Gentleman Monster: The Duality of Remus Lupin
Source: Gentleman Monster: The Duality of Remus Lupin
Gentleman Monster: The Duality of Remus Lupin
Marginalised and subjugated groups in the Wizarding world have largely very different response to their status. It is most often, anger. We see it multiple times with goblins:
Griphook gave a nasty laugh."But it is, it is precisely that! As the Dark Lord becomes ever more powerful, your race is set still more firmly above mine! Gringotts falls under Wizarding rule, house-elves are slaughtered, and who amongst the wand-carriers protests?"
In werewolves:
"I cannot pretend that my particular brand of reasoned argument is making much headway against Greyback's insistence that we werewolves deserve blood, that we ought to revenge ourselves on normal people" - Remus Lupin, HBP
Despair, in house elves:
"Ah, if Harry Potter only knew!" Dobby groaned, more tears dripping onto his ragged pillowcase. "If he knew what he means to us, to the lowly, the enslaved, we dregs of the magical world! Dobby remembers how it was when He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at the height of his powers, sir! We house-elves were treated like vermin, sir! Of course, Dobby is still treated like that, sir," he admitted, drying his face on the pillowcase.
Remus's position is interesting, in that he is both exposed to the bigotry his kind is subjected but is also in large parts, protected from it. Here is a piece of dialogue Cat brought to my attention:
'I'm sure they'd never go over to You-Know-Who,' said Mr. Weasley, shaking his head. 'They've suffered losses too; remember that goblin family he murdered last time, somewhere near Nottingham?'
'I think it depends what they're offered,' said Lupin. 'And I'm not talking about gold. If they're offered the freedoms we've been denying them for centuries they're going to be tempted. Have you still not had any luck with Ragnok, Bill?'
Remus uses the word 'we', when in fact, he himself has been oppressed by the wizarding community. He doesn't say 'the wizarding world', he puts himself in the focus even when he isn't part of the problem when it comes to being the oppressor.
Remus sees himself as an oppressor because he is human, but he also sees himself as a monster because of his lycanthropy.
This dual identity is further embodied by how he refers to himself in Deathly Hallows:
'You have only ever seen me amongst the Order, or under Dumbledore's protection at Hogwarts! You don't know how most of the Wizarding world sees creatures like me! When they know of my affliction, they can barely talk to me! Don't you see what I've done?"
When Remus is being distant from the issue at hand, an outsider looking in - he identifies as a "human" and clubs himself among the oppressor, however, the more anguished or emotional he gets, he gets closer to his emotional truth: "creature". Remus has two fractured identities that he constantly moves in between.
His comparitive privilege from rest of the werewolves who are shunned from society, who live on margins, stealing and killing to eat, is due to his association with Dumbledore and the Marauders.
In his anguish in DH, he tells Harry and his friends that their view of him is highly coloured by Dumbledore's protection, who gave him both education and a job when no one else would. We see him making a similar comment about James:
"But you are normal!" said Harry fiercely. "You've just got a--a problem--"
Lupin burst out laughing."Sometimes you remind me a lot of James. He called it my 'furry little problem' in company. Many people were under the impression that I owned a badly behaved rabbit."
While his dialogue surrounding marginalisation is either passive or dry around the Order ("an occupational hazard of being a werewolf"), he does allow himself to get angry about what he faces around Sirius:
"I know she is a nasty piece of work though- you should hear Remus talk about her," said Sirius. (In reference to Umbridge drafting an anti werewolf legislation)"
Remus being loved by his family and the radical acceptance of his condition by his friends is a very huge part of his character - because it allows him to experience his "monstrosity" in a way that he believes is safe (even while it is highly dangerous and irresponsible).
He appoints James and Sirius as his protectors: 'Sirius and James transformed into such large animals, they were able to keep a werewolf in check'
And they did, they protected him from consequences of their dangerous jaunts and there were many "near misses". However, this allows him to be a teenager in a way that he knows he normally wouldn't have been able to be: "We were young, thoughtless -- carried away with our own cleverness"
Around the Marauders, there is an integration of his wolf and human selves, which would explain why Remus feels comfortable expressing negative emotions like anger around his friends, when he normally he wouldn't to anyone else: 'My body was still wolfish, but my mind seemed to become less so while I was with them'
We know that what is offered to him here is unique kind of acceptance, the one he doesn't even get with his fellow werewolves - as he "bears unmistakable signs of having tried to live among wizards" and they find it "difficult to trust him", not to speak of the regular bigotry he faces from wizards.
And because of this comfort he receives from them, and a sense of integrated identity around them when he has to move between two fractured selves among wizards and among werewolves, it also informs his flaw: allowing his friends to get away with what he objectively knows is wrong.
Remus' comparitive privilege from who he calls his "fellow equals" also has resulted in internalising the messaging from the wizarding world, which feeds his self loathing rather than the righteous anger we see other subjucated magical creatures display.
This self loathing informs his tendency to avoid intimate relationships in his adulthood: "I am too poor, too old, too dangerous"/ "Don't you see what I have done to my wife and child? I have made her an outcast!"
Long story short: Remus' permeable identity issues (moving between 'human' and 'wolf' selves), why exactly he is loyal to his friends' secrets even when they are long dead cause very interesting internal conflict/ tension in him to explore.
