by Unknown
Finally, the integration and budding friendly relations that tournament supporters like Dumbledore want are clearly exhibited in the pairings and mingling of students at the Yule Ball. Despite sporadic objections to exchange and cultural understanding both initially and throughout the Quidditch World Cup and Triwizard Tournament, the unity and the willingness of people in the magical world to unite to fight Voldemort and his supporters in the Second Wizarding War indicate that the seeds of cooperation perhaps may have been planted during these events. In later years, Fleur marries into the Weasley family. Viktor and Hermione remain in touch, and he even attends Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Internal House divisions within Hogwarts become inconsequential in the final battle against Voldemort, with Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and even some Slytherins (Rowling 2008) uniting to defend the school. Such undertakings may not have been possible without the opportunities and lessons of the Tournament.
International sports competitions and international student exchanges are long-term projects, predicated on the notion that repeated interactions between groups will break down barriers of difference and conflict, replacing them with bridges of understanding and cooperation. The Quidditch World Cup and Triwizard Tournament make clear that such undertakings are not always smooth, and results are not always immediately visible. However, the long-term benefits and goals of positive inter-group relations are clearly worth the effort because, in the end, one man alone could not destroy Voldemort. The talents, perspectives, knowledge and cooperation from diverse groups of magical individuals aid Harry in his defeat of the Dark Lord. Overcoming the obstacles of division and difference he encountered during his fourth year at Hogwarts set Harry on a course that brought all manner of beings from across the magical world together to fight Voldemort. His legacy is one of unity and cooperation; in other words creating ties that bind.
References
Delamater, John and Daniel J. Myers. 2007. Social Psychology, Sixth Edition. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Wadsworth.
Henry, P.J. and Curtis D. Hardin. 2006. “The Contact Hypothesis Revisited: Status Bias in the Reduction of Implicit Prejudice in the United States and Lebanon.” Psychological Science 17(10): 862-868.
Hogg, Michael. 2006. “Social Identity Theory.” Pp. 111-136 in Contemporary Social Psychological Theories. Edited by P.J. Burke. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
Rowling, J. K. 2008. Interview with Pottercast.
Tajfel, Henry and John Turner. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” Pp. 33-47 in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Edited by W. G. Austin and S. Worchel. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Tajfel, Henry and Michael Billig. 1974. “Familiarity and Categorization in Intergroup Behavior.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 10: 159-170.
“A Thought That Still Haunts Me”
Using A Magical Lens to Study
Collective Memory and Cultural Trauma
Among Muggles
Shruti Devgan
Introduction
The devices, creatures and techniques in the wizarding world can be located within the theoretical framework of collective memory and cultural trauma that has been written about in the Muggle world. This chapter presents an analysis of four such signifiers in the magical world: dementors, the Dark Mark, Pensieve, and Occlumency. I argue that the presence of such magical creatures and equipment concretizes and clarifies experiences of cultural trauma and collective memory in the Muggle world. The signifiers in the magical world are evoked vis-à-vis the dark memories of Lord Voldemort and the first wizarding war. When the wizarding community acknowledges Lord Voldemort’s resurgence, past traumas begin to repeat themselves.
In this chapter, I will concentrate on ways in which the collective identity and collective memory of witches and wizards is formed in relationship to Lord Voldemort. The collective identity of witches and wizards at Hogwarts is constructed around the memories of mass murders or genocide carried out by Lord Voldemort. The genocide that Lord Voldemort planned and executed with the help of his supporters during the First Wizarding War is evoked thereafter to bring forth the continued relevance of these memories. Lord Voldemort’s motivations in unleashing a reign of terror are ascribed to his preoccupation with creating a race of witches and wizards that have pure magical blood instead of what is labeled as half-blood or Mudblood. It is in opposition to the remembrance of violence and terror associated with Lord Voldemort that Harry Potter is the benevolent and brave protagonist for the community of witches and wizards. The collective memory of Lord Voldemort as a perpetrator of violence against innocent witches and wizards leads a substantial section of the wizarding community to ascribe qualities of heroism and victory to Harry Potter. Potter embodies victory against the atrocities and injustices associated with Lord Voldemort in the past as well as the present. When Voldemort re-emerges in the magical world, many of the witches and wizards condemning violence and genocide gravitate towards Potter again. I argue that the lexicon associated with memory and trauma in the wizarding world is symptomatic of the presence of objects, creatures and practices that are experienced only in tangential, indirect, and imaginary ways among Muggles.
Theoretical Framework
Collective memory is constructed in the specific context of society and shared by groups as an important basis along which identity is imagined and formed (Connerton 1995; Halbwachs 1992). Memories do not exist only at the individual level. Instead, the fact that individuals can recall certain events in similar ways is a consequence of the contemporary social framework that exhumes memories of some events just as it keeps others suppressed. Paul Ricouer brought out the importance of the current social framework in providing an impetus to recollect certain events that may have some basis in objective reality. However, memories of these events may be distorted or reinterpreted in a different light given the present social conditions. As Ricouer (2004: 21) wrote, “We have nothing better than memory to signify that something has taken place, has occurred, has happened before we declare we remember it.” To this extent, collective memory is always partial and incomplete. There are mnemonic divisions between groups depending on their interpretations that in turn impinge on their collective identity (Lindo-Fuentes et al. 2007).
Cultural trauma mediates in the creation of certain memories and identities. Cultural trauma comes about when an entire group of people is affected by a painful, disturbing event as direct victims or indirectly as descendants of victims (Alexander 2004). Cultural trauma is not inherent, given or taken-for-granted. Rather, it is the meaning ascribed to an event or series of events by a larger group or collective that imparts it a “traumatic status” (ibid). Trauma hinges around pain and suffering at the level of the collective, just as it does at the level of individuals. To the extent that it is the ‘remembrance’ of trauma for a larger group, it becomes a resource for identity and a collective conscience. As Ron Eyerman (2004: 60) writes with reference to the memory of slavery among African Americans as a cultural trauma, “The trauma in question is slavery, not as institution or even experience, but as collective memory, a form of remembrance that grounded the identity formation of a people… as a cultural process, trauma is linked to the formation of a collective identity and the construction of collective memory.”
The meaning ascribed to an event is culturally determined by individuals at a given historical stage. However, to the extent that these meanings are transmitted across generations, cultural trauma has an element of indirect, mediated transition. This is in keeping with Marianne Hirsch’s (2002: 74) idea of “post memories” or generational distance from the event and identity formation through “indirect and multiple mediation.” Eyerman (2004) also writes about the importance of time-delayed mediation and representation of trauma. Trauma must first be established as trauma by a cohort of individuals by means of interpretation and agency. It is not merely sufficient that a group undergoes pain and suffering for it to be established as a cultural trauma. Thus, som
e elements of an event are selected as more important than others in establishing an event as traumatic and these form the basis for collective or group identity and memory. To borrow from Eyerman again, he writes, “As opposed to psychological or physical trauma, which invokes a wound and the experience of great emotional anguish by an individual, cultural trauma refers to a dramatic loss of identity and meaning, a tear in the social fabric, affecting a group of people that has achieved some degree of cohesion. In this sense, trauma need not necessarily be experienced by everyone in a community or experienced directly by any or all…” (2004: 61).
Finally, Avery Gordon has written about haunting and its sociological relevance. Sociologically speaking, haunting means the selective ways in which scars or ghosts of the past possess continued social salience. Ghosts of the past or difficult memories affect current social circumstances, decisions, and life choices in ways that warrant recognition and acknowledgement in the present, so that a different future can be visualized and brought about. Individuals and groups are haunted by past events that reemerge from the nooks and crevices of memories, ideally, to bring about a shift from trauma to creating a space for reconciliation and healing. Haunting is then qualitatively different from trauma to the extent that it warrants the need to change status quo. “…[H]aunting, unlike trauma, is distinctive for producing a something-to-be-done. Indeed, it seemed to me that haunting was precisely the domain of turmoil and trouble, that moment…when things are not in their assigned places…when disturbed feelings cannot be put away, when something else, something different from before, seems like it must be done” (Gordon 2008: xvi).
It is within this theoretical framework of collective memory, cultural trauma and haunting that I will analyze the following objects, creatures, and practices: dementors, the Dark Mark, Pensieve, and Occlumency.
Sociological Analysis of Magical Devices, Creatures & Techniques
Dementors
Dementors are guards of the wizard prison, Azkaban. They are cloaked and hooded in a way that their faces are completely hidden but their hands are an indication of what lies beneath, “glistening, grayish, slimy-looking, and scabbed, like something dead that has decayed in water” (POA 83). Professor Lupin describes them as among:
…the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presences, though they can’t see them. Get too near a dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself... soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life… (POA 187)
Harry Potter is once confronted with dementors during a game of Quidditch, and the experience illustrates the feelings of utter desolation that Professor Lupin describes. Lord Voldemort killed Harry Potter’s parents and his mother sacrificed her life to save Harry’s. The appearance of dementors on the Quidditch field make Harry lose his focus and instead his mind is flooded with memories of the past. He felt “as though freezing water were rising in his chest, cutting at his insides” and he heard a woman (his mother) screaming “Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead” (POA 179).
In the wizarding world, dementors are associated not simply with surveillance but also evoke extreme reactions of dread and losing touch with oneself because of this surveillance and memories of Lord Voldemort. Muggles in contemporary world are subject to monitoring by visible people such as guards or devices such as surveillance cameras but they are also subject to the power of the invisible gaze even when they are unaware of it (Foucault 1979). One of the most glaring and blatant examples of the latter is the constant monitoring over the Internet or the presence of hidden cameras or phone tapping devices. Dementors serve as a physical, albeit shadowy manifestation of the nature of dread and resultant trauma that individuals and collectivities – both Muggles and witches and wizards – experience because of this invisible gaze. Even though most witches and wizards have not been inmates of Azkaban, they are cognizant of the feelings that dementors engender because of prior interpretations and representations to which they have access. It is not simply the psychological consequences of hollowness that are at stake here but the threat of being physically imprisoned or the fear of being imprisoned in the wizard prison that the dementors evoke. Muggles might experience this same fear and paranoia because they inhabit a world of constant surveillance. Dementors provide a description of the subjective feelings that cultural trauma brings out within a community tied together by memories of horrific events.
The Dark Mark
The Dark Mark is a symbol that portends hauntings and traumatic memories. “[I]t was a colossal skull, comprised of what looked like emerald stars, with a serpent protruding from its mouth like a tongue” (GOF 128). At the Quidditch World Cup the Dark Mark appeared on the horizon and an older wizard, Arthur Weasley explained the gravity of the symbol, “The terror it inspired…you have no idea, you’re too young. Just picture coming home and finding the Dark Mark hovering over your house, and knowing what you’re about to find inside….Everyone’s worst fear…the very worst…” (GOF 142).
In the Muggle world, the Dark Mark finds parallels in the Nazi swastika and the terror it evoked for Holocaust victims or hooded figures or the noose for African Americans subjected to racial violence of the worst kind. The perpetrator and victims of cultural trauma attach feelings of revulsion and fear to such symbols to such an extent that even when members of a community know of certain events like the Holocaust, slavery, or Lord Voldemort’s killings indirectly, they nonetheless experience emotions of foreboding and anticipation of terror. For some of Lord Voldemort’s supporters, the Dark Mark represents renewed hope; but for the wizarding community at large its meaning centers around violence and death. Thus, mnemonic divisions are present in the responses to the appearance of the Dark Mark. A sense of collective identity is forged vis-à-vis the Dark Mark – either as followers of Lord Voldemort who rejoice in the reappearance of the Dark Mark and bear its physical evidence on their arms; or as the larger collective that is terrorized and threatened by it.
Pensieve
The Pensive is a stone basin containing a swirling foggy substance or the physical form that memories take. Witches and wizards can use their wands to extract selective memories from their minds and place them in the basin to revisit them at will. The idea of the Pensieve alludes to the element of selectivity inherent in memory work along with a concrete manifestation of “time-delayed negotiation” (Eyerman 2004: 71) with memories, especially painful and difficult experiences. As Albus Dumbledore explains to Harry Potter:
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,…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. (GOF 597)
The Pensieve is a literal manifestation of postmemories among Muggles, or the process through which memories get transmitted intergenerationally in a community in that it enables actual physical transportation of an individual to the memories of “others.” Even though the Pensieve allows for individuals to gain access to objective facts, to the extent that they are filtered through another’s memories, the element of indirect mediation, representation and interpretation that Muggles experience is also found in the wizard world. The ability to extract memories and place them in a tangible object is the basis for a common ground between the owner of certain memories and the consumer or audience member. This in turn becomes the basis of identification between the one evoking the memories and the other who literally witnesses them.
An example of how the Pensieve becomes a means of identification between individuals is when Harry Potter enters
Professor Severus Snape’s mind and discovers that the hatred and disregard that Snape expressed for Harry’s deceased father is, in fact, justified. Harry discovers one of Snape’s worst memories in which his father is bullying Snape and identifies with the latter whom he otherwise thoroughly despises. When he tumbles out of Snape’s memories, Harry feels a sense of horror because “he knew how it felt to be humiliated in the middle of a circle of onlookers, knew exactly how Snape had felt as his father had taunted him, and that judging from what he had just seen, his father had been every bit as arrogant as Snape had always told him” (OOTP 650). By means of the Pensieve, Harry mnemonically identifies with Snape and begins to understand the latter’s social location and consequent temperament.
Occlumency
Occlumency can be defined as the specialized skill to stop another individual from accessing one’s memories and thoughts associated with the past. Once mastered, it is also a way to block out traumatic memories. In the Muggle world, perpetrators of violence or painful trauma take over their victims’ cognitive processes and resulting feelings (Caruth 1995). In other words, perpetrators cause not just physical harm but also invade their victims’ thoughts and memories pervasively, persistently and across generations. Similarly, in the wizarding world, Lord Voldemort is skilled at penetrating thought processes and memories or the “art of Legilimency” (OOTP 530). Harry Potter is the mediating link between Lord Voldemort’s power to access memories and feelings and grave consequences for the larger community of witches and wizards. Dumbledore contends that as long as Harry Potter can block out these disturbing visions, the community of witches and wizards can stay protected from the violence that Lord Voldemort perpetrates. Dumbledore recommends Occlumency for Harry Potter to maintain a sense of solidarity with the other witches and wizards and to ensure that Harry Potter does not lose his self-identity.