Get ready for this people.... A HARRY
POTTER BLOG POST!!!! Now please, contain your excitement, its okay
if you can't (because I'm not sure if I can...) but please, try. Just
kidding, let it all out!!!
Now, to get to business (and defeat the
Huns). I will be writing about the connection between Kurtz from
Heart of Darkness and the
famous Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry Potter. (YAY)
I read
Heart of Darkness in
high school and I didn't pay much attention to it. It was assigned
reading for high school English, a burden. We all dread it. Even if
you say you enjoyed it, I know you mean you dreaded it too. And I
admit to you all that writing this is a little like pulling my own
teeth out with a pair of plyers, but I hope it gets easier as I go
on. So here is it (for the second time). Gilderoy resembles Kurtz
because of the way that they are perceived by others.
Gilderoy
Lockhart is a character in the second Harry Potter book, The Chamber
of Secrets. He is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.
But the part of him that is like Kurtz is that he is very famous
within the wizard community and the way that people see him is
definitely not the way he is. People think that he is an amazing
wizard that has accomplished great tasks, but this is because he
wrote many books about his great feats, which are all lies. He
created a false image of himself and paid the price for it. In the
book, we see that Lockhart never teaches, the class is devoted to his
books and is filled with him bragging about everything that he has
claimed to have done. The male students cannot stand him, they
basically think he is a prick, and of course we all think that as
well. But the female students are completely in love with this
poser. This is very similar to Kurtz because his image is built up
to be something that he isnt. And we all know that he has his own fan
club, just like Lockhart, except that his is just made up of men from
the other stations (so maybe not the same type of fan club, so
screaming teen Beliebers). People see him as this godly figure that
can do anything and be a great man at the same time.
Lockhart's
lies catch up to him when he enters the chamber of secrets with
Harry, Ron, and Hermione. He is either too stubborn or too stupid to
admit that he doesnt know anything about executing magic. So instead
he attempts to clear their memories so they won't be able to tell the
world that he is a fake, but he steals Ron's broken wand and the
spell rebounds and clears his memory instead. His whole life erased.
I guess you can say that he just hit the clear all button, sadly. But
we all know that he deserved it. Wuhahahahaha. But the main thing is
that he was seen as this powerful wizard but in the end it bit him in
the a$$ because he was expected to have this vast knowledge that
would help save Hogwarts. But instead it just ended in self
destruction.
In
Kurtz's situation, he doesn't create the false image, it is created
for him by those who admire him. His image is false none the less.
As a reader, when I first heard about Kurtz being this great man, I
believed it. And it is safe to say that I was shocked to see the
sickly, mentally unstable man that Marlow picked up. I expected him
to be put together, which was naïve to think as I look back (perhaps
just as naïve as Hermione was with Lockhart.... ehhh, I think she
was more naïve). Kurtz had the same self destruction that Lockhart
did. It was Kurtz's own actions that led to his death. He allowed
himself to be consumed by the wild and to lose his mind, and if he
came back on the boat he was supposed to, it wouldn't have been too
late to cure his physical sickness. But his greed, which got him his
reputation for getting the $$$$$$, is what ended up killing him.
Kurtz's
and Lockhart's stories didn't end in the same way, but they sure have
their similarities.
I cant believe I forgot who Lockheart is. Now I have to watch all the Harry Potter movies again!
ReplyDeleteLockheart and Kurtz have some similarities but not enough to make a connection between them for me. I probably feel this way because of the different story lines and ending.
What an interesting connection!
ReplyDeleteI think that these two characters do have a lot of similarities when it comes to public perception. But I'm not sure that we can see definitely that Kurtz didn't accomplish anything, we just aren't given enough earlier context. I think that the Heart of Darkness would be a lot more interesting if we had more context about Kurtz past.
ahhh-hahaha love HP!!! By default I love the connection because it is Harry Potter, and I do think that they have some very key superficial similarities. Orrr.... if you wanna go in the opposite direction. Serius Black! Everyone thought he was the bad guy, the right-hand man of Voldemort. But in actuality he wasn't, it was just everyone else's perception and opinion of him- with the help from some gossip- that got him his reputation. Then we see that he was actually the good guy the whole time. Even though it is opposite of Kurtz, where everyone thought he was god-like and it turns out he's kinda crazy (whether or not he was at one point a genius). But with both, as good 'ol Serius said, "The world is not divided into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are." ;)
ReplyDeleteOh you are quite the tease in the intro. I was helpless in my attempts to stifle the squeal of my Harry Potter fangirl inside. Oh my, what have we here—a Mulan allusion—oh yeah! I appreciate that you state exactly what I will be reading in the subsequent blog. Yes, yes yes! Please prepare the table with more “butter me up in the intro” and keep the butter coming because Joley oley is starving! “And I admit to you all that writing this is a little like pulling my own teeth out with a pair of plyers.” Oh goodness gracious, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone brought up the pliers! You are so right about Gilderoy on so many different levels. I had the Bieber fever for Gilderoy until he forgot his name and Ron’s name and Harry Potter’s name. Excellent comparison between Gilderoy and the tall guy with the short name. That doesn’t even make sense! Yes, it IS very hurtful to see a successful, dashing, middle-aged man such as Gilderoy accidentally erase his own memories, which are lies that people believe. TT_TT I actually liked your blog until you ineffably pooh-poohed Hermione in a parenthetical aside.
ReplyDeleteLockhart sucks in general because he is such a liar! So since you connected these 2, I definitely hate Kurtz a lot more. Karma bit both of the characters in the butt. Their lies, their devious work, and personalities do match! Except Lockhart may not have gone as mentally insane unless you count his "oblivious" spell backfiring on him which turned him into a blank but another fake since he wrote another book on it all. ANYWAY! LOVE YOUR POST! HARRY POTTER FOR THE WIN! Thank you for enlightening my perspective on Kurtz now. :)
ReplyDeleteI think Lockhart was one of the most fantastic characters in HP, because he really has no talent, except for making people believe that he does (maybe that doesn't seem so appealing once I word it like that). But I think that's where the line gets drawn for similarities between Kurtz and Lockhart. Kurtz had the talent at one point in his life to do all of the things that he was known for, but Lockhart on the other hand never did anything of importance. When Kurtz has snapped, as a result of his greed and actions, is where the similarities come back: Lockhart's brash lies line him up as the perfect person to save the school from the Basilisk. Attempting to further himself more by letting Ginny die and Obliviating Harry and Ron causes his own downfall.
ReplyDelete