Harry Potter and the Historical Allegory

So, the final movie adaptation of the final book in the Harry Potter series opened recently—and yes, your favorite historical blogstress was there, revisiting J.K Rowling’s brilliantly conceived and executed shadow world [whilst sobbing out her eyes]. But what ultimately makes the series so compelling is that these witches and wizards are recognizably (even painfully) human—and their dynamics, the issues that move and challenge and destroy them, mirror those in “real” history. Harry and Ron’s adolescent romantic foibles, Lily’s ultimate sacrifice for her son, Snape’s inability to forgive the slights of his teenage years—these are recognizable human beings. We know them. And in the story of Voldemort and his Death Eaters, we hear echoes of the 20th century's most iconic narrative of evil.

I got to these books rather late—my older brother gave me the series two years ago and I promptly devoured them, reading the first three in a day apiece and then forcing myself to slow down on the subsequent volumes. As I progressed, I started suspecting something--a malevolent, charismatic leader who espouses a "racial" ideology, complete with gradations of “blood purity”?

Toujours Pur

They thought Voldemort had the right idea, they were all for the purification of the Wizarding race, 
getting rid of Muggle-borns and having purebloods in charge.

Two horrific wars? “Muggle” registration?

Hmm, ya think…?

The parallels become more apparent as the series progresses, in part because Rowling’s storyline becomes darker and more adult in sensibility. Voldemort’s puppet regime, with its murderously efficient Snatchers*...

"They're everywhere--gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, 
there's a reward from the Ministry for every one captured."

and its anti-Muggle propaganda...

Harry looked more closely and realized that what he had thought were decoratively carved thrones were actually mounds of carved humans...
men, women and children, all with rather stupid, ugly faces, 
twisted and pressed together to support the weight of the handsomely robed wizards.

"Muggles," whispered Hermione. "In their rightful place."

evokes the Third Reich, with Voldemort as Adolph Hitler, Death Eaters like the Carrows and Yaxley as Hitler’s ministers, and the Snatchers as the SS/Brownshirts. Interestingly Voldemort, like Hitler, is a living rebuke of his own separatist ideology—much as the dark-eyed and -complected, stocky Hitler idolized the Aryans, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is himself a half-blood, sired by the Muggle Tom Riddle.

Other parallels:

• Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa Black = the Mitford sisters.
  
  There were actually six Mitford sisters, but like the Blacks, they were an aristocratic family encompassing quite divergent political views. Unity Mitford is the clear inspiration for Bellatrix--Unity became part of Hitler’s inner circle and was quite infatuated with him. Andromeda, who rejects her family’s ideology of blood purity in order to marry a Muggle-born, is probably a counterpart to Jessica Mitford, who similarly rejected her privileged background and embraced Communism. [Fun fact--J.K. Rowling actually named her daughter after Jessica Mitford.]

• Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (whose increasingly desperate attempts to convince the wizarding world that everything is FINE, You-Know-Who is NOT coming back) = Winston Churchill’s hapless predecessor, Neville Chamberlain.  Like Chamberlain, Fudge served as minister during an interim period between two devastating wars; Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix reflect something of how England’s mood must have been in that eerie waiting period in the mid-to-late ‘30s.

"I see no evidence to the contrary!" shouted Fudge, his face purpling. "It seems to me that you are all determined to start a panic that will destabilize everything we have worked for these last thirteen years!"

Another children’s classic that hints at World War II is the movie version of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang [the book, written by James Bond creator Ian Fleming, has a very different storyline]. Anyone who’s seen this movie remembers the terrifying Child Catcher** who tempts Jemima and Jeremy out of hiding with visions of cream puffs, ice cream and treacle tarts “…all freeee to-day!” and then claps them into a caged vehicle and carries them off. Their father later discovers that all of Vulgaria’s children are in hiding, living in the sewers, to avoid the same fate. As creepily effective a plot device as this is [and “Hushabye Mountain,” sung by the father to the children underground, is perhaps the most haunting moment in the movie], it’s even more interesting when you consider that Teutonic Vulgaria is a metaphor for Nazi Germany--which would make the children the Jews in hiding.

*The Snatchers are reminiscent of the Greifers, Jews who managed to survive openly in Germany during the Holocaust by informing on other Jews in hiding. [The word greifer even means the same thing; it translates to grabber or catcher.] I highly recommend Stella, a fascinating, terribly depressing book about a well-known Berlin Griefer, Stella Goldschlag, also known as the Blonde Poison.

**If you can believe it, the stage version of Chitty actually makes the Child Catcher even creepier, with a song called “Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies,” which includes such nightmare-inducing lyrics as:

I can't see or hear you—
But smell that I'm near you—
My dear sweet—
Kiddy-Widdy-Winkies....

Prince Albert got married last weekend!

Ah, the principality--such a delightfully European invention, toy countries like Lichtenstein and Andorra, tiny fiefdoms and dukedoms. Monaco is my favorite, a beautiful bauble of a city-state, nestled against the seacliffs and redolent of Mediterranean glamour and mystery. Monaco is ruled by what has to be the most ridiculously good-looking royal* family in existence, all lustrous dark hair and long legs and full lips. The Grimaldis are less inbred than most royal families (and how! See The Prince and The Laundress, below) and their efforts to improve the princely gene pool has certainly borne impressive results.

Princess Caroline

Princess Stéphanie Even my autograph is sexy.

Charlotte Casiraghi, Caroline’s daughter, who somehow manages to be even MORE gorgeous than her mother.

The newest addition, Her Serene Highness Charlene, The Princess Consort of Monaco. Yep, another hideously unattractive Monagesque princess! You have to admire Prince Albert for taking one for the dynastic team with such a hag ;)

The men are more of a mixed bunch—Albert has lost some of his hairline but strongly resembles his beautiful mother, Princess Grace. (And is a multiple Olympic athlete to boot, which by definition makes him completely hot.)  Albert's father, the late Prince Rainier, was not exactly an Adonis, but oozed suavity and Mediterranean charm. Luckily his grandsons are there to pick up any aesthetic slack.

Andrea and Pierre Casiraghi, the sons of Princess Caroline

And the romance! The marital history of the Grimaldis reads like an unpublished Anthony Hope novel by way of Harold Robbins.  Rainier claimed the throne of Monaco through his mother, Princess Charlotte, the daughter of Prince Louis II. The Princess had actually been born illegitimate, however and the sleight of hand required to give her a title was borne of a succession crisis involving Monaco and its German cousins—no one wanted the throne to fall into German hands. Why, you may ask, didn't Prince Louis ever marry Charlotte's mother? Because his mistress was a laundress—a laundress! It’s all so deliciously 19th century.


Now any student of history recognizes that it is fairly common--encouraged, even--for princes to sow their wild oats and sire a few royal bastards**. It is, however, decidedly less common for their sisters to do likewise, but Princess Stéphanie*** has done her best to challenge this double-standard. Not only were all three of her children born out of wedlock, but she refused even to identify the father of her youngest! You have to admire that kind of cool indifference to propriety—“nice customs curtsy to great kings,” indeed.


Félicitations à Prince Albert II et son belle mariée, la Princesse Charlene!


*I'm using the term royal in the colloquial sense--correctly, the Grimaldis are not royal, they are princely (as the sovereign of Monaco is not a king, he is a prince).

**Prince Albert has two ( that we know of!)—Alexandre and Jazmin Grace, who is currently a student right here in New York City.

***I have a strong affection for Stéphanie and her complete lack of pretension. Running away to wait tables? Stooping to conquer with her bodyguards? And why does she get away with it? Because she’s a rock star. (Literally.)

Plays on History (PART ONE)

A dear friend of mine, knowing of my obsession fascination with the Black Death, offered an intriguing suggestion—she said that I should write a play about it. I’ve been turning this idea over in my head ever since.  There are several possible narrative structures:

•  A straightforward narrative drama, probably the easiest to conceive and execute.

This format was more popular in the post-World War II era (examples include The Lion in Winter, A Man for All Seasons and Anne of the Thousand Days).

 



Genevieve Bujold looking adorbs as Anne Boleyn.
You can tell this is early on in the film, because
of her gabled headdress (indicating Anne is still
lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon).
  



Later on Anne introduced the French hood, which EVERYBODY immediately adopted.  Thin and fashionable, brunette, French-speaking--Anne was kind of the Jackie Kennedy of her day.

• A dualistic structure, where past and present are both presented and held up to each other.
  
  

Examples include perhaps my favorite modern play, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, a fantastic tour de force exploring issues of determinism, eschatology, physics, poetry, sex as chaos theory, thermodynamics, and emerging Romanticism.  This all makes it sound deadly but it is actually a lovely poem of a play, a valentine to the  intellectual mind.  Thomasina’s tearful reaction when she contemplates the burning of the Library of Alexandria--all those books, that knowledge lost, perhaps forever—breaks my heart.

THOMASINA: Oh Septimus!--can you bear it?  All the lost plays of the Athenians!  Two hundred at least by Aeschylus--thousands of poems--Aristotle's own library brought to Egypt by [Cleopatra's]* ancestors!  How can we sleep for grief?

• A play that explicitly uses the past to make a point about the present.  

Examples include: Arthur Miller’s The Crucible which of course uses the Salem Witch Trials as a metaphor for the anti-Communist hysteria in the early ‘50s. Crucible's plot works on its own terms as well, as a look into a society we can hardly imagine now in this country, a theocracy shaped by terror—terror of Indian attacks, crop failure, public shaming, damnation.  Miller’s somewhat contrived recreation of 17th-century barely-American vernacular is criticized, but the language is actually one of my favorite aspects of the play, by turns sturdily plain-spoken and unexpectedly poetic.

ABIGAIL: As bare as some December tree, I saw them all--walking like saints to church, running to feed the sick, and hypocrites in their hearts! And God gave me strength to call them liars, and God made men to listen to me, and by God I will scrub the world clean for the love of Him! Oh John, I will make you such a wife when the world is white again!**

I guess for me to decide how I want to write the play, I’d need to think about what I want to say about the Black Death, which is certainly a fertile ground for dramatic treatment.  The worst human disaster in recorded history and yet (fascinatingly!) for such a catastrophe, relatively little has been written about it....

*Thomasina dates the Library's burning to Julius Caesar's OH-so-eventful visit in 48 BC, based on Plutarch, but this is somewhat suspect--classical sources mention several other specific incidents when the Library was fired.

**I have no problem with Miller's twisting history to make Abigail older (in real life she was 11, and John Proctor was well into his 60s), or even his invention of their illicit relationship.  What I dislike though is his characterization of (the character) Abigail as The Teenage Temptress.  As the play establishes, she was a servant in Proctor's home, within a highly misogynistic society--she really had no meaningful agency.  Proctor held all the cards.  Miller even tries to cover his ass later on by claiming "The legend has it that Abigail turned up later as a prostitute in Boston"--uh, no.  There is no such legend except in Miller's fevered imagination.  Down, boy.

Of Man and Media

Another day, another powerful man caught with his pants down.  Political sex scandals—such an irresistible cocktail with so many possible variations on Quiller-Couch's seven basic narrative conflicts.  


Man vs. Woman:

President Bill Clinton

Man vs. Man:

Senator Larry "Wide Stance" Craig

Man vs. Machine:

Congressman Mark Foley

 And yet as mesmerizing as I find Congressman Weiner’s slo-mo tumble into political purgatory, I must confess I prefer the sly elegance of a much earlier scandale that was likewise generated in the media currency of its
time—the famous Woodrow Wilson Misprint.


In 1915, President Woodrow Wilson was a widower who took a shine to Edith Galt, and started sparkin' with her within a year of his wife's death--in these post-Victorian times with much more restrictive mourning customs, this might be considered inappropriate and so his advisors tried to keep the relationship under wraps.  All was for naught when word got out that they were seen together and, as the Washington Post framed the story, 


The President spent the evening entering Mrs. Galt.


For want of four little letters...T-A-I-N...a Presidency was nearly lost!  But the Post, in marked contrast to Congressman Weiner, understand how replicable media could be and immediately recalled the edition.  Undoubtedly Weiner wishes he could do the same...

The Sport of War

Even though the semester has ended, I’m still pondering Laws of War—and not just in the Middle Ages.  There’s a Matrix-like quality to this—once you become aware of these patterns, you see them everywhere!  Not surprising, since man has been at war pretty much constantly throughout the course of recorded history. Heck, the very first work of literature is about a war!  

Then Ares roared like a trumpet, as loud as nine thousand men could shout, aye, ten thousand men in the turmoil of battle! Trojans and Achaians alike trembled to hear the roar of the insatiate God of War!

 And of course the Bible is chock-FULL of warfare—David and Goliath, Judah Maccabee the Rock Star...

…even the endgame, Armageddon, is a battle scenario. (Interestingly Armageddon is a placename—Megiddo is the name of an ancient city.)  We tend to see war as this random, chaotic force of obliteration but there are recognizable, distinct patterns which emerge again and again, and not just in history.  

These patterns are perhaps most apparent in our sports culture—most forms of organized sports tend to be team vs. team, facing each other on opposing fields, much like the classic pitched battle.  You can see this in basketball, soccer, even tennis, but the classic sports metaphor for war is football, which shares the:

• terminology (blitzes, bombs)
• strategy           (front lines, flanking maneuvers)
• tactics (artillery vs. infantry) 

as well as protective armor.  What is a running game but an updated version of medieval jousting, with the players functioning as both destrier and knight?  Football fans are even referred to as weekend warriors!  And their latter-day woadwood would do any Celtic warrior proud.  

William Wallace, Woad Warrior…

I’ve found that reading Froissart’s Chronicles has brought a whole new appreciation to the playoffs.

And—cheerleaders, that peculiarly American contribution to team sports.  We love them, we fear them, we live vicariously through grrrlpower Kristen Dunst movies. (Full disclosure—I was never a cheerleader (3-sport varsity athlete here!) but I always thought it would be fun.) But, you ask,  how do cheerleaders fit into the football-as-war scenario?  Well, although women couldn’t actually fight in medieval battles* they did have a military function in chivalry—as an audience for the knight, to spur him to greater deeds, literally to see him off as he marched off to war.  Interestingly the first cheerleaders were actually men, so this possible parallel with medieval women has actually developed over time.  Of course nowadays cheerleaders are not content to merely watch and applaud--they take the field in their own right.

They even have a castle!

*Joan of Arc was clearly the ass-kicking and name-taking exception.

The Wedding of a Prince

I’ve been buried in end-of-year activities (papers, proctoring, studying for finals), hence my sparse updates—but now that the semester is over I couldn’t let any more time pass without offering my congratulations to the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge!  William was awarded his new title (along with Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus—since his birth territorial designation is of Wales, the Queen is invoking the UK superfecta, apparently) by his grandmother the Queen.


As I watched the ceremony, it occurred to me that the funeral of the Princess of Wales had also taken place at Westminster Abbey--and perhaps the most vivid memories some of us have of Princes William and Harry are from that day.

• Those silent crowds throwing flower after flower onto the limousine.
• The princes' long, dreadful, brave march behind their mother’s cortege, accompanied by their father, grandfather and uncle Earl Spencer.  Imagine being 12, 15 years old--and having the cameras of the world on you as you are walking behind your mother's coffin.  Unbelievable.
• The envelope in front of the lilies, with "Mummy" in shaky handwriting.
• The spontaneous applause, like a fire crackling against the windows of the Abbey, from the crowds outside after Earl Spencer's philippic against the Royal family and the media.
• That beautiful hymn, Diana's favorite, "I Vow to Thee My Country."

Strange days, that first week in September 1997.  At the time, I felt that the Queen had had a verrrrry close call—I remember seeing those anguished British tabloid headlines begging for some kind of response.  WHERE IS OUR QUEEN?  WHERE IS HER FLAG?  The Queen initially responded to Diana's death by not responding--by retreating into her estate up north, forgetting that, as C.S. Lewis said, the monarch is not "a private person" and that she owed her people...something more than protocol.  They clearly wanted, needed something more.  The Russian peasants used to call their Tsar and Tsaritsa батюшка and мамочка --Little Father and Little Mother, recognizing the mystical, familial, parental bond between ruler and subject.

SHOW US YOU CARE.  Doesn't get much more direct than that.

The movie The Queen used the events of that week to explore the issues faced by a modern monarchy--in this era, the constitutional monarchy is a construct, an edifice of unspoken understanding between tradition and the people, and the modern ruler forgets that at her peril.  Neither Henry VIII, the most absolute of British kings, nor his great-great-grandnephew Charles I, whose execution ushered in the Commonwealth for a time--Elizabeth II's reign is the latest incarnation of that balancing act that reinvents itself every generation.  “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown” indeed.


Of course Westminster Abbey is riddled with nuptial history—many, many royal weddings [including those of: the Duke of York (uncle to William and Harry); the Princess Royal (their aunt); Princess Margaret (their great-aunt); and the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh] have taken place there.  The princes' parents Charles and Diana, however, were wed at St. Paul’s over on the other, older side of town, closer to the financial district and Roman Londinium.  Other than The Wedding of the Century, St. Paul's is perhaps most famously known for its mention in the iconic Disney song "Feed the Birds."  Early each day, on the steps of St. Paul's/The little old bird woman comes...

The current St. Paul's (A on the map) was designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London in 1666 that cleaned out most of the East End--but also finally eradicated the Plague that had reappeared every generation or so since the Black Death.

This semester, I wrote a paper for class on Prince William’s predecessor, William the Conqueror (or the Norman, or the Bastard—he had a plethora of sobriquets from which to choose).  William I is a direct ancestor of our Wills and was actually crowned at the Abbey some two months after he led his Norman troops to victory over the Anglo-Saxons in the Battle of Hastings.  And nearly a thousand years later his namesake stood in that historic sanctuary, pledging his troth to his bride, intoning the ancient Christian responses, surrounded by the ghosts of kings and queens, poets, soldiers, all hidden in the shadows watching as William Arthur Philip Louis became a man in front of his country and the world.


His mother would have been so proud.


Vivat Rex Guillelmi!

Sic Semper Tyrannis

So—YEAH.  Quite a week for history!  I keep seeing parallels in Osama’s death to the end of World War II, specifically in the spontaneous mass street celebration that accompanied Victory in Europe Day.  

[My favorite V-E story is how the two young princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret, actually slipped out to be part of the crowds anonymously, cheering on the King and Queen with the rest of the Londoners.  And apparently they’re turning this incident into a movie!    Kind of a real-life Roman Holiday, times 2!]

And it’s interesting that the fall of Berlin [and therefore the end of Third Reich] also happened at the end of April—but then, as I learned from Johnny Tremain,* “Armies always move in the spring.”   [Mostly I think due to practicality—it’s easier to march and to forage, for you and your horse, once the snow and ice melt and things start growing again.] And it seems people also rise up against tyranny in the spring--as in Prague Spring and our current Arab Spring, whose narrative is spooling out even now, yet to be tied up.  Interestingly, the Arab Spring may be a sign of Al-Quaeda's complete cultural irrelevance, a much worse fate to murderous ideologues than dying in battle.

And with the news reports coming out, I was wondering if they would release pictures of Bin Laden’s body, just in case. Fate took it two different ways with Mussolini and Hitler—Hitler’s body of course was completely destroyed and secretly buried after his suicide, whereas Mussolini was shot and strung up with his mistress** at a gas station in Milan, where Italian partisans vented their rage on their bodies.  Mussolini's body eventually ended up in Predappio.

It seems the US took the former route—Bin Laden was buried at sea, undoubtedly to prevent any shrines from being set up over his grave.

My mother called me Sunday night and told me the news.  While I was still on the phone with her, I checked Facebook, which was exploding—status updates, links to articles and videos.  ABC News was streaming live with commentary, and of course YouTube was loading videos of the celebrations in Times Square, Ground Zero and in front of the White House.  

All completely spontaneous—just like VE Day but with an electronic dimension that intensified and reinforced the public reaction.  So now the Internet is the new Trafalgar Square!

*Fantastic novel, one of my favorites.  Although it was one of the very first Newbery medalists, its underwritten tone and layered characterization suits it well for adults.  

     'This is the end. The end of one thing--the beginning of something else. They won't come back because there is going to be a war--civil war. And we'll win. First folk like them get routed out of Milton--then out of Boston. And the cards are going to be reshuffled. Dealt again...'

     Each time a shutter groaned, protested, and then came to with a bang, it seemed to say,  'This is the end,' and the words echoed through the house:  This is the end. This is the end.

     ...The house was still filled with midnight and ghosts, but as they closed and locked the heavy kitchen door behind them they saw it was close upon dawn.

     'It is like a funeral,' Cilla whispered, 'only worse.'

**I’m always taken aback by the fact that I share a first name with both Hitler’s mother and Mussolini’s mistress—Klara, Claretta and Clara.