Blog #2-Harry's Empathy

As we travel along with Harry throughout the series, we get to see a tremendously strange path of growth in the field of empathy. When we first meet Harry (excluding when he was a baby), we find him in a home where not a lot of things really make sense. I know, that’s a shocker to say when we’re reading a story about wizards and witches! But honestly, the most baffling place in this story is 4 Privet Drive. Not because of a lack of magic, or muggle hygiene, or even felly-tones, or whatever it is they’re called. This place is the strangest simply because there is a general lack of proper emotion. There’s anger where anger isn’t due, love where love isn’t due, hate where hate isn’t due, and an overall sense of strangeness. These people don’t seem to feel the way normal people feel. The only emotion I think Harry could ever empathize with would be Dudley’s annoyance with Aunt Marge (which is for completely different reasons, and not much empathy is really deserved in his case). For all of Harry’s early life, he really doesn’t have any chance to exhibit empathy.

            Before I go any further, I would like to put out the definition of empathy for you: “The ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” Let’s move on.

            As a whole in this series, I think Harry has a very difficult time feeling empathy for others, simply because he was not raised knowing how to, or even knowing he should. There are many parts in the text where Harry simply doesn’t show empathy, and it can be quite frustrating. But there are a couple key examples where I think that Harry shines. I’m just going to hit a few of the ones that stick out.

            Right off the bat in the first book, we see Harry exhibit some strange and powerful empathy towards Hermione. Hermione is a lot different from Harry, but they both share the bond of not being raised in the Wizarding world. Throughout the beginning of the firs book, Hermione is picked on, ridiculed, and mostly left alone. She’s the booksmart nerd, and she doesn’t draw many friends. While most people, even Ron, seem to find it easy to pick on her, Harry does not. Now Harry isn’t exactly lovely to Hermione, but he’s not a jerk like the rest. He notices her struggle, her loneliness that she feels, and he can identify with that. Because he has been lonely his whole life, and he knows how it feels. He knows it’s not fun. So part of heading to the bathroom to fight the troll came from courage, but a chunk of it came from empathy.

            Next, I think it’s interesting to focus on the house elves. Harry has a very weird response to the house elves. You would think he would know a little bit about what life is like as a “slave”. Living with the Dursley’s was very much like a house elf’s life (not quite as bad, I’m sure, but similar). But Harry seems not to be really bothered by the house elves predicaments, except for in the case of Dobby, his friend. But he avidly rejects S.P.E.W. invitations, and doesn’t seem to really care about their freedom. Granted, they may say they don’t want freedom, but one could almost presume something sinister was at work.

            Sirius Black is another interesting and beautiful case of empathy. In the series, Harry knows all about being trapped, or cooped up, not being allowed to know or see or do anything. Yes, it’s for safety, in both cases. Part of this empathy can be traced simply to Harry’s love for his godfather. But there’s more to it. Harry knows what Sirius is feeling all to well. He knows it like the back of his hand. He doesn’t get a lot of chance to share in that feeling with Sirius, but Sirius is shown how much Harry really cares, and his empathy shines through.

            Lastly, we have two examples from the fifth book. The first is from Lord Voldemort. Now, this is not true empathy. But I find it interesting that empathy, the understanding and sharing of feelings, is such a prevalent theme for Rowling. Voldemort, in this book, has just found out that he and Harry share a connection in their mind. Through this connection, Harry is actually forced to share emotions that Voldemort feels. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to feel emotions that you know aren’t yours. But this kind of forced empathy is very peculiar. Second, we have Dumbledore. This final example is more an example of non-empathy. It is in the heat of the moment, so much of it can be forgiven on Harry’s part. But as he is in Dumbledore’s office getting everything explained to him, Harry absolutely refuses to understand Dumbledore’s emotions. At one point, he even in his head comments that Dumbledore isn’t allowed to be feeling sad at this moment. It’s very teenager-esque, and comes after some severe trauma, so it is understood; that does not make it great.

            Empathy is an interesting theme that Rowling brings out in her story. It seems to be very important, but as Harry grows, the empathy shapes and reforms, but it’s not always growing. It will be interesting to see what we see of this further in the series. 

Michael Evans