The Pensieve as Literacy Magic

In The Goblet of Fire, J. K. Rowling introduces a very interesting device, the Pensieve.  Harry, while waiting for Professor Dumbledore to return to his office, is attracted by the glow of the silver strands of memory in the stone bowl, and unwittingly plunges into three of Dumbledore's memories--memories that have significance for the mysterious events involving Barty Crouch.  When Harry is recalled by Dumbledore to the present, he asks Dumbledore what the Pensieve is. Dumbledore's explanation runs as follows:

"This? It is called a Pensieve," said Dumbledore.  "I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind."

[.....]

"At these times," said Dumbledore, indicating the stone basin, "I use the Pensieve.  One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure.  It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form." (596)

 The Pensieve proves to be an extremely useful device from a narrative perspective--it provides instant flashbacks, and gives a character who is not a participant in a memory access to that memory from the perspective of the person who was there.  Thus, the author is able to fill in a lot of gaps and give a character (Harry) the tools to figure out the puzzle and unravel the mystery--and of all of the novels, Goblet of Fire has a plot that is most like a mystery (well, ONE of its plots--there are a few).

But when I refer to the Pensieve, I refer to it as "Literacy" magic, not "Literary," magic.  So its function as a plot- and flashback-enabling device is not what I have in mind.  Rather, the Pensieve, in the story--in Dumbledore's description--in the wizarding world (we're suspending our disbelief now) functions rather like writing, and registers as symbolic of written accounts of thoughts (and, to a lesser extent, dreams).

Now, writing the above, it occurs to me that Harry has, in fact, gone into Dumbledore's office in order to tell Dumbledore about a dream.  Meanwhile, he becomes absorbed in the thoughts that Dumbledore siphoned out of his head in order to be able to look at them more clearly (perhaps objectively?) and to make connections.  Considering that Freud's method of dream analysis relied heavily on analysis of written accounts of the dream--whether written by the dreamer (often himself) after waking from the dream, or written down by a second party (himself) while the dreamer recounted them verbally--having Harry's quest to tell Dumbledore his dreams interrupted by the Penseive becomes somewhat more interesting.  According to the model that Freud provides in The Interpretation of Dreams (or perhaps a different/shorter work on the subject?), dream analysis in fact looks much more like close reading than like the typical model of patient on the couch and psychiatrist in the chair.  Had Harry written his dream instead of rushing to Dumbledore's office to wait, he might have had a fuller account of the dream as well as a text to analyze, though his written accound would be mediated by the choices he made as a writer--which would arguably be different than his choices if providing a verbal account.  Freud saw significance in the representation of the dream in language; the Pensieve, however, keeps the memory contained in a nonwritten, verbal state.  The extra layers of consciousness that go into writing a dream or memory do not create that overlayer, and the immediacy of the perceotion remains unmediated by the deliberate processes of inscription and the thought processes involved in forming the perceptions into words and sentences.

Nevertheless, for all of its immediacy, the Pensieve is like written language because, lacking a magical device to record memory as it actually happened, and to frame it without the application of additional layers of language and conscious thought, the tool we have to record memory is, in fact, writing.  And writing functions, according to Walter Ong (and other literacy theorists, like Goody, whom he quotes), in much the same way as a Pensieve in Goblet of Fire and future books:

"Texts are think-like, immobilized in visual space, and subject to what Goody calls 'backward scanning.'" (Ong 97)

Here's a nice summary of the concept:

Goody (1977) explains that writing transforms speech by abstracting its components. Words in written texts are more "thing-like" (Ong, 1982, p. 97). Their meaning can be looked up in other written texts and do not require direct ratification through interpersonal situations. Written texts enable backward-scanning of thought to make corrections and resolve inconsistencies. This self-analysis or criticism is inhibited by face-to-face communication in oral cultures. 

Writing enables both the recording and the dissecting of verbal utterance. Literate cultures have permanent records of past thought which can be compared and questioned skeptically. Such skepticism enables the building and testing of alternative explanations of knowledge. In ancient Greece, the shift from oral to literate thought processes resulted in the "logical, specialized, and cumulative intellectual tradition" of Plato. (Goody and Watt, 1968, pp. 68-69)

So looking back over things and being able to make connections and draw conclusions is a consequence of literacy, according to the foundational 20th century theorists.  It is the permanence and fixity of the written word--the knowledge that it will not change from one reading to the next--that allows us to refer back to what we read earlier at a later date, when some new idea occurs to us, or when some new data presents itself to us, or when we grow in knowledge or understanding.  (And this, incidentally, is why I reread--and reread--and reread.  The book does not change.  But I do.  And the situation of reading does as well.)  

The Pensieve has all of this as well--without the mediation of written language, which can distort the actual memory.  Memories can be modified and distorted, as we realize in The Half-Blood Prince, but in general, they are not mediated by the conscious process of writing.  In Goblet of Fire, the Pensieve shows memories.  They can be replayed and examined.  They do not change because rather than being subject to retelling, they are direct and permanent records of the event as it was received by the mind of the person who experienced it. So like writing--only better.

But I still don't like the name Penseive.  Too punny.

Postcolonialism at the Quidditch World Cup

Continuing to idly read Harry Potter instead of devoting the hours that I need to devote to packing for our upcoming move, I have reached Book 4, The Goblet of Fire.  And though I remember it as one of the more well-balanced and symmetrical in terms of plot, with all of the threads coming together neatly, it's taking a while to get moving.  Last night (well, longer ago now that I'm finally finishing this post), I read about the happenings at the Quidditch World Cup,  and frankly, Quidditch doesn't interest me all that much.  But the scene as as a whole, which might more accurately be two or three separate scenes, deserves some scrutiny for how it develops what becomes one of the central themes in the series--namely, race and race relations.  And in particular, in this first meeting of wizards from different countries, Rowling's choice of bringing the Irish to the forefront in the Quidditch match, while also staging an attack on "Muggles," invites comparison of the wizards' treatment of non-magic humans and British colonialism in Ireland.  Adding another layer to the race relations is the treatment of the second-ever house elf.  The difference between non-magic human and house-elf on the race-relations spectrum seems to be that while most wizards agree--and express openly--that house elves are inferior, there is some room for debate about Muggles.

Some of the amusing clashes of culture are the fights between the Bulgarian mascots--the veela--and the Irish mascots (leprechauns, of course--and I have a joke for you:  An Irishman walks out of a pub.)  Veela (or Vila, or Wila) are Slavic nymphs or fairy-like creatures--or so says (*sigh*) Wikipedia.  However, these Slavic creatures do not carry the same cultural currency--at least in America--or stereotype as the leprechaun.  Another amusing moment is when the Bulgarian PM reveals that he has been pretending not to understand English because he was amused by Ludo Bagman's attempts to communicate.  But there is a more serious sub-text that the presence of the Irish and all of the trappings of Irish culture highlights.

I'm thinking, here, of a little book called Inventing Ireland by Declan Kiberd.  It's probably the most readable work of postcolonial criticism I've ever read.  One of the central ideas is that British colonialism looked different in Ireland for two reasons: because of the proximity of Ireland and England (as compared to the other colonies) and because the Irish and the English just weren't that different, especially in appearance.  And so because the Irish were "closer to home"--literally and metaphorically--there was more pressure to prove that England had control, and there were more pains taken to demonstrate the differences between the English and the Irish, and more necessaity to demonize the Irish and portray them as slovenly and barbaric.  Not that the English didn't do this in/with the other colonies.  But because of this closeness, suppression of the Irish could appear more brutal than in the other colonies (some woul debate whether it was actually more brutal, I'm certain)--and often was extremely brutal--while it took a bit more propoganda and some mental gymnastics to differentiate the Irish in such a way that British superiority was highlighted.  Religion obviously played a huge part--demonize Catholicism and you demonize the Irish.  Done.

I give this overview of Kiberd because in the Quidditch World Cup, the Irish are the champions, and they have green and shamrocks and leprechauns (though not Catholicism), and they are celebrated--and even celebrated as representing the British Isles, since England's Quidditch team didn't do so well.  So no colonialist or racial tensions there (except the fighting mascots, which is a sports rivalry thing).  And yet, race is all over this scene.

After the tournament, some former Death Eaters (the followers of Voldemort) have a bit of fun with a Muggle family.  Now, I have problems with the term "Muggle."  I recognize the necessity of having a term to distinguish between the magic- and non-magic humans.  To call non-magic folk "humans" would be to imply that wizards were not human.  I think I would be okay with that, but I understand why the author wouldn't want to make that large of a divide--all people need to be people in the books, or the race divide becomes more problematic, and you might have some siding with the dark wizards who think that humans--who are another species now--are inferior.  The connection has to be closer--like the (white) Irish and the (white) English, who look more or less the same, but are somehow different (and is that difference magic?  is magic like religion?).

The problem with "Muggle" is that when it is used, it is used to Other.  Even when it is used by well-meaning wizards, it never quite registers as neutral.  The most prominent Muggles are, after all, the Dursleys, who represent the worst type of non-magic folk (as Professor McGonnogal says at the beginning of the first Harry Potter film).  So "Muggle" is first associated with them, and never quite shakes that association.  Hermione's parents are rarely mentioned, and are sort of pitiful and meek--so no help comes from calling them Muggles.  It still remains negative.  And any time the distinction between two sets of people is represented in a label, it is ugly.  So really, there's no hope for the term.  It never feels neutral.  Even Mr. Weasley, who loves Muggles, draws attention to the trivial or idiosynchratic in his struggle to understand them--the Other.  They-who-can-not-be-understood.

I have a theory that even Rowling found the "Muggle" moniker problematic after a while.  After a relatively short while.  Because she had to come up with something that was actually worse than Muggle.  Something that not only marked the distincton, but did so in a decidedly negative fashion.  The wizarding equivalent of a racial slur:  Mudblood.  Which means a wizard born of Muggles.  Which doesn't really make sense because as they were Muggles, their blood couldn't be muddied--they were already something different.  Or so we're supposed to think.  Mudblood does two things for me.  It emphasizes Malfoy's class-consciousness.  This is about being nobility--the wizard bluebloods.  Pure Bloods.  And maybe if I were British, it would register differently, but I can't even see why Hermione was so stressed out about it in The Chamber of Secrets, when the term was introduced, given that she was raised in a non-wizarding context, just like Harry.  I mean, it was clear that Malfoy was trying to be insulting, but sticks and stones, luv. [Actually, Hermione's point was that, being raised in a different context, the label didn't insult her. The movie said otherwise.] The other thing that "Mudblood" does for me is emphasizes the negativity of "Muggle"--both words, after all, start with the very same phonetic sounds.  Both are two-syllable words.  Both have the emphasis on the first syllable.  Barring the difference in the voiced velar plosive 'g' which registers in the throat with a gentle pause, and the 'd' (dental) and 'b' (labial) combination, which cause a dramatic full stop in the center of the (compund) word, the words do sound similar.  And while Mudbloods should actually be better than Muggles, they are worse--primarily because they collapse the distinction between the wizard and the Muggle, calling into question the superiority of the wizard.  So Mudbloods are reviled because by being magic, they suggest that Muggles are not so different--something that the labels belie.

There are, of course, other racial struggles.  There are the house elves, the goblins, the giants--or, in Hagrid's case, the half-giants.  All of these racial dynamics emerge in Goblet of Fire in a more developed way than in any of the previous books.  And it becomes clear that while Ron is very much immersed in these prejudices, Harry and Hermione are not.  Their ignorance permits them to behave as if the other magical races are their equals.  However, the other racial struggles are different.  On the one hand, there is obvious disenfranchisement.  That the house elves are slaves seems an ambiguous issue--because they like it. But neither they nor goblins can have wands.  On the other hand, goblins and house elves and giants are, well monsters.  They look different. They have different phisiology in addition to history and culture.  They are more obviously Other.  Muggles, on the other hand, are, well--us.  The reader.  But since most readers identify with magical characters, we as readers are put in a position of Othering ourselves.  And that's not at all a comfortable position, when you think about it.  And it is not an isolated move in fantasy.  But why?  What is the inevitable effect?  Because I can't say that I think the fans notice the difference, even when a family of Muggles, including small children, is tortured and humiliated.  It remains--distant.  Because Muggles are "not me."  They are Other.

And that's where I come back to the Irish, I guess--the Other that is like me; the Other that is me.  So who is the reader? The colonizer or the colonized?