Harry Potter: Deeper Messages

What the Dursleys Represent

Earlier this year I began re-reading the first Harry Potter book. I loved these books as a kid, but it was interesting to read them now from an adult’s perspective. I noticed that within the very first couple of chapters a parallel was being drawn between the Dursleys (Harry’s awful family) and a large part of society that we live in today. Looking at this now, I was able to see that the Dursleys act as a warning to us. They warn us of who we should watch out for, but more importantly, who we should actively keep from becoming.

Oddly enough, the Dursley’s home is where the heroic story of Harry Potter begins. The Dursleys are gluttonous. They are maximally superficial; constantly keeping up with the Jones’s and worrying what their neighbors think about them. They coddle, spoil, and overprotect their child, Dudley. The Dursleys represent too much order. They represent conformity and suppress anything that deviates from the norm. But guess who gets dropped on their doorstep. A person who is as different from anyone else as someone could be… Harry Potter. A wizard. The Chosen One.

For the first 11 years of Harry’s life, the Dursleys lied to him about who he was and the abilities he possessed. Their goal was to suppress and completely eradicate the gifts Harry had been born with. They suppressed who Harry was on a foundational level, and worse, they tried to stifle who he was meant to become. (Literally locking him in the cupboard under the stairs).

In our own lives, it often seems as though the world is trying to stifle our own development or our own growth. It seems as though the flow of society is working at counter purposes to what we are capable of achieving. This is often portrayed by the image of our school-system brainwashing kids into becoming mindless factory workers, forgetting their creativity and losing their connection with a world beyond their understanding.

In these initial few chapters, Harry represents somebody who feels they don’t belong in this world. Somebody that the world has rejected. Harry is someone with gifts and abilities to save the world, but that world is actively undermining him. The world is not allowing him to become who he was meant to be. It’s suppressing his abilities and forcing him to live a life without adventure, love, friendship, or meaning. This is a representation of someone in our world who has skills, abilities, or a passion for something, but is unable to pursue it due to societal demands or cultural suppression. The true story of Harry Potter begins only when he escapes the Dursleys and finds where he belongs in the world. A place where he can be his authentic self. A place where he wears no mask. A place where he can grow, progress, and become a hero.

Dudley, Harry’s spoiled cousin, was not so lucky. He never escaped.

Dudley represents many of us living in today’s world. Or who most of us might become if we succumb to the coddling of modern society. Dudley’s is a sad story. His is a failed hero story. He could have been a great man, but his parents spoiled him to the point of cruelty, never allowing him to grow on his own and work on who he could be. Dudley got whatever he wanted (an extra two presents when he only got 36 for his birthday). He ate what he liked, and if something didn’t go his way, threw tantrums until he got what he wanted. He was raised to believe he was better than everyone else and bullied other kids at school. Dudley is the perfect juxtaposition to Harry.

How catastrophic the story would have been if Dudley were the protagonist, or had Harry been raised like Dudley.

I believe our call in this world is to become heroes in our own right. That’s why these stories connect with us. The path of the Hero is one that provides meaning and sustains us through life. We are called to be Harry, but many of us are Dudley. If we are to become the hero, it is on us to escape the comfort, conformity, and dissociative coddling of the world and find what we are meant to pursue, become, and work towards. Always moving uphill. That’s the path of the Hero.