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I was reading through some essays today--can you believe I've never read "Draco Malfoy is Ever So Lame?" ::sigh:: Me neither. It's great. Anyway, I came across another post of Elkin's that struck me as even more interesting given OOTP (which it was written before) and the recent discussions we were having here about Gothic Lit. The incest ones. Incest is common trait in Gothic families like the Blacks and the Malfoys. So is madness. That's why it was so interesting to read Elkin's essay on Draco the Nutter
Now, one of the main points of Elkin's essay, which is fascinating, is the question of whether JKR intends for Draco to come across to her/us as he sometimes does. Is it just poor word choice? A case of JKR going overboard with her description? Or words carefully chosen but not fully appreciated for 7 books?
Elkins says:
"It's just odd, it is. I don't think the boy's quite in his right mind, myself, and I do find it interesting that when he seems nuttiest is always also when he's being the most horrid. Whether this is just JKR's way of indicating that the Voldemortian ethos is a kind of madness, a cultural mass hysteria, or whether she means to depict Draco as internally conflicted is something I'm not quite sure about."
The particular scenes she references are from CoS, where Draco pushes his way through the crowd to grin at Mrs. Norris and yell that the Mudbloods are next, and from GoF, where Draco enters the train compartment to deliver his warning. She also mentions his scene in the forest at the QWC. Look at the way Draco's described here:
"It was Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his unusally bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat." (CoS)
At the QWC his "pale eyes" are "glittering." Upon entering the compartment at the end of GoF for his warning, his smirk is "quivering."
Now, as Elkins says, maybe this is JKR's way of conveying that he's just very very happy to be able to witness some DE-type stuff, but the descriptions are, no doubt about it, febrile. This could be the point--support of this kind of thing is a kind of madness in itself. But of course there are different types of madness, aren't there. Crouch Jr. is a fanatic, Voldemort is a sociopath, Neville's parents are catatonic. Then there's Bellatrix LeStrange, whose name alone suggests she's not right in the head, and also the portrait of Mrs. Black. These women both, to me, seem crazy in that time-honored Bertha Rochester way. (Which I don't consider an insult--I still proudly wear my college English Dept. tee-shirt that proclaimed FREE BERTHA ROCHESTER!) This series is obsessed with bloodlines (yes, even the good guys), and the Purebloods have thus gotten more and more associated with inbreeding--Ron says wizards would have "died out" if they could only marry each other, Sirius says all the Pureblood families are related. And what is one of the stereotypes associated with inbreeding but being not-quite-right in the head? Either you're slow or you're mad. Crabbe and Goyle seem to be covering slow. And Draco...?
Well Draco is of course a Black as well. We've been told how much Draco looks like his father, but I have always felt that while the two of them have some personality traits in common (particularly their drawling voice) Draco also seems like a very different type. Sometimes Draco's inability to follow his father's directions can be a problem. Think, for instance, of Lucius telling Draco to tone down the DIE POTTER DIE stuff or keep his head down with the basilisk. He's done neither, but not, it does not seem to me, out of rebellion. He's still as loyal to Dad as ever. I think he just has trouble controlling himself on these issues, and that's something I can see Bellatrix having trouble with as well. It's not even like Draco can stop himself when it's in his best interest. Lucius probably wished Bella could get a grip at the end of OotP.
Now, obviously there haven't been any big flashing signs that say Draco could be insane, but since his death at the end of the series has always been a big possibility, I think madness should also be considered as an alternative kind of death in these kinds of stories. It's particularly common in Gothic stories with families like the Blacks and the Malfoys. Draco's been mostly associated with the latter, but in OotP, for the first time, we learn he is just as much the former, just at the same time we learn what the Black's stand for. Before it was just Sirius' last name. Now we learn this is a family that dominates the lives of its members even more than the Malfoy family does. It's a family that eventually kills both its sons. And before Sirius is killed, I would suggest, he comes quite close to going mad. It's probably only the opportunity to get out of the house and protect Harry that ultimately keeps him sane. Before that we hear of him drinking, he appears to be losing touch with reality in ways he hadn’t before, even in Azkaban. There he stayed sane by holding on to who he was--loyal friend to James, NOT a traitor. In the Black House he appears to fair less well. Snape even finally gets an opportunity to affect him by taunting him with the fact that he's trapped there.
This just seems interesting given the way JKR has always chosen to show us Draco's reactions to his father's work. The glittering eyes seem to be a stock thing she associates with him, but still I completely agree with Elkins that describing a bloodless face suddenly flushed with cold eyes that suddenly seem "alive" does not suggest evil to me, but a fever, a madness. It certainly doesn't suggest to me what I think it should if one was trying to present Draco as a threatening Voldemort minion, which is power. Draco doesn't seem powerful in these scenes (nor is he powerful in them--he's always bested by the end), he seems overexcited.
Overexcited in a "happy" way? I really don't think so, even for him. First because when Draco's cheeks become flushed it's generally a sign of inner distress, not happiness. His cheeks turn pink when he's insulted. Perhaps more importantly, JKR goes out of her way to show us how scared Draco is of Voldemort, and by now he has quite a bad history with all things dark. He always flinches at Voldemort's name, he's afraid in the forest, he's afraid of the Dementors, he’s terrified of Moody. Twitchy ferret is right. Draco's shown to deal with fear by mocking others for the same fear--he teases Neville in the forest, teases Harry with his Dementor troubles. So it's not hard to imagine that a lot of his Voldemort talk is along the same lines--ha ha, he's coming to get YOU! Meanwhile the sight of Voldemort sends him running away in fear. He's not trying to sneak his way into his father's circle at the QWF. I don't hold with the theory that Draco is warning Hermione in the forest, but I do think that scene shows he'd much rather tease Harry then get too close to Death Eaters. I also could believe he's frankly relieved when the Trio shows up so he's not standing in the woods by himself anymore.
This could be just part of a general, boring idea that Draco is "a coward," whatever that horrible name means to JKR, but even cowards aren't afraid of everything. Draco’s feelings in a way seem like a mirror of his crazy Aunt's--she revels in the evil and becoming more crazy through exposure, but there's a certain strength to her madness. Draco, otoh, seems defined by fear--particularly fear of Voldemort, especially in his junior-DE scenes. As Elkins asks, does JKR know that using the word "quivering" to describe Draco's smirk in GoF suggests an inner conflict? Surely if she meant to present that scene as Draco triumphant he would live up to Harry's impression of being more menacing. But he doesn't, at least to me. He just seems crazier.
In fact, this may seem crazy, but I could almost see that scene as a parallel to the one in the woods, where I feel like he really wants to speak to the Trio. I don't mean he's running to them for help—at least not consciously, since after all he DID run into the twins' compartment when the Dementors appeared—but I could believe there was some genuine anxiety on his part. It's even sort of interesting that he references Harry's rejection of his hand in first year, not just because it shows he holds a grudge, but because here he is again hoping Harry will see he was wrong. Is it Harry he needs to convince or himself?
Then finally it occurred to me that Draco's possibly been associated with madness in little ways. His nickname for Harry, "Potty" can mean addle-brained. Lucius insults his mind in CoS, suggesting that his bloodline should give him superior mental powers and hasn’t. In OotP he makes jokes about St Mungo’s, particularly the ward for people driven insane by magic, and does an imitation of a crazy person, at which point Neville chooses the first moment in 5 years to do something that hints at his parents' condition. I don't know how much to read into that—it’s primarily probably a way of highlighting Neville, reminding us of what we learned in the last book to set up Christmas. But still it's hard not to find it ironic that Malfoy teases Harry for being insane, that Harry sometimes worries he's going insane when he's not, while Malfoy seems to spend OotP on a bit of a Rocky Mountain High. He and his friends just seem to spend more time shrieking with laughter and cackling in this book, and shrieking laughter always has that vague echo of Bedlam.
Also, the one thing Draco is often helpful for is information, though he's not actively trying to help Harry. That would certainly fit into this idea, where the madman offers knowledge, as long as you know which advice not to follow.
So, I don't know. I think on one hand JKR has clearly shown that constant exposure to Dark Magic and evil drives one insane--some of the most fun DEs are so because they're colorfully mad. When Harry visits St. Mungo’s he’s a stranger in Arthur’s ward but it’s a regular friendly reunion up in the mental ward. The Black place seems like a kind of madhouse and all its "acceptable" members a bit off. Many fanfics like to use a particular theory of Evil!Draco where he's been brought up on curses etc., and so is completely at home with the Dark Arts. But perhaps JKR’s ultimately making a different point: that the effect of Draco's situation and parents on his highly emotional and sensitive temperament is just insanity. That he won't go mad because he loves the Dark Arts but because he's tried to force himself to love them when they scare him out of his mind. Or something.
Now, one of the main points of Elkin's essay, which is fascinating, is the question of whether JKR intends for Draco to come across to her/us as he sometimes does. Is it just poor word choice? A case of JKR going overboard with her description? Or words carefully chosen but not fully appreciated for 7 books?
Elkins says:
"It's just odd, it is. I don't think the boy's quite in his right mind, myself, and I do find it interesting that when he seems nuttiest is always also when he's being the most horrid. Whether this is just JKR's way of indicating that the Voldemortian ethos is a kind of madness, a cultural mass hysteria, or whether she means to depict Draco as internally conflicted is something I'm not quite sure about."
The particular scenes she references are from CoS, where Draco pushes his way through the crowd to grin at Mrs. Norris and yell that the Mudbloods are next, and from GoF, where Draco enters the train compartment to deliver his warning. She also mentions his scene in the forest at the QWC. Look at the way Draco's described here:
"It was Draco Malfoy. He had pushed to the front of the crowd, his cold eyes alive, his unusally bloodless face flushed, as he grinned at the sight of the hanging, immobile cat." (CoS)
At the QWC his "pale eyes" are "glittering." Upon entering the compartment at the end of GoF for his warning, his smirk is "quivering."
Now, as Elkins says, maybe this is JKR's way of conveying that he's just very very happy to be able to witness some DE-type stuff, but the descriptions are, no doubt about it, febrile. This could be the point--support of this kind of thing is a kind of madness in itself. But of course there are different types of madness, aren't there. Crouch Jr. is a fanatic, Voldemort is a sociopath, Neville's parents are catatonic. Then there's Bellatrix LeStrange, whose name alone suggests she's not right in the head, and also the portrait of Mrs. Black. These women both, to me, seem crazy in that time-honored Bertha Rochester way. (Which I don't consider an insult--I still proudly wear my college English Dept. tee-shirt that proclaimed FREE BERTHA ROCHESTER!) This series is obsessed with bloodlines (yes, even the good guys), and the Purebloods have thus gotten more and more associated with inbreeding--Ron says wizards would have "died out" if they could only marry each other, Sirius says all the Pureblood families are related. And what is one of the stereotypes associated with inbreeding but being not-quite-right in the head? Either you're slow or you're mad. Crabbe and Goyle seem to be covering slow. And Draco...?
Well Draco is of course a Black as well. We've been told how much Draco looks like his father, but I have always felt that while the two of them have some personality traits in common (particularly their drawling voice) Draco also seems like a very different type. Sometimes Draco's inability to follow his father's directions can be a problem. Think, for instance, of Lucius telling Draco to tone down the DIE POTTER DIE stuff or keep his head down with the basilisk. He's done neither, but not, it does not seem to me, out of rebellion. He's still as loyal to Dad as ever. I think he just has trouble controlling himself on these issues, and that's something I can see Bellatrix having trouble with as well. It's not even like Draco can stop himself when it's in his best interest. Lucius probably wished Bella could get a grip at the end of OotP.
Now, obviously there haven't been any big flashing signs that say Draco could be insane, but since his death at the end of the series has always been a big possibility, I think madness should also be considered as an alternative kind of death in these kinds of stories. It's particularly common in Gothic stories with families like the Blacks and the Malfoys. Draco's been mostly associated with the latter, but in OotP, for the first time, we learn he is just as much the former, just at the same time we learn what the Black's stand for. Before it was just Sirius' last name. Now we learn this is a family that dominates the lives of its members even more than the Malfoy family does. It's a family that eventually kills both its sons. And before Sirius is killed, I would suggest, he comes quite close to going mad. It's probably only the opportunity to get out of the house and protect Harry that ultimately keeps him sane. Before that we hear of him drinking, he appears to be losing touch with reality in ways he hadn’t before, even in Azkaban. There he stayed sane by holding on to who he was--loyal friend to James, NOT a traitor. In the Black House he appears to fair less well. Snape even finally gets an opportunity to affect him by taunting him with the fact that he's trapped there.
This just seems interesting given the way JKR has always chosen to show us Draco's reactions to his father's work. The glittering eyes seem to be a stock thing she associates with him, but still I completely agree with Elkins that describing a bloodless face suddenly flushed with cold eyes that suddenly seem "alive" does not suggest evil to me, but a fever, a madness. It certainly doesn't suggest to me what I think it should if one was trying to present Draco as a threatening Voldemort minion, which is power. Draco doesn't seem powerful in these scenes (nor is he powerful in them--he's always bested by the end), he seems overexcited.
Overexcited in a "happy" way? I really don't think so, even for him. First because when Draco's cheeks become flushed it's generally a sign of inner distress, not happiness. His cheeks turn pink when he's insulted. Perhaps more importantly, JKR goes out of her way to show us how scared Draco is of Voldemort, and by now he has quite a bad history with all things dark. He always flinches at Voldemort's name, he's afraid in the forest, he's afraid of the Dementors, he’s terrified of Moody. Twitchy ferret is right. Draco's shown to deal with fear by mocking others for the same fear--he teases Neville in the forest, teases Harry with his Dementor troubles. So it's not hard to imagine that a lot of his Voldemort talk is along the same lines--ha ha, he's coming to get YOU! Meanwhile the sight of Voldemort sends him running away in fear. He's not trying to sneak his way into his father's circle at the QWF. I don't hold with the theory that Draco is warning Hermione in the forest, but I do think that scene shows he'd much rather tease Harry then get too close to Death Eaters. I also could believe he's frankly relieved when the Trio shows up so he's not standing in the woods by himself anymore.
This could be just part of a general, boring idea that Draco is "a coward," whatever that horrible name means to JKR, but even cowards aren't afraid of everything. Draco’s feelings in a way seem like a mirror of his crazy Aunt's--she revels in the evil and becoming more crazy through exposure, but there's a certain strength to her madness. Draco, otoh, seems defined by fear--particularly fear of Voldemort, especially in his junior-DE scenes. As Elkins asks, does JKR know that using the word "quivering" to describe Draco's smirk in GoF suggests an inner conflict? Surely if she meant to present that scene as Draco triumphant he would live up to Harry's impression of being more menacing. But he doesn't, at least to me. He just seems crazier.
In fact, this may seem crazy, but I could almost see that scene as a parallel to the one in the woods, where I feel like he really wants to speak to the Trio. I don't mean he's running to them for help—at least not consciously, since after all he DID run into the twins' compartment when the Dementors appeared—but I could believe there was some genuine anxiety on his part. It's even sort of interesting that he references Harry's rejection of his hand in first year, not just because it shows he holds a grudge, but because here he is again hoping Harry will see he was wrong. Is it Harry he needs to convince or himself?
Then finally it occurred to me that Draco's possibly been associated with madness in little ways. His nickname for Harry, "Potty" can mean addle-brained. Lucius insults his mind in CoS, suggesting that his bloodline should give him superior mental powers and hasn’t. In OotP he makes jokes about St Mungo’s, particularly the ward for people driven insane by magic, and does an imitation of a crazy person, at which point Neville chooses the first moment in 5 years to do something that hints at his parents' condition. I don't know how much to read into that—it’s primarily probably a way of highlighting Neville, reminding us of what we learned in the last book to set up Christmas. But still it's hard not to find it ironic that Malfoy teases Harry for being insane, that Harry sometimes worries he's going insane when he's not, while Malfoy seems to spend OotP on a bit of a Rocky Mountain High. He and his friends just seem to spend more time shrieking with laughter and cackling in this book, and shrieking laughter always has that vague echo of Bedlam.
Also, the one thing Draco is often helpful for is information, though he's not actively trying to help Harry. That would certainly fit into this idea, where the madman offers knowledge, as long as you know which advice not to follow.
So, I don't know. I think on one hand JKR has clearly shown that constant exposure to Dark Magic and evil drives one insane--some of the most fun DEs are so because they're colorfully mad. When Harry visits St. Mungo’s he’s a stranger in Arthur’s ward but it’s a regular friendly reunion up in the mental ward. The Black place seems like a kind of madhouse and all its "acceptable" members a bit off. Many fanfics like to use a particular theory of Evil!Draco where he's been brought up on curses etc., and so is completely at home with the Dark Arts. But perhaps JKR’s ultimately making a different point: that the effect of Draco's situation and parents on his highly emotional and sensitive temperament is just insanity. That he won't go mad because he loves the Dark Arts but because he's tried to force himself to love them when they scare him out of his mind. Or something.
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Draco always has seemed to be as a mirror of other characters. Perhaps because he's not sharply defined like Harry or Snape, Draco seems more to take on characteristics associated with other main players, occasionally (and rarely) acting in a way which no other would. Draco's role seems to be to facilitate the plot primarily, and act as a shadow/foil/whathaveyou second. His truth telling and his ability to read others seem to be his few gifts that he shares with no one else in the series. He does speak some unpleasant truths, but I more subscribe that to his being a reasonably intelligent kid who can't keep his mouth shut. If Draco is one thing, it's opinionated and he hardly hesitates before sharing said opinion with anyone.
But the inability to keep quiet isn't the same thing as being insane. Don't forget that the cat scene in CoS was shortly after the bit where Hermione accused Draco of buying his way onto the Quidditch team. We know that the boy is one to hold grudges; Hermione had then become the one in his sights due to her comment. Given Lucius' words in the B&B scene, is it any wonder that he'd be on edge regarding halfbloods when he hadn't particularly seemed to care the year before? A quick 'they were *our* kind?' is all we hear of him on the subject, if I recall correctly. The end of the year train scene in GoF cannot be explained away as easily, but I will add that Draco is extremely naive. It's highly unlikely that he knew who the cloaked figure in HPPS was, just as it's unlikely that he's associated the Dementors with the Death Eaters. If anything, that scene has always struck me as being vaguely OOC. Draco, as far as we know, is loud mouthed but not stupid. Commenting in private that he wants to see Hermione dead is something far different than screaming on a train "Woot, the Dark Lord!!" Even in Order the train scene had a reason: he was going for revenge. But alas, I digress.
Draco has spent much of the books shrieking or cackling, or other not particularly pleasant terms. I've always seen this as a way for JKR to further express her dislike of the boy, not necessarily as a sign of madness. He's also extremely dramatic as we see over and over again, and thus it would make sense that the terms used to describe his actions would be more flamboyant than most. As for the irony of his being 'potty' himself, it appears to me to be far more a reflection of Draco's innate ability to empathize with others, and then take advantage of it. He's shown repeatedly at being about to psyche out others; calling Harry crazy when Harry isn't all that certain of his sanity is one of the best ways Draco could strike out.
Then again, nearly every character in HP is insane in one form or another. The quirks that make up wizardry are many and generally pointed out to the reader's amusement. Moody's extreme paranoia would be, in a strictly Muggle environment, enough to look at paranoid schizophrenia. Luna's a conspiracy theorist with a seemingly poor grasp of reality. Hermione is obsessive. Sirius, as you mentioned, acts recklessly and almost seems to loose his maturity over the course of his storyline. Hagrid's got his issues (of which there are far, far too many for me to name here, please don't get me started lest the fiery Hagridhate I bear take over the post). Dumbledore, to me, is extremely machiavellian and is using kids to achieve his aims. Characters in HP wouldn't be wizards if they weren't in one way or another insane. The only Muggles we see who have names and roles are the Dursleys, each of whom strive to be 'normal', to root out any eccentricities that mark the wizards that surround them.
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A quick 'they were *our* kind?' is all we hear of him on the subject, if I recall correctly.
Yup. It feels like Chamber of Secrets he's just roped into being the prejudiced boy, actually, where last year he was the snob. This is why it's frustrating to talk about Mudbloods in general. Often when people point out that it seemed more like Draco was about class you get scolded for not paying enough attention to the Important Theme of racism.
And I definitely agree half the wizarding world seems to be crazy. In fact, as I said to Maya, were this character marked to be driven insane it would be a sad day for me, because he's usually the character who seems the most reasonable. You need somebody in Hagrid's class who might say, "Excuse me, should we really be poking that fire breathing dragon with a stick? I know you said he liked it as long as I smile pleasantly, but I have my doubts..."