by Elizabeth Mann
Harry is an extraordinary person. He's brave, self-sacrificing, loving, loyal and tough as old boots sometimes. But at the same time he's a very human person with flaws and a limit on what he's capable of, and that's what makes people see him as so realistic. My question is, is he really realistic? Is it really conceivable that a person who has had the life he has could turn out so well? In this paper I want to answer these questions by comparing Harry's experiences to psychological research on how most people would react, and to find potential sources of his personality and behaviour.
Probably one of the most curious things about Harry is that he seems to have a pretty healthy self-esteem, which considering that he grew up being constantly belittled and blamed for everything is pretty extraordinary in itself. Why is it that the Dursleys' treatment of him hasn't had more of an effect?
I think an important factor is that Harry doesn't seem to care about the Dursleys, and as an extension of that he doesn't care what they think of him. A psychologist called Bowlby (1969) believed that for the first few months of life babies do not discriminate between different people, they're no more attached to one person than they are to another. But by the time they are nine months old they will have formed one or more particular attachments, usually to the mother and other caregivers. By the time Harry was orphaned he would already have formed these to his parents. At fifteen months it is possible for an infant to form new attachments, but they're more likely to be formed based on who interacts and plays with them rather than who feeds and changes them and therefore, since the Dursleys wouldn't have given Harry this kind of attention, it's understandable that he never became attached to them despite the fact that they're family.
Another possible reason why the Dursleys mistreatment of him didn't have more of an affect could be the fact that Harry seems to understand that they're wrong to treat him like that, that he hasn't actually done anything to deserve it, and he has developed coping strategies like indulging in dreams of unknown relatives coming to take him away (PS, ch.2). How Harry understands that their treatment of him is wrong, we don't know. Possibly it is because he has recognised that a lot of the things he gets blamed for weren't his fault and has concluded that the Dursleys' judgement of things and people can't be trusted.
In a way though, the Dursleys' bad treatment of Harry might even be the source of some of his most important good qualities, the main one being his mental strength and resilience in trying situations, which he would have had to develop in order to get through day to day life in Privet Drive. And Dudley's constant physical bullying of Harry could be argued to have desensitised him to physical pain. Harry has an extraordinary ability to withstand pain and to recover after experiencing it, which has stood him in very good stead when experiencing the Cruciatus Curse (GoF, ch. 34) and catching snitches despite a broken arm (CoS, ch.10).
Another of Harry's most important traits is his empathy and concern for other people. Grusec et al. (2002) believed that an important part of children developing prosocial values is that their parents are warm and nurturing, that they're securely attached to their caregivers and that their parents are responsive to their reasonable demands. The Dursleys were certainly none of these things to Harry but they were to Dudley. So why is it that Harry turned out prosocial but Dudley didn't?
I think the answer might lie in the development of a child's ability to understand another person's mind. Paul Harris (1989) theorised that there are three important preconditions for this self-awareness, the capacity for pretence, and being able to distinguish pretence from reality. Studies involving placing infants in front of mirrors (Lewis and Brookes-Gunn, 1979) suggest that a sense of self develops by around eighteen months. Sense of self means being aware of and understanding your own mental states. By the time a child is two years old they have also developed the capacity for pretence and to think in a 'what if' manner, which can be seen in their use of pretend play and their ability to project understood mental states onto inanimate objects like dolls and stuffed animals. This leads to the creation of empathy. Here, I think, is the difference between Harry and Dudley. Harry, consistently having to deal with feelings of loneliness and sadness, would have spent more time thinking about his own feelings than Dudley, who would have been more concerned about his needs, such as hunger and boredom. Growing up with everything he wanted, Dudley never had to give much thought to his own feelings. We also know that Harry dreams of unknown relations coming to take him away (PS, ch. 2), which would have focused heavily on his own feelings of misery with the Dursleys and potential feelings of happiness if someone rescued him. So Harry's sense of self could well have been a lot more developed than Dudley's. We also know that Dudley is a addicted to entertainment mediums where everything is shown to you rather than allowing imagination. Harry, who probably wouldn't have been allowed near the TV much and who didn't have any toys, would have had to spend a lot of time pretending in order to keep himself entertained. Therefore Harry exercised his capacity for pretence and his ability to project mental states onto others more than Dudley did.
However one of Harry's flaws is that his concern for others is often only directed at those he likes or those he doesn't know at all. Part of his cruel streak is that he has very little sympathy for people who he doesn't like, and can also be quite harsh towards them. For example, when Montague was found after his trip in the vanishing cabinet, and his parents were called in because Madam Pomfrey was unable to cure him, Hermione suggested that they tell her what had happened to Montague but Harry and Ron didn't care if Montague recovered or not. (OotP, ch.30) Another example is after Harry saw Snape's worst memory. He believed that what his father had done to Snape was wrong, but didn't think it would be wrong for someone to do the same to Malfoy or someone who 'deserved it'. (OotP, ch.29)
This lack of empathy for people he doesn't like could also stem from the Dursleys. They too treat those they don't care about badly and give them very little sympathy, as they did with Harry himself. Harry knows that in his case he doesn't deserve it but still practices the principle towards others.
Despite his bad relationship with the Dursleys Harry still has the natural ability to form good, healthy ones with other people. There are many things that could have hindered this, including Dudley. Dunn et al. (1992) studied the relationships between siblings and how they affect the persons involved later in life. He found that there were links between the quality of the relationship in pre-school and the child's behaviour later in life. Those with a sibling who was aggressive were more likely to have emotional difficulties in their adult relationships than those with an affectionate sibling. Dudley may not actually be Harry's brother but he could be said to be acting in place of one.
Dudley also made sure that Harry was unpopular at school. Researchers have categorised children's popularity levels into five 'sociometric status types' popular, controversial, rejected, neglected and average. (Smith, 2003) From what we know of Harry's life at Muggle school being picked last for teams, never having friends, being laughed at for his glasses and baggy clothes (PS, ch. 2) he fits into the rejected category. Rejected children are associated with high levels of aggression and withdrawal, features which Harry certainly does not have. He has his moments of aggression, but this is unlikely to have been affected by his rejected status since it is not excessive, and he does not withdraw from social situations. He has no problem interacting with people in an appropriate manner, except in book five where the cause is obvious. In this respect he is certainly not typical.
One feature of rejected children that Harry does have is that they tend to stick to smaller groups of younger or less popular peers. Harry is on speaking terms with many people in his year but he doesn't seek them out to spend time with them. Instead he tends to keep to Ron and Hermione, and with the exception of Ginny no one in Harry's extended group of close friends is particularly popular. This is significant seeing as his fame would have allowed him to make friends with practically anyone, and having been unpopular all his life he might have sought out popular friends.
There is another more obvious explanation of this of course, which is that Harry is friends with these people because he feels empathy towards them. After all when he first met Ron one of the first topics they spoke about was the fact that neither of them had many personal possessions and they both had issues with their families. (PS, ch. 6)
Perhaps it was because he understood that his rejection was Dudley's fault and not his own that Harry's behaviour was never that of a typical rejected child. In fact, considering the attitude that we know Harry has, in the early books he was very polite and docile. His attitude still came out at times, such as with the Stonewall-toilet joke (PS, ch. 3) and when he stood up to defend Ron after Malfoy insulted him on the train (PS., ch. 6), but we don't see so much of his spirit or complexity in the earlier books, particularly when he is around adults. These things start to come out more from the third book onwards. The Dursleys' hard treatment of Harry may well have repressed his real personality. He knows that he has to be polite to adults to avoid getting into trouble. As he settles into the wizarding world more his personality starts to come out. But it was still a while before he started giving attitude to adults and became less afraid of their anger and disappointment.
Another possible reason for the change could be his changing view of the rules. Piaget (1932) identified three stages in children's perception of rules in a game. In the first, up to four or five years, children have no understanding of rules. In the second, up to about nine or ten years, they see rules as coming from a higher authority and unchangeable. In the third stage, from nine or ten onwards, they see them as being mutually agreed upon by the players. The entering of the third stage is largely caused by interaction with peers who may have learned different rules. The Dursleys' authoritarian parenting techniques and Harry's lack of peer interaction may have caused him to enter this stage a little late, so he may not have learned it until he was at school. Certainly he would have learned it in book one from the experience with the Philosopher's Stone, where he had to break the rules in order to do the right thing. Piaget believed that as the child's conception of rules changes from their being fixed to their being adaptable, their unilateral respect for adult or higher authority disappears. Therefore Harry feels less like he needs to be constantly polite and respectful towards the adults around him, and his repressed attitude is allowed to come out.
With this attitude came Harry's bad temper. There are three possible sources of this, though the reality is probably a mixture of the three. The first is that it is partly inherited. We are given reason to believe that both of Harry's parents had a lot of spirit and attitude (OotP, ch. 28), which would certainly influence the development of Harry's personality. The second is that this is another thing that Harry may have learnt from the Dursleys, specifically Uncle Vernon. Boys and girls are more likely to learn behaviours from those of the same sex as themselves, and Vernon's way of dealing with a stressful situation is to become angry and to shout (and possibly become violent considering his threats in book three to 'knock the stuffing out of' Harry if he didn't behave with Aunt Marge (PoA, ch.2)). Harry, with book five as the exception, doesn't become angry as easily as Uncle Vernon but that is often how he reacts in situations of stress and conflict.
The third possible source is simply from his being male. Even from as young as two years old boys have been found to become more distressed by situations that they cannot control. Bjorkqvist et al. (2000) believed that boys aren't as good at peaceful conflict resolution as girls and are more likely to use direct aggression than indirect aggression.
In conclusion, Harry is a very understandable character. Many features of his personality can be traced to life experiences or explained by logic. However at the same time there are a lot of ways in which he is by no means typical, and although his exceptional qualities are often explainable most people probably would have reacted or turned out differently. Harry, in short, is best summed up by a description that Jo Rowling gave of him in the 2001 documentary, Harry Potter and Me - that he's every boy... but with a twist.
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