Toads and Forebodings
| I've discovered what I believe to be some literary parallelism in "Prisoner of Azkaban". I include the 2 instances below along with my subsequent thoughts on the meaning. 1) The rescue of Neville's toad, Trevor, in potions class:
2) The rescue of Sirius Black:
What's the meaning of these parallels? Parallels in literature are often meant to shed light on each other. According to this Levity page, "It is, therefore, clear that in Ripley's works the Toad symbolized the First Matter of the Great Work that was obtained in its first stage of Calcination or Nigredo." According to Granger, Sirius himself is closely aligned to the nigredo or "black stage" - hence the surname. (see here - and here especially, he states "The first stage is the nigredo or "black" phase in which the leaden material or "lead character" is loosed of all his formal characteristics and reduced by fire into prime matter or his essence.") Here is another clue which leads me to believe that this parallel is on track. Directly after the potions class, the Gryffindors go into their first Defense against the Dark Arts class. After Snape derides Neville to Professor Lupin as a blunderer, Lupin says to Snape, "I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation. And I'm sure he will perform it admirably." Neville's admirable performance involves the appearance of the boggart-Snape in his grandmother's bathrobe. With a vulture perched on his head, poor Severus appears as a comical travesty of death-personified. Sirius riding away on Buckbeak is a more picturesque symbol of the triumph over death, but possibly no more apt. It can be seen in this that fate may have chosen Harry for greater life accomplishments, such as saving Sirius (and Buckbeak - and even Pettigrew), while Neville's role in preserving his toad from death by poisoning may be somewhat lesser. However, alchemically all these feats are part of the same "Great Work" and represent the same transformative realities. (Also: Hermione's role in this phase is really significant in these instances - I'll let others comment.) |
Comments on "Toads and Forebodings"
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jkr2 said ... (January 19, 2006 3:35 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (January 20, 2006 8:42 PM)
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Pauli said ... (January 20, 2006 9:21 PM)
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Merlin said ... (January 20, 2006 9:57 PM)
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Merlin said ... (January 20, 2006 10:03 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (January 22, 2006 3:42 AM)
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Merlin said ... (January 22, 2006 1:25 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (January 22, 2006 3:47 PM)
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Merlin said ... (January 22, 2006 9:25 PM)
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Merlin said ... (January 22, 2006 9:28 PM)
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jkr2 said ... (January 22, 2006 9:43 PM)
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post a commenti've been working my way through all that reading. very interesting all of it. espec. since i'm re-reading OoTP at the moment.
thanks for the links.
jkr2
i love this layering of motifs.
one thing that struck me re reading this post today after finishing OotP again last night, is the dignity she gives neville (though maintaining the comedic elements) and the sense of nobility about his actions even though they are 'smaller' than harry's.
in essence it is the same quality.
jkr2
Yes, Neville displays the same kind of bravery, maybe it's actually greater in a subjective sense in that it's harder for him to be brave. Not to downplay Harry's great heroism, but there is a feeling that it comes a little more naturally to Harry, Harry has more natural assertiveness and charisma. Neville is insecure and clumsy and therefore his bravery seems to come by sheer force of will. Dumbledore commends Neville for bravery in Philosopher's Stone when he defies his own friends because he thinks they are dong something wrong.
Which is exactly what wins Gryffindor the house cup taht year - that DD notes "it's hard to stand up to your enemies, but even harder to stand up to your friends"
In an interview Rowling noted a simlar thing about the difference between James' and Lily's sacrifices - James was indeed brave, but that was kind of instinct for him - Lily had the opportunity to deliberate about an offer to live - Neville I am sure had to contend with his own "knowledge," given him from every corner all his life, that this was the great Harry Potter, the only one who could undo the dark lord ... why on earth would a near-squib like Neville Longbottom think himself worthy to challenge the judgment of THE Harry Potter? But that is what wins the house cup, because he subjectively did the right thing and was courageous.
it is interesting how harry has maintained this innate self confidence.
neville is brought up by someone who obviously is devoted to him, but fundamentally disappointed in him - and this is a devestating thing for a child.
harry is brought up (if you can even use that term) by people who despise everything about him, his background and what he stands for - and yet he's not *touched* deeply in the same way. it's like he can see how wrong they are about everything else, maybe they're wrong about him too!
so that drive to prove himself that the sorting hat mentions in PS was possibly initiated by the dursleys!
jkr2
Yeah, there is a LOT there involving the Dursley's. Last night I drove down our friend's v10 Dodge Ram pickup with an auto-transport trailer hitched to the back and for the trip I borriwed his tapes of GOF (partly because I'm fascinated by his statements of kind of being spoiled by the tapes because Jim Dale gives such a unique performance and in the oral Traditions behind Scripture - not just "source criticism" which is a convoluted debate sometimes, but also meaning just the "oral tradition" of interpretation in volved in teh "Recitational" tradition ofthe Hebrew Scriptures being readin synagogues and during exile - the perfomative value is a big factor - some of which has been lost [since Masoretic vowel pointing became necessary in the 8th-9th century AD - before that a Jewish boy, at his Bar-mitzvah, had to be able to cant and intone a section of the Torah from the stictly consonantal text, having the vowel pointing and accenting known by heart] - and in this my first time experiencing one of the HP books on tape, I must say that the comments by Pauli and our friend are right, that the performance is killer and a unique expereince)
Anyway, all that to say, I have just listened to the first Chapters of GOF last night and found it huge, the interplay between Arthur Weasely and Dursley over simply wishing Harry good-bye ... and Arthur is probably the most pro-muggle wizard there is, I mean he is not only "polemically" pro-muggle in his work pushing the "protection of muggles act" but he is simpley, personally, fascinated with all things muggles, he is completely in love with learning about and understanding the way muggles solev practical problems - you have the same thing in book 6 with DD's talk with the Dursleys, it is amazing how "unhuman" they are - paranoid about what is in the dirnks when in reality it is obvious DD is simply being humanely polite.
Thanks for the info on book 5 and the presence of Trevor, because I had had sort of the same question as Pauli, wondering what Trevor was up to and thinking he had not been around for book 5 ... Personally I think it would be really cool if Trevor wound up to be RAB (whoever that is revealed to be) in hiding as an animagus or something like that.
But moreover, it fits that he has such a presence in book 5 with the focus on D.U. as a "toady." Great observations on her character, too.
On that matter of "possibility preditctions" - I think I have noted this before, but my concept of such things is that there are many ways to write a story that carry through the same basic elements, and even if my predictions are not fulfilled I still think it good to do them because it is sort of exploring what possible plot elements/twists there are taht would congruously bring out the elements Rowling has built or used thus far.
On that line, my housemate Dom and I have started a little project ... we are re-writing the Star Wars prequels ... of course I imagined we could be sued into obliviion were we ever to let our finished product anywhere near (re)Puliblic Space - but eventually I would really love to present it to actual authors for their working on it, just as kind of a workshop experiment that would be loads of fun. Our first stage is the mapping stage of simply cataloging elements (such as beginning with anakin and Padme both at the eage of 16, starting sort in media rei with back-story revelations at particular key points instead of Lucas' "I have to explain everything sequentially" thing) and flows within the trilogy, including dialogue content. Stage two will be to actually try to write narrative-descriptive copy of the plot action, which (even for as inexperienced writers as Dom and I are) is easier than stage three, which is trying to actually write good dialogue from our dialogue maps.
This is all, of course, different than writing a screen-play, which would be another greatly fun and interesting level of workshopping, seeing what a good screen play writer could do with it. And like I said, pity that we could never have it anywhere near public for fear of GL sending a squad of assassin droids after us LOL.
i'd love to see them re done with decent scripting!
WOW interesting thought re regulas and the toads. i kind of think it's been done before, so maybe not? but hey that's kind of predictable too huh? to not repeat something.....
re the tapes. i have had a real hankering to hear stephen fry's reading - especially since jkr loves them so much. they are wildly expensive, so out of our range unfortunately. i remember hearing her saying that her daughter was in another room listening to one of the books read by stephen fry whilst she was writing the next book!
what a totally wierd experience that must have been.
jo
I didn't know that Stephen Fry had done recordings of the books (although I had hear he interviewed her)... maybe it is a UK thing, ie he reads the UK releases of the books - here in the states it is Jim Dale - but I am a huge fan of Stephen Fry aws Jeeves and as the narrator for the recent Hitchhiker's movie ... I would love to hear him read Potter
you may be right about Trevor ... although she may also sort of have that planned and be playing a "keep you guessing" game, since you would have thought crookshanks to be an animagus but then you find out he is really a Kneatzle (or howver you spell it) ... either way, I'll be very excited to find out when I read book 7 (well, I'll simply be excited to finally read book 7 period :) )
oh yes! stephen fry has read all the uk editions! since the first one. he's an institution! lol.
i loved the hitchhikers' guide as a teenager. should re read it! my sister was very disappointed in the movie, but i might see it just to hear s.f.
(mind you i don't see a whole heap of movies nowadays! not like the ol'days when i would look at what was showing and think 'seen that. seen that..seen that....'
it's a bit of an event now with babysitting and all....)
jo