down” for Harry (542). Indeed! Suddenly, quite inexplicably, Harry demonstrates independence and intelligence by solving the Sphinx’s (or Kat’s) riddle unaided!!! Nothing could be more topsy-turvy.
Does Harry improve in books 5-7? Does he come to terms with death? In TOTP, when Sirius dies, instead of exhibiting grace and maturity, he is deeply disturbed and is too proud to show it and ask for help. Dumbledore notices and attempts to console him by saying he shares his feelings about Sirius, and Harry, instead of ignoring this rather useless gesture, experiences “white-hot anger like his insides, blazing in the terrible emptiness, filling him with the desire to hurt Dumbedore for his calmness and his empty words” (823). Amazingly, some critics consider this mental aberration and over-reaction nothing to worry about, and readers hardly blink. But, for goodness sake, how hopeless are we when we expect the worst from our heroes?
Luckily Harry grows up to be quite a model young man, marrying Ginny (please note that Ginny is the wrong girl; her name invokes the spirit of ‘gin,’ so marriage to her implies Harry has grown up to be a good, alcohol-loving Brit). Plus, Harry lands a job at the Ministry of Magic, an institution which—in keeping with its name—is steeped in deception, trickery and fudgery.
In her CBC interview with Shelagh Rogers, Joanne raised our hope that Harry would come to terms with death. “I think it would be fair to say that in book five [Harry] has to examine what death means, in ever closer ways [italics mine].” In her words, “he has to,” but does he? Was she being honest with us? Two paragraphs above I presented Harry’s response to Sirius’ death for our examination. Obviously, Harry never examines death; he’s too busy writing Hogwash exams; and, even if he attempted to examine death, it would be in vain, for nothing in his education and his recreational reading and activities could ever prepare him for that examination.
VI. Harry’s Education
Although Rowling patterned Hogwarts, the school of magic, after the traditional “Gothic-style boarding school” (Tucker 222), Hogwarts’ curriculum seems very fantastical; it includes Herbology, History, Muggle Studies, Care of Magical Creatures, Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts and Divination. It seems fantastical because in actuality Hogwarts is, in many respects, very modernized. With its co-ed classes, telescopes, pseudo-science classes, and its emphasis on preparing students for jobs, Hogwarts operates more like a cog in the modern English public education system than like a Gothic boarding school or medieval cathedral school. The fact that Harry and friends are usually bored with their classes, and often express justified contempt for their professors, evidences Rowling’s appeal to the nearly universal experience of being a frustrated and powerless student. Children particularly are guaranteed to identify with characters who suffer in school and feel above their teachers. Ultimately, HP conserves the modern educational system as a necessary means for Muggle-borns to win secure government jobs, as Harry does in TDH.
Our first educators, our parents, discourage us from asking “Why?” through their inability to turn ‘maddening’ questions into the beginning of pleasant banter and thoughtful discussions that lead to inner strength and light. The Dursleys are an entirely typical example of parents who do not nourish intelligence and imagination; they are so typical that when readers learn about the first rule in the Dursley household, “Don’t ask questions,” they are tempted to smile and think, Those stupid Dursleys! I’m glad I don’t live with them! What hypocrites we are. What home and what school encourages introspection, self-criticism, and hard and inconvenient questions?
In reality, the schools to which we entrust our children are actually far better than Hogwarts. Rowling provides no evidence, at any time, that Hogwarts professors encourage students to ask questions, master language, discuss social issues, or even study logic. “Why don’t they teach logic at these schools?” (The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe 47), asked Lewis’ professor. How Hermione developed a knack for logic (see “Through the Trapdoor”) and how her conscience survived Hogwarts, is the greatest mystery of the series.
If we discount the value of Dumbledore’s minimal role as an intellectual advisor, Harry has no mentor, only de-mentors. Even snakes, despite being symbols of wisdom in ancient mythologies (and even Jesus said “be as shrewd as snakes” (Matt. 10:16)), are useless to Harry. Voldemort’s slytherin snake shows no sign of wisdom and is employed merely as a pop-culture symbol of fear. Even Harry’s ability to communicate with snakes is not a sign of intelligence, as the narrator clearly warns when Harry shouts “stupidly at the snake, ‘Leave him!’” (TCOS 145; italics mine).
My reading of Hogwarts as a place of mental disorder and corruption agrees with one plausible interpretation of ‘Hogwarts,’ that being that the name was likely inspired by the word ‘hogwash’—though ‘warthog’ may also take some credit, but given the English tendency to pronounce ‘wash’ as ‘warsh,’ hogwarsh deserves more credit. Besides, hogwash makes more sense, and absolutely agrees with the deprecatory spirit of the school’s chant:
‘Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please …
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff …
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we’ve forgot,
Just do your best, we’ll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.’ (TPS 95)
Do Hogwarts students learn anything “worth knowing”? Why, the curriculum at Hogwarts was not even intended to teach children anything worth knowing, and that does not bode well for readers who vicariously experience life at Hogwarts.
Alas, even Dumbledore provides only the shallowest façade of experience and wisdom. Although he says “[t]he consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse” (311) he neglects to illustrate and teach this, and neglects to provide its correlative, that the causes are also complicated and diverse, and that blaming the immediate agent of a crime is simplistic. And so the story goes: Lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents because they were half-bloods, but we never learn why he hates half-bloods or what role his childhood and his education had in shaping his mind. These are the questions students and readers must ask if they have any aspirations to improving the world.
Does Dumbledore deserve more respect? Consider that Harry’s primary lesson concerns death, a subject not taught at Hogwarts, and that the one sentence memorized by Harry is the one Dumbledore utters about death: “After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure” (TPS 215, 218). Consider this carefully. An adventure? Is this an invitation to suicide? So we must organize our minds—but this sounds like the advice of a filing clerk! Dumbldore does not do much better in the end, when claims that Harry understands death because he understands that “there are far, far worse things in the living world than dying” (TDH 577). Actually, death is not grasped through a comparison to life, no more than we understand love by comparing it to hatred. And so, Dumbledore’s claim that Harry is the master of death is false, and that isn’t surprising considering the absence of evidence that Harry has done any thinking about death.
VII. Comedy as an Intelligent Solution?
One method of effecting instant solutions to problems, a method neither magical nor violent, is the method taught for suppressing Boggarts (i.e. class of phenomena that includes any mental aberration, including pop stars like the very serious Humphrey Boggart). According to the Lupin, only something loopy or comical can defeat a Boggart. To accomplish this one must mentally “force [the Boggart] to assume a shape that [you] find amusing” (TPOA 101). Several students succeed at this. Relative to violence and magic, the method seems possessed of psychological depth and a healing potential that physicians and psychologists underestimate. However, the childish sort of comedy in Rowling’s work, and the increasingly and overwhelmingly dark atmosphere of her work, is more likely to produce Boggarts than to help liberate children from their fears.
Another problem with Lupin’s solution: it assumes the children have an innate ability to instantly produce comical transformations, whereas comedy is something so rarefied that it requires years of practice. Thus, when Harry attempts to exorcise his anger by imagining himself “picking up his cauldron, and sprinting to the front of the class, and bringing it down on Snape’s greasy head” (TGOF 264), this is not comedy but aggravated assault. Consequently the anger remains, and— consequently—it is Harry’s head, not Snape’s, that is abused.
Why does Lupin not speak about comedy’s potential at deflating and preventing anger, righteous anger included? Because anger animates Harry; without anger the spectacle of violence could not follow. Anger might be the essence or spirit of the conventional hero, the righteous hero, the Old Testament god, and so on.
Fortunately, HP has moments of childish comedy and, in the subtext has elements of parody and satire. But comedy is hardly its dominant spirit, and it is generally produced at the expense of others, as when Vernon Dursley has egg on his face and asks, “Do I look stupid?” (TCOS 7). Look stupid? Never mind egg-faced boy, somehow everyone in the series is stupid. And that raises the question: could a story populated exclusively with intelligent characters be a comedy and, not only a comedy, but could such a story—a story without conflict—even exist?
Hold on to your wallets. Hope is on the horizon, for a rumour exists that Rowling might be planning to write a novel about a comedian. Perhaps it will be an autobiography.
VIII. Conclusion
In the end, we cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence for Harry’s mental deficiency and mental disorders. Of course, spellbound fans and optimists may think that I have provided a prejudicial argument because I have not provided much evidence from Harry’s later years, those recorded in books 5-7. This is true, but I think the pattern I’ve established speaks for itself, and I do not wish to bore readers with a marathon parade of evidence.
Beyond the question of psychology, considered as a literary phenomenon, as a point in the evolution of the conventional hero, Harry Potter is significant. In fact, he does not quite belong to the children’s literature genre. Superficially speaking, he is too much of a hero; speaking accurately, he is too imbecilic to be worth reading about. Yet people do read about him, even adults, and I often think, Who can blame them for enjoying a little harried-heroism in an age when ‘serious’ authors do not dare create heroes and Harry makes such a noble effort to prolong the life and myth of the conventional hero?
