Evil vs. Good Humanity vs. Inhumanity Powerful vs. Weak – all of these are different ways of describing the struggle between Harry and Voldemort, between the Order of Pheonix and Death Eaters. Evil verses good is the classical struggle and needs no further explanation. The Humanity struggle and the Power struggle are linked.
To be a human is to be weak. Voldemort seeks to become more than human. He seeks to overcome the weaknesses of humanity (“I am much more than a man,” GoF). Some aspects of humanity are emotions (specifically love), family, and mortality. By allowing ourselves to feel, we become vulnerable togetting hurt. Love brings happiness and pain. Voldemort, having been hurt by his father’s abandonment of him and being forced to live in an orphanage with no one to love him, resents and fears the force of family that was absent from his life and the force of love that caused him pain (since not being loved is painful). To overcome the pain, he seeks to overcome love. What Voldemort does not understand, and what Dumbledore knows, is that by making ourselves vulnerable to love, we actually become strong. The ability to face hurtful things requires more strength than the ability to avoid them, as Voldemort does. Love is what grants Harry his strength and protection. Harry’s heart saves him.The heart is the seat of emotion. It gives us the ability to feel, which Voldemort can not allow himself to do. Voldemort is afraid of the love in Harry’s heart. He is jealous that Harry is loved, and jealous of Harry’s ability to love, because as much as Voldemort fears and resents love, a part of him longs to be loved like Harry.
Nevertheless, there is something that works to Voldemort’s advantage in his strategy of avoiding emotions can cloud judgement. Dumbledore’s mistake is that he acted as Voldemort expects “we fools who love to act” (OotP). While Voldemort hates Harry (proof that we can not completely escape our humanity – abandoning love, Voldemort found hate, which makes us just as weak, if not weaker, than love, and the joy of love is much greater than the joy of hate, because hatred is never satisfied.) he tries to act upon logic, not his emotions. For example, Voldemort wanted his body back. He could have used any wizard who hated him, but after so many years, he waited another school year so that he could use Harry. He overcame his heart’s desire for rebirth, and listened to his mind which told him he would be stronger if he used Harry. Of course, sometimes Voldemort goes to the other extreme. He ignores emotions so much, that, when attempting to murder Harry, he forgets to take love into account. As a result, Voldemort himself nearly dies. Thus, by trying to overcome emotions, Voldemort causes himself to be nearly destroyed by an emotion -- the emotion of love.
Family is linked to love. Families are meant to provide us with a network of love. In families where no such network exists, we attempt to create such a network from other people who become like family to us, such as Harry and the Weasleys, or Sirius and the Potters. Voldemort had no family, so he creates the family of Death Eaters, a group of people who are willing to help him wage his battle. In GoF, Voldemort calls the Death Eaters his true family. Voldemort is the father substitute in this strange family. His approval is saught, and he punishes those who disobey. Snape, a former Death Eater, had an abusive father. Crouch Jr. thinks that his father hated him, but he hopes to become closer than father and son with Voldemort. Crouch Jr. says, “Imagine how he will reward me when he finds I have done it for him… I will be… his closest supporter… closer than a son… The Dark Lord and I… have much in common. Both of us for instance, had very dissapointing fathers… Both of us suffered the indignity… of being named after those fathers. And both of us had the pleasure… of killing our fathers to ensure the rise of the Dark Order” (GoF, 678). Crouch Jr.’s words prove the link between family, and more specifically, fathers and the motivations of the Death Eaters and Voldemort.
By trying to love our family, we take a chance that we will be hurt. Just look at what Percy did to the Weasleys! That is why, while the Death Eaters are a family to Voldemort, he takes no chances. He makes sure that he is in charge. He knows he will not be betrayed, because the Death Eaters are afraid of him, and he punishes them if they do something “wrong.” The Death Eaters are a family without the risk. Voldemort is dissapointed his death eaters didn’t look for him after he lost his body. Disappointment is a less intense version of hurt. Nevertheless, it is still a version of hurt, proving that even in the controlled, supposedly hurt-proof Death Eater family, it is impossible to avoid being somewhat hurt. Any relationship is taking a risk, no matter how many safeguartds are put around that relationship to minimize that risk. Voldemort was disappointed because he expected his Death Eaters to care for him enough to seek him. What is a group of people expected to care for you called? A family. Voldemort needs a family to support him in his mission of gaining enough power to overcome the humanity that makes him need a family – not only is this ironic, but it shows the importance of family, which is one of the main themes of the book.
Family is not only a weapon of Voldemort (through his Death Eaters), but a tool of Dumbledore’s through the Order. The members of the Order help each other and look out for each other, which is what a family is supposed to do. Additionally, it is Harry’s finding his father within himself that gives him the strength to produce his Patronus, which is a powerful defensive tool.
Voldemort’s desire to overcome humanity shows itself not only in his desire to overcome feelings and the need for families, but in his struggle against mortality, which is an inevitable part of humanity. Voldemort wishes to become immortal, which he admits in GoF. He did experiments with mortality, and one of them must have worked, because while he lost his body when he attempted to kill Harry, he did not die. Voldemort comes back to life. He settles for his old body back for the moment, with a little added strength from Harry’s mother, yet he never loses sight of his goal of immortality. Death is a human weakness. Voldemort sees himself as engaged in a struggle of power over weakness. As he tells Quirrel towards the end of PS/SS, Voldemort wishes to conquer death, which he believes is man’s ultimate weakness (though Dumbledore thinks otherwise, as seen in OotP).
Thus, Humanity vs. Inhumanity and Power vs. Weakness are really one struggle, in which Voldemort and Harry are both on opposing sides. Family, feelings, love, and death (which is related to time – a major theme in PoA) are pillars of the fight, since they all represent things which are unavoidable when human, and things that Voldemort tries to overcome by making himself “more than a man,” thus suspending his need for those things that are necessary to all human beings, while Harry faces those things and his needs for them, though the process is a painful and difficult one. We will find out more about this struggle of Harry and the Order vs. Voldemort and the Death Eaters in the Half-Blood Prince… I can’t wait to read it! |
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| Fermat the Magnificent |
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| 2005.09.08 |
The main thesis in the Harry Potter novels is the notion that Voldemort's q...
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| Remus_Lupin |
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| 2005.07.05 |
I like the way you have researched this topic but it was a fairly obvious o...
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| Tia |
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| 2005.07.02 |
Brilliant, it is very interesting what you thought about Voldemort's stugg...
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| HermyOwnPuckle |
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| 2005.07.01 |
Interesting analysis of Voldemort's struggle. I think you're very right abo...
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