Godric's Hollow is a chapter very rich in religious imagery. It's Christmas Eve, and most of the chapter takes place in a churchyard next to a church filled with singing parishioners. I half-hoped Harry and Hermione would go inside, but in the quietude of that snowy cemetery, I think they caught the sacred spirit of the night rather nicely.
I find the inscriptions on the graves interesting, and interconnected. Both are straight out of the Bible, though chapter and verse don't appear on the stones. Ariana's epitaph is "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." In the book of Matthew, this is immediately preceded by the exhortation not to store up treasures on Earth, but to store up treasures in Heaven. Albus picked out those words, and it seems to be a mark of what her death taught him, that he had momentarily been lured by thoughts of power into forgetting what was really important. His family, marked by tragedy and scandal, was his treasure, and grief over losing three of them and becoming estranged with his brother helped him to reevaluate the course of his life.
Not that I think he would have become like Grindelwald. Even in his rather troubling letter to his friend, his main purpose seems to be to temper Gellert's ambitions, to truly work for "the greater good," a phrase Grindelwald then corrupted for his dark purposes. Now that I've gotten over the initial bitter taste some of Dumbledore's back story left in my mouth, I'm more inclined to feel sorry for him than indignant. He's probably still my second-favorite character in the series - and, I would venture, by far the most quotable!
Anyway, do we know who put the epitaph on Lily and James's grave? "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." That one is I Corinthians 15:26, and it leaves me with the similar sense that storing up treasures on Earth, trying to cling too hard to this existence isn't all it's cracked up to be. At first glance, and certainly taken out of context, it seems to say the opposite, that one should try to be a master over death, even if it means resorting to means like Voldemort's. But it's more about acceptance of the natural order of things, knowing that death does not have the last word, but not because of any special efforts that can be made by people. If Dumbledore wrote this epitaph too, it could again refer to the Hallows, since he felt so guilty about having James's cloak at the time of his death, though I doubt the cloak would have have helped the Potters much. And, of course, it's also the expression of a beautiful hope, one that Dumbledore seems to feel and believe in deeply.
Interested to see your thoughts on this chapter, Beth. I suspect your insights on this might be far keener than mine...
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4 comments:
Erin, wonderful insights. I especially like the way you think through why Dumbledore would have chosen the particular epitaph he did for his mother and sister. I think you're right that their deaths, and the part he played in his sister's death, likely affected the course of his the whole rest of his own life. Those deaths forced him to come to terms with what he really valued, and where his heart really rested.
I think I want to come back to the Potters' epitaph after a bit more time to ponder. I just re-read this chapter the other night, while reading aloud to Dana. You're so right that it's rich with religious imagery, and with a hushed and beautiful sense of the holy. I think that's one reason why I, for one, was shocked and sickened by the whole Nagini attack that came after...I wasn't expecting such violence to erupt again so quickly, nor Harry to come so close to death again. That whole scene, and the breaking of his wand, really felt like the emotional nadir of the story for me.
Sorry -- one clarification from my last comment. I wasn't expecting Harry to come so close to death again...so soon!
I envisioned him and Hermione having a nice cozy Christmas with Bathilda in Harry's hometown, with the sense of holiness from the night before dusting their spirits like the snow outside. Alas, no happy Christmas for Harry...
No, not a happy Christmas at all, though I think that the time in the graveyard, before the awful attack, did bring him some measure of solace and peace. I love the way the whole town is really marked by memories of the Potters' sacrifice, at least for those with eyes to see it.
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