Chapter 6: The Ghoul in Pajamas

“The Ghoul in Pajamas” – Well, who *wouldn’t* use a title like that, given the opportunity? Interesting idea about Ron & Hermione’s sacrifices being the heart of the chapter. On this reading it really struck me how much Hermione was sacrificing as she arranged for the protection of her parents. Maybe Ron and Hermione’s plans represent the forging of – OK, I’ll say it – a Fellowship to destroy the Horcruxes.

As for the chapter being framed by the fretting Mrs. Weasley… More specifically, it’s framed by Mrs. Weasley’s eyes. Near the beginning, Harry sees his beloved Ginny in Molly’s eyes, and the chapter closes with Molly giving Harry a “long, searching look.” Eyes, anyone?

Horcruxes being the “complete opposite of a human being”: So, in his quest for immortality, Voldemort actually made his *already immortal soul* into something mortal. You just don’t get it, do you , Tom?

The Ghoul in Pajamas has the same ring as “wolf in sheep’s clothing” to me. In relation to horcruxes this may indicate the horrible soul piece may be in any mundane or innocent object. Or it may mean something about the terrible task at hand for the trio but it is wrapped in the usual, hum-drum business of day to day living at the Burrow.

Agree that the title of the chapter refers to Ron and Hermione’s attempts to keep their loved ones safe in preparation for the horcrux hunt. Not sure I’d call it sacrificial: although Hermione sheds a tear (and Ron gets to practice some magic) over it, the sending of the parents to Australia with no memory of the daughter who presumably has been the center of their lives for 16 years is quickly dealt with. Reminds me of Princess Leia’s reaction to the destruction of her home planet: life must go on.

About the fretting Mrs. Weasley: the feminist analysis on other posts has made me more sensitive to what an annoying character she really is. You can argue that she is motivated by love and concern. But what she’s really doing is making her last normal days with the children she presumably loves intensely unpleasant. Not to mention just how emotionally out of control she seems. She’s got a funny way of showing her love. As for Arthur, he is giving a very convincing imitation of a the archetypal hen-pecked husband in the matters of Sirius’ bike and Fleur’s veela mum. And what’s up with Mrs. Delacour, anyways? Why is it noteworthy that she was:

most accomplished at household spells and had the oven properly cleaned in a trice

Of course I don’t blame any of the characters. Its JKR choosing to depict wizarding domestic life as a reflection of mid-20th century Muggle life.

RR, I don’t know if you’ve come across it but there was an article in Bitch magazine a while back (Stepping on the Harry Potter Buzz) that argued that Molly (and other female characters as well) was a nagging mom stereotype, I think it was written before GoF even came out. If I remember correctly the author did not like Hermione too much either.

Red, one could say Molly is acting the way she is because she might be under a little bit of stress. The whole war thing & all, thing’s not going well, pressure from the bumbling yet tyrannical Ministry, Voldemort trying to, well, kill her entire family & her semi-adopted children Hermione & Harry. Tends to make people behave very irrationally & unpleasantly at times. It’s almost as if Jo wrote her as a human being & as a mother.

Besides, most children think of their parents as interfering busybodies who are always trying to stop them from doing what they are sure needs to be done. And who are always smothering them. Things turn around a bit when they grow up & become parents themselves. And while the whole Weasley clan might be exasperated with Molly a lot of the time, they clearly love her & deal with her as she is.

I think the key is why did JKR write people certain ways. And I think the main problem people have is not with the characters but because Jo didn’t write the characters or the story the way they would’ve wanted it written. I think, I hesitate to say it, this is part of the feminist problem. Jo didn’t write the books as a feminist manifesto. She wrote in a way a lot of stereotypical characters and cliched characters. But she wrote them in her own way & with humanity. Harry Potter is not Atlas Shrugged, where everyone is just a cipher for some pure philosophical position.

Plus, all the other characters you mention have their own flaws & problems which are just as noticeable & perhaps annoying in their own way. Except for Lily who is the exemplar of the divine.

But I fear we’re going far afield of the subject of the chapter. Anyway, here’s my simplistic explanation: JKR wrote Molly the way she did because she needed Molly to be the way she was for the purposes of the story.

Selene, very helpful comments. Thanks.

‘Ear, ‘ear, Lily Luna!!

Hadn’t really thought of the bulrushes on the sock as an indicator towards Moses & the exodus. But brings up a potentially interesting line of thought. I admit my main thought regarding the sock was, if Harry doesn’t support Puddlemere United, then who does he support? Certainly not the Cannons. I can see Harry as many things, but a wizarding world equivalent of a Cubs fan isn’t one of them.

Why Molly is acting this way in this chapter?
(To add to Melody and Lily Luna’s , comments)
Gideon and Fabian Prewett Molly’s brothers were described as having “fought like heroes” by fellow Order of the Phoenix member Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody who has just died in battle. The two younger Prewett brothers had also fallen in battle are talked about by Hagrid to Harry years before.
“No one lived after he decided ter kill ‘em, no one except you, an’ he’d killed some of the best witches and wizards of the age – the McKinnons, the Bones, the Prewetts – you were only a baby an’ you lived”
— Hagrid in book one
Mrs. Weasley does not talk mush about her brothers Gideon and Fabian Prewett she must have took their deaths very hard, this could obviously explain some what and excuse some of Mrs. Weasley’s fears and her arguably over-protective fussing and stress-filled-stance with regard to her family recently with George and Bill and her new children her adopted son Harry and Hermione as a “new adopted ” daughter because of Hermione’s recent spells/charms to protect and remove her birth parents from the Dark Lord. The very birthday present that Arthur and Molly present to Harry is the prized family treasure a gift of her dead Fabian’s wristwatch to Harry on his seventeenth birthday, his coming of age day.

At bit on their names: Gideon is a Hebrew name, possibly meaning “mighty warrior”. A figure in the Bible known as Gideon who is a judge known for his faith and sense of justice.
Fabian is the English form of the Latin Fabianus, which was the name given to emancipated slaves in Rome. His name could also be a reference by Rowling to the Fabian Society in UK.

SPT, you beat me to quoting that paragraph of Travis’s, but while I don’t know enough about the secrets of gnosticism to pick them out of HP, I would say there are strong pointers to the importance of the body in the books. The failure to hold a funeral because of the body’s absence is something, but more meaningful yet is what Harry later does when he finds Mad-Eye’s eye stuck in Umbridge’s door. (I know, I know, we’re not there yet! ) Harry risks Ron’s and Hermione’s safety as well as his own to get the eye away from Umbridge; perhaps he does this without thinking it through, but as he holds a private funeral and interment of the eye, I think it would be hard to argue that the body is unimportant there.

Still more meaningful, I think, is the “soul triptych” concept that John Granger talks about. If Harry represents spirit, Hermione mind, and Ron body, then the separation of Ron from the trio and the subsequent reunion are important signs that the body matters.

I’m not saying that the series doesn’t have anything to offer a gnostic; just that I think the evidence is strong for a more orthodox (at least as far as Christianity is concerned) understanding of the parts of the human person.

Revgeorge, you spoke my thoughts on Molly. Thanks!

It seems to me that part of being human is that your greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses derive from the same aspects of your nature. A woman’s emotional range is demonstrably both great strength and weakness, and I don’t personally consider Molly-style expressions of emotional weakness as denigrating to women as women.

sorry correction: Mrs. Weasley does not talk “much” about…

Just a quick note about the lack of a funeral for Mad-Eye Moody. I may be wrong, but I beleive “Funeral” is the word for when there is an actual body that mourners have to say good-bye to. A Memorial Service, on the other hand, does not require a body. Many people die in places where their body can’t be recovered, such as on the high seas, where the body is placed in the ocean soon after the death. Cremation is also one reason why there might not be a “traditional’ funeral. As we see the Funeral for Dumbledore in HBP, my thought is that the wizarding world is not saying that the body is not important. In Moody’s case, I think the way that all the members of Harry’s rescue group toast the memory of Moody is much like a Memorial to him.
As for Molly and her behavior, I very much agree with Lily Luna and Melody about the stress she is under. I will come back to this later.

Re-reading this chapter, I was struck by the quick shifts between the ordinary and the extraordinary. With the knowledge of what’s to come, it seems terribly sad to me. This chapter and the next are the last in which the trio experience normal life before their ties are cut (the wedding being a formal and extraordinary event). Hermione’s sorting books and packing – quite ordinary – and incidentally performing some of her most extraordinary magic ever, quite unnoticed by the boys, who aren’t particularly curious. She breaks off from sorting books to point out to Harry how deep their relationship goes – they didn’t decide to accompany him on his journey mere weeks but years ago. Harry aches to relieve his grief by getting to some action, but is prevented by conventional politeness (he has to stay for the wedding to please Mrs W who has done so much for him) and by the tedious detail of not yet being 17 and still having a trace on him. Everyone’s trying to keep Harry safe yet concerned about the guest list for his birthday party. They’re teetering on the edge.

I have always thought the Ministry’s rule on underaged magic was quite unfair to wizards/witches living in Muggle households. Those children living in magical homes could get away with underaged magic, with the Ministry relying on their parents to do the policing (the Twins being repeat offenders). But think of poor Harry who practically gets expelled from school twice when the Ministry detects magic in and around a household they know is wholly Muggle.

The pace of our DH review could pick up a tad, for me. Maybe a chapter review every 4-5 days? Either way, it’s loads of fun!

Gwen said, “If everything in a story is that way “because the author made it that way” then why bother analyzing or even having a discussion about a text?”

You’ll note I said it was my simplistic explanation. I was making a slight joke about how often we go the opposite way of simply saying the author said so to saying instead everything the author didn’t say or trying to figure out what they meant or wildly speculating on what they meant. This is where it’s important to deal with the actual text & not what we’d like it to say or think it might say but with what it actually says. Doesn’t eliminate analysis or discussion but grounds it more closely to the text.

I’ll pick up the torch.

The way Molly behaves reinforces negative stereotypes of women as mothers as hysterical, nagging shrews whose irrational anger borders on emotional abuse. I don’t believe that this stereotypical behaviour is what the millions of readers of the books should identify with women as mothers. Especially when so many of those readers are children.

In addition, the way Mrs. Delacour is redeemed in the Weasley family’s eyes reinforces the negative sterotype of attractive women, to wit that they are somehow suspect unless they pitch in with the domestic tasks, at which point they can be forgiven for their beauty.

Ovens have to be cleaned, meals have to be made, dishes stacked and apple pies served, and more power to those people who do these things. There is nothing wrong with these things. They are in fact pretty essential. But to identify females solely with these tasks is sex role stereotyping of the worst kind. Daddy goes to work and hides his toys in the garage and gets silly when there are sexy ladies around. Mummy stays at home and cooks and cleans and yells a lot. What year is it?

Someone made the argument that JKR is just reflecting reality, and that HP is not a feminist manifesto showing how things should be. Agree totally. HP is not a feminist manifesto. But why did it have to be a homage to June Cleaver?

I’d like to think it was just lazy writing on JKR’s part. Having spun a hundred fascinating characters, she ran out of invention and decided to go for the simplest stereotypes for Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. But there is a part of me which fears that for her this is an acceptable portrait of sex roles in the late 20th century.

Some really good comments here. I don’t have a whole lot to add at this point (and we’re on vacation).

Molly’s exasperating behavior is less about feminist roles than it is about a loving control-freak disintegrating under stress. I feel compassion for her.

As for the ghoul in pajamas, perhaps this is also a pointer to bad cloaked in simple, safe things–family, leaders, government, institutions. Seemingly sleeping, but ready to pounce.

Regarding comments made way, way back (sorry, I’m coming late to this thread) regarding the importance of the body, I think the seven Potters chapter was another indication of that.

The difference between seven friends/protectors of Harry willingly putting their lives and bodies on the line is a wonderful view of incarnated love in direct juxaposition to Voldemort’s squirreling away of his soul into seven mostly inanimate objects. One gets the impression that Voldemort only wants his body back because he has no choice if he wants to continue to operate in the world. But it’s a grudging concession, and he only wants a body if he thinks he can turn it into something invincible and incorruptible…in other words, something that it’s not. I think the body as it really is, frail and fallible and prone to death and decay, frightens and repulses Voldemort. Even his pseudo-”resurrection” (which is not really a resurrection at all) is just a mockery of real bodily resurrection. And his total inability to “get” Harry’s mother’s love (and the way he overlooks the power of that love, time and again, to his own peril) also shows a lack of respect for the body. There’s almost nothing more bodily than mother love for an infant, from the baby’s growth in the womb to the nursing of a child.

I think we’re given all sorts of indicators the good guys in HP value the body while Voldy and his minions don’t (with the obvious elements that they don’t care who they kill, and that Voldy reanimates corpses for his own purposes). Voldemort’s repulsion over his body’s frailty and mortality, and his disdain and underestimation of the power of a love (a love willing to go all the way to bodily sacrifice) make him the true gnostic of the story, especially when you combine all that with his fascination with esoteric dark arts and special, hidden knowledge that he thinks only he possesses.

Sorry for the tangent. Didn’t mean to derail the Molly discussion, which is very interesting!

Beth, you bring up some excellent points about Voldemort’s body-revulsion. I found myself thinking, over the last several days, that despite his gloating over his “victories,” Tom is not a happy person and never would be, even if he did become King of the World. He’s all about reaching a point, but what about after? I sense a profound dissatisfaction and restlessness, never abating.

Despite his ambition and successes, because he is tied to a body, LV can only go so far. What does he do when his body dies? It’s not immortal, simply revived. He must always be dependent upon others to help him stay in bodily form, even to possession a la Quirrelmort.

I’ve never been sure that he thought through the implications of having an “immortal” soul in a mortal body with it’s imperfections and limits.

You know, Shimon, I wondered that, too.

SPT, thanks for the clarification on the gnostic references. That is quite fascinating. My guess, given the various arguments for the importance of the body, is that you’re correct in your suggestion that JKR drew these references as atmosphere from the history of witchcraft. It would be interesting, though, to hear her thoughts on placing Durmstrang and Beauxbatons in key gnostic locations.

Beth, fantastic comments on Voldemort’s fear of the body. I loved that.

Revgeorge, I loved your points about Rowling’s use of tropes/stereotypes and their purpose.

Library Lily, I should point out that I incorrectly stated that the Paulicians were called “muddy-ones” by the ‘Orthodox Church’. The Paulicians flourished before the Great Schism and therefore before the Orthodox Chuch existed as a seperate entity.

Also, I may have given the impression that Gnostics were associated with witchcraft. This is misleading, though perhaps not entirely false. Gnostic Dualists were heretics, with highly unorthodox theological ideas. A few of them may have had magical leanings. But mostly they were just theological “weirdos”( to use Vernon Dursley’s term). There were however burned in much the same way as witches.

On the topic of what effect JKR tries to achieve when she writes, I generally feel that she almost always tries to generate some feeling of emotion in the reader, whether it be angst, amusement or indignation. I think this why she uses so many adverbials (“Hermione said indignantly”)—- they are a good way to make sure that the reader knows exactly what emotion each of the characters is feeling at any given moment. It is also an excellent way to mislead the reader, by making him focus on the emotions Harry is feeling instead of the clue that just walked right in front of his eyes.

Beth’s take on the body issue does raise the stakes a little. While I was originally unimpressed with the importance of the lack of a funeral, Voldemort’s fear of bodies is real and it is possible that Travis’s original idea is not so farfetched. There could be some sort of meaning attached to bodies in the book.

I have to go back to Molly. We have been looking at what she means to readers – feminist or stereotype. I think the important issue, i.e. her reason for being in the books and, in particular, for being so prominent in this chapter, is her meaning for Harry.
The Weasleys, from the moment they appear on Platform 9 3/4, are the abundant family which Harry has never had. To some degree they are “types” – the father type, the mother type, the big brother(s) types, the little sister types. While Ron often finds his family annoying and stultifying, Harry never does. When Harry first visits the Burrow he loves it. It is “homey” with its central kitchen and many rooms for many people. It is also very different from Privet Drive. Mrs. Weasley, as the full time mother, has the time and inclination to mother Harry also. A woman who worked outside of the home would be pleasing to feminists, but would not have the time to knit Harry sweaters.
As Harry, and we, get to know the Weasleys we learn of their imperfections. Harry is frustrated with Mrs. Weasley’s protectiveness in OTP. He goes behind her back to give the twins money at the end of GOF. By DH Harry is fully aware that the Weasleys are not perfect. But he still feels more at home at the Burrow than on Privet Drive.

Mrs. Weasley’s pestering emphasizes the building danger of DH. A mother who was not worried nearly out of her mind at the prospect of 3 teens hunting down Voldemort would diminish Voldemort. Mrs. Weasley is also the foil to show some of Harry’s strengths and weaknesses. His deep affection for his friends and adopted family is a strength. His regret at the trouble his situation causes them is touching. His reluctance to have others help him is a flaw. And his myopic vision of the whole conflict as primarily between he and Voldemort seems to me to be, strangely, both incorrect and ultimately the key to his willingness to lay down his life. Harry regrets that he has caused Mrs. Weasley so much trouble, ignoring the fact that she is getting ready for a wedding and that she would fight Voldemort with or without him. This is the first step of his eventual journey “into the forest again.”

Good points made, above. In no particular order: that we are meant to be annoyed by Molly in this chapter (I find her a bit more sympathetic in the next). That the Weasley’s represent an abundance of family values – both the good and the bad stuff that go with a large, closely-knit family. That Molly seems to get smoe creative satisfaction from her work.

Pace is ok, although if you do the math, at this rate we’re going to be at this for a while, and I wonder if people’s interest will be maintained. Mine would be, I know, but not sure how typical I am.

Point of disagreement: calling Harry’s view of the conflict “myopic” might be correct given the larger perspective, but given the prophecy and the murder of his parents and Voldemort’s repeated attacks on him, both physical and mental, it would be hard for him not to take it a wee bit personally.

The comment about JKR trying to generate emotion with her adverbs: I would put that under either lazy writing, or trying to keep up the interest of a juvenile audience. Nothing wrong with generating emotion; but there are better ways of doing it than with adverbs. And she knows how to do it very well when she pays attention to it.