I love YouTube

Isn't is awesome how we can just YouTube almost any clip and find it within seconds?
But anyways,
I posted up this scene from the movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because I felt that it was a good representation of the scene J.K. Rowling wrote for the book. I have some problems with the movies, but I think that this scene was done very well. The clip does a good job of setting up the scene: the grand mysterious mirror and the sad boy standing alone who just wants his family.

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Now how does all this relate to the Harry Potter series?

I know you're thinking it- How exactly does this all apply to Harry Potter? If you think about it, the answer is kind of obvious.  The Mirror of Erised!  In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling uses the mirror to give her characters more depth, and also to create chaos in their lives. The Mirror of Erised is a manifestation of their deepest wants, dreams, and desires. While Lacan says that when you look in a mirror you see that you are lacking something, Rowling's Mirror of Erised shows you exactly what you are missing, making the feeling of loss and lack even more profound.

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Here we go...

First off you're probably thinking- What in the world is Lacan's Mirror Stage?!  I'll try to give it in somewhat simple terms.  Here we go:


Jacques Lacan was a psychologist who came after Freud (I know you know who he is!). His most popular theory (and most relevant to Harry Potter) is his mirror stage of development. He said that this stage was experienced starting at about 6 months when the infant first recognizes itself in a mirror. It is here that we learn that we are separate from everything else. The jumble of ideas and confusing thoughts about ourselves is solidified into a single image- our reflections. However, this reflection becomes the 'other'. It encompasses all of the social constructions (what society tells us is right and appropriate). We will never truly be able to reach that ideal we see in the mirror- the perfect, put-together reflection.

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St. Mungo's was nice enough to show me one of their medical brochures!