Point of clarification...?

[sweettalkeress.livejournal.com]

So I was rereading scenes from HBP for an upcoming essay I have planned, when I came across this line:

"They [the orphans] looked reasonably well-cared for, but there was no denying that this was a grim place in which to grow up." (HBP, 268)

The question is: is it to the orphanage's discredit that the place is grim? Or is it Voldemort's? Or else is it just another way of stressing how overly important and powerful death is that all orphans must be miserable every second so matter how they're treated?

Ideas, anyone?

Comments

[pearlette.livejournal.com]

The question is: is it to the orphanage's discredit that the place is grim? Or is it Voldemort's? Or else is it just another way of stressing how overly important and powerful death is that all orphans must be miserable every second so matter how they're treated?

Ideas, anyone?

Well, it's a trope. A very common one. Orphans and orphanages. Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, etc etc etc etc etc.

JKR isn't trying to be historically accurate because her Muggle Britain is not really meant to be the real Britain -- I should know, I live in the real UK, and I can tell when JKR is inventing geography in the books. It's quite obvious to a British reader, she's not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes. Here she is simply drawing on an accepted cliche.

But, yes, as the above posters have said, real historical orphanages in Britain and Ireland ranged from being decently run to downright bloody horrible.