Suffering in disguise: the Potterian aesthetics of the Dementor

Valérie Doussaud, PhD.

Université de Limoges.

It is hard to be indifferent to the madness generated by the Harry Potter series: some
people are mildly exasperated, some are amused, and some are amazed. Almost everyone
acknowledges the work as a major childhood novel, or at least as an unprecedented editorial
success. Fantasy, humour, both comic and horror ingredients are undoubtedly to be found in
the book. But there is also a deeper, more intense shade of darkness, one that comes from the
writer’s soul and experience. Among the bestiary she created and revisited, a creature lurks
that is not comparable to any other. The terror it inspires is hard to describe, yet J.K. Rowling
succeeds in portraying what she has called the “Dementor”. Doing so, she has created a
metaphorical character that has no face, no voice, and no identity of its own. It has no soul
either. All Dementors look alike and are easily recognizable by the way they appear, the way
they are dressed, and the effect they create on human beings. Death has often been allegorized
in the like manner, and indeed Dementors are closely related, as we will see, to fateful
endings. These creatures first appear in volume three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkaban. They do not speak, their face is hidden. At first glance, they seem to have human
attributes: a body, a head, legs and arms. But they do not communicate, they seem to glide
rather than walk. Most of all, they do not “turn up”, they make their entrance, with all the
theatricality this implies. Dementors are spectacular beings. The behaviour of these tall,
hooded, silent and menacing figures is repetitive: they appear all of a sudden, they approach a
person, soon turning him/her into a victim/prey. Their progress is silent and inexorable,
specifically predatory. Their whole attitude can be summed up by the word “threat”.
Dementors become really frightening through the expanding feeling they generate while
coming close to a human being. Their demeanour is fearful, but their ability to induce a
particular state of mind is even more scaring.

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Terror is not the most important element: it is what they inspire first, but Dementors’ victims
soon find out that their fear is a mere foretaste of something far more terrible. What really
matters is how these creatures actually suck out their victims’ energy and lust for life. Indeed
the Dementor, as its name partly suggests it, drains vital energy out of you. « Dementor »
(Rowling 3:93-94) is a very instructive portmanteau word:
Dementor
de / demented (« mad ») / mentor (« knowledgeable guide ») / tormentor

Resulting from the association of the prefix « de » and the word « mentor », a De-mentor is
the opposite of a benevolent and protective guide. Its influence is extremely negative since its
role is not to protect and instruct but to make a person lose his/her grip. The French
translation (« Détraqueur ») takes up this meaning, by insisting on the loss of abilities and
orientation and by playing on another meaning (“traquer”). Thus the Dementor loses souls,
chasing them and leading them to a fateful end. The neologism created by J.K. Rowling also
refers to the role of the creature as a “tormentor”, someone who inflicts pain. Finally one can
also find the word “demented” in this portmanteau, hence indicating that the creature drives
people mad. So the name includes a whole package of insanity and pain, together with the
antithesis of a Mentor. Let us add that the prefix “de” is representative of the action of the
Dementor, suggesting a removal, a reversal: the creature takes away, retrieves, removes, so
that it eventually leaves you as empty as a shell. And what you lose under its powerful action
is your initial “joie de vivre” and all your cheerful memories:

‘Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the
darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope
and happiness out of the air around them. Even Muggles feel their presence,
though they can’t see them. Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling,
every happy memory, will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed
on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself – soulless and evil.
You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.’ (Rowling
3:203)

By its mere presence, a Dementor drives you “demented”. After removing hope and pleasure,
there remains only madness. But it can also take a more deadly, radical measure by kissing its
victim:

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 ‘The Dementor only lowers its hood to use its last and worst weapon [...] I
suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their
jaws upon the mouth of the victim and – suck out his soul [...] You can exist
without your soul, you know, as long as your brain and heart are still working.
But you’ll have no sense of self any more, no memory, no…anything. There’s no
chance of recovery. You’ll just – exist. As an empty shell. And your soul is gone
forever…lost.’ (Rowling 3:268)

Dementors are deadly, fatal figures; they are also sensual creatures. Their need of human
resources is very similar to blood lust, yet they annihilate their source of satisfaction, and they
thrive in gloomy and dark places. Their existence seems to be a pure matter of senses, but it is
a negative, inverted version of our human perception of sensuousness:
‘Dementors can’t see, you know […] They feel their way towards people by sensing
their emotions…’ (Rowling 3:400)
Dementors are instinctive creatures, but their instinct is the only thing they can rely on, since
they cannot see:
Where there should have been eyes, there was only thin, grey, scabbed skin, stretched
blankly over empty sockets. (Rowling 3:414)
We do not know about their other senses: are they dumb, do they have any sense of touch, any
olfactory ability? Although they are powerful, they seem to have very limited resources. Their
world is a universe turned upside down, an abysmal place that is close to hell. This inferno is
a dimension with nothing comforting or positive to cling to, and where victims are gradually
shut as in some kind of locked-in syndrome. There remains only an absence of happiness, the
sensation of being cut off from one’s original feelings, while being still alive at the same time.
Those symptoms can be seen as a representation of depression, or what Hippocrates first called
“melancholia” in the fourth century B.C. “Depressive disorders”, as referred to by the American
Psychiatric Association (DSM-III, 1980), can range from minor mood alterations to “a
profoundly impaired and even life-threatening disorder” (Hammen 3). They are nowadays
officially considered as a disease: “La dépression a acquis ses lettres de noblesse dans le
domaine médical; elle est scientifiquement appréhendée à de multiples niveaux,
sémiologiques et nosologiques, psychopathologiques, psychodynamiques, psychométriques,
neuro-endocriniens, immunologiques, génétiques, épidémiologiques, transculturels » (Féline
1990).

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And this illness is also widespread and expanding, thus representing a medical and
sociological major problem of our modern times: “Recent estimates indicate that about 20%
of the American population, primarily women, will experience a clinically significant episode
of depression at some point in their lives, a significant increase over rates reported two
decades ago and earlier.” (Hammen and Gotlib 1). Mood disorders have been part of J.K.
Rowling’s personal experience:

“I definitely had leanings towards depression from quite an early age too,”
Rowling acknowledges, “but it’s an extremely hard condition to recognise in
yourself. What’s sad in a way is that the thing that made me go for help, the
thing that made me face the fact that this was not a normal state that I was in,
was probably my daughter, and a lot of people your age, very young adults,
would not have that. She was like a touchstone in a sense, she was something
that earthed me, grounded me, and I thought ‘this isn’t right, this can’t be right,
she cannot grow up with me in this state.” (Amini 13)

The British novelist has actually acknowledged the meaning of Dementors as the expression
of depression:

People talk about the Harry Potter books as wizard wheezes but they have a
pronounced dark side as well. The Dementors, for instance, are prison guards
who track people by sensing their emotions. [...] I do not think that these are just
characters. I think they are a description of depression. "Yes. That is exactly
what they are," she says. "It was entirely conscious. And entirely from my own
experience. Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. It is
that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The
absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from
feeling sad. Sad hurts but it's a healthy feeling. It's a necessary thing to feel.
Depression is very different." (Treneman)

Dementors sense humans because of their emotions (they have trouble sensing animals, which
are more primitive). They thrive on a paradox: they are attracted by, and take strength from
positive emotions. They are attracted by the ability they do not possess: that of feeling. They
feast upon the very things they extinguish, while recoiling and dwelling in dark, cold places.

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They can be seen as a modern literary version of psychic vampires, those beings who feed on
other people’s positive energy and sentiments. The Dementors’ function, appearance, action,
attributes: everything in them points at bipolar disorder. The description Rowling makes of it
refers to a certain lack of feeling, this very absence of emotions that pervades a Dementor’s
victim. Depression is usually associated with pain too, with maddening sufferings and
declining sanity. Rowling’s creatures bear a striking resemblance with Edward Munch’s The
Scream, mainly because of one single feature: a round, gaping mouth suggesting horror and
fear, and being the focal point of the picture. In this painting, the screamer’s hands are clasped
on each side of a bald face, modelling it like a skull and making it hard to decide whether the
character is male or female, young or old. Likewise, the eyes are round and vacant, drawing
all the attention to the wide, shrieking mouth. And these are features shared by Dementors,
insofar as both depictions are on the verge of inhumanity. As Udwadia reminds us (90), “the
influence of insanity on art can also be seen in the work of Edward Munch, the Norwegian
painter. His art was influenced by extreme anxiety and paranoia”. The environment of the
character painted by the artist seems to match the horror expressed by the scream, and can be
also considered as an expression of mental disorder:

“Why does the Munch figure scream? Tragedy stalked the Munch family.
Munch’s mother died of tuberculosis when he was five, and his sister Sophie
died when he was fourteen. His sister Laura suffered from mental illness, and his
father experienced recurrent bouts of depression after his wife’s death. The
supposed spot over Oslo Fjord where the screamer stands was located above a
slaughterhouse and a mental hospital, and the sounds from each were said to be
audible on the road above. Munch both feared mental instability and flirted with
life on the edge; he thought the latter fuelled creativity.” (Holland 2)

As in Munch’s artefact, the Dementor’s mouth catalyzes the viewer’s feelings, attracts the
spectator’s attention, and crystallizes our fear:

But there was a mouth … a gaping, shapeless hole, sucking the air with the sound of a
death-rattle (Rowling 3: 414).

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Both The Scream’s and the Dementor’s mouths are obviously not meant for speaking, but for
producing animal, instinctive and fearful sounds. Munch’s Skriek has been compared to
Caravaggio’s Medusa, whose focal point appears to be the mouth instead of the eyes. This
“vibrating but soundless shadow” reveals the horror “without sounds, turning toward an ear
frozen in expectation of a howl it will be unable to hear” (Cavarero 18). In Harry Potter, it is
usually half-hidden, making the reader’s mind race towards atrocious interpretations:
‘[…] the Dementor only lowers its hood to use its last and worst weapon […] I
suppose there must be some kind of mouth under there, because they clamp their jaws
upon the mouth of the victim and – suck out his soul.’ (Rowling 3:268)

Rowling’s creatures owe their terrible impact on the reader to their emotional content, insofar
as they can be seen as the writer’s projected self in times of pain: “together with articulating
an artwork, creative artists struggle to articulate aspects of their selves and their inner worlds.
The struggle to articulate on both aesthetic and psychological levels concomitantly produces
effects that are important for the emotional appeal of art” (Rothenberg 123). The Dementors’
function is meaningful too: they are the guardians of a prison. Although Azkaban is made of
thick stone walls, they don’t need such a structure to keep you prisoner. It so appears that the
human mind becomes its own prison:
‘The fortress is set on a tiny island, way out to the sea, but they don’t need walls and
water to keep the prisoners in, not when they’re all trapped inside their own heads,
incapable of a single cheerful thought. Most of them go mad within weeks.’ (Rowling 3:
204)

So Dementors are powerful annihilators. They eradicate life impulse and feed on human
souls, leaving people listless, empty, lonely and isolated: a depiction of depression. Just like
in Munch’s The Scream, the Dementors’ environment is meaningful too. They create a cold
fog, inducing a feeling of icy uneasiness in their victims. A hint of the reality of these
monsters is the fact even if they can be seen only by sorcerers, they can be sensed by Muggles
too (that is to say by the non-magical community). So Dementors do exist, both in Rowling’s
novel and in the real world, but in the form of depression .

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It is interesting to note that the author has associated Dementors to traumatic experience.
Indeed they make Harry go through his childhood memories again:

‘The Dementors affect you worse than the others because there are horrors in
your past that others don’t have. […] Dementors are among the foulest creatures
that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay
and despair, they drain peace, hope and happiness out of the air around them.
Even Muggles feel their presence, though they can’t see them […] If it can, the
Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself –
soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your
life. And the worst that has happened to you, Harry, is enough to make anyone
fall off their broom […]’ (Rowling 3: 203-204)

Each time a Dementor appears, Harry can hear his mother screaming to death. He relapses
into the past and relives the murder of his parents. If he learns how to master a Patronus
charm, it is also interesting that in the same book he learns how to resist the attraction caused
by the fact that, sinking into the depressing past, he gets in touch with his deceased mother. In
other words he learns how to control his emotions, or how to live with them and accept his
life as it is, with its forever missing elements. A keyword here is the verb “learn”. As a matter
of fact, J.K. Rowling presents in her work an interesting literary embodiment of depression,
because her approach covers treatment too. If the Dementor is a disguised instance of
suffering, the novelist suggests a series of alternatives too. The spell that drives Dementors
away is the Patronus charm. And the resource that has a significant comforting effect after a
Dementor’s attack is chocolate. The novelist presents a personification of positive thinking
(materialized in an aesthetic way by the inspiring Patronuses) and a reminder of the sensual
pleasures of life. If the writer does display the uttermost darkness of human life, she also
provides various remedies. The reader can endeavour to be at peace with his/her past life,
develop his/her sense of humour and propensity to laugh, and strive to enjoy the comforting,
bright side of life. Thus, when Harry is approached by a Dementor for the first time, Lupin
offers him chocolate:
Harry took a bite and to his great surprise felt warmth spread suddenly to the tips of
his fingers and toes (Rowling 3:97).

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It is now common knowledge that chocolate is a type of comfort food that can boost mood,
thanks to its texture and taste (liable to bring about the release of endorphins) but also via its
contents (phenylethylamine, caffeine, theobromine, carbohydrates that can raise the level of
serotonin in the brain). Chocolate can also be seen as an immediate, concrete and easy
enjoyment of life. Another remedy consists in resorting to laughter, which is also widely
considered as curative. Remus Lupin’s classes are a beautiful instance of the human capacity
to fight against depression. Over and over go the apparitions via the Boggart (a spirit that
takes the shape of your worst fear), followed by various attempts to defeat them by using a
specific spell or a Patronus charm...until the students finally succeed. The lesson taught by
Professor Lupin is really how to develop and master one’s sense of humour in order to be able
to use it as a remedy against fear, anxiety, and pessimism. With him a student like Neville
Longbottom acquires some sense of self-esteem and learns how to ridicule his teacher, the
man who bullies and terrorizes him. And with Lupin’s lessons, Harry learns how to dominate
his worst fear and his traumatic memories. It is interesting to note that in some tormented
way, Dementors attract Harry. Their proximity makes the young man relive the scene of his
parents’ murder, thus allowing him to dive into the past and hear the voices of his dead
parents. Harry is fascinated by the past, yet he learns how to shake off this fascination and live
in the present moment. He eventually succeeds in his fight against the Dementors:

Terrible though it was to hear his parents’ last moments replayed inside his head, these
were the only times Harry had heard their voices since he was a very small child. But he’d
never be able to produce a proper Patronus if he half wanted to hear his parents again:

‘They’re dead,’ he told himself sternly. ‘They’re dead, and listening to echoes of them
won’t bring them back. You’d better get a grip on yourself if you want that Quidditch
Cup.’ (Rowling 3:264)

So eventually, when confronted to the mere essence of fear and anxiety (the Dementor’s kiss),
one solution is still possible. One can still resort to laughter. Students learn how to create their
own Patronuses, the arch enemies of the Dementors:

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 ‘The Patronus is a kind of positive force, a projection of the very things that the
Dementor feeds upon – but it cannot feel despair, as real humans can, so the Dementor
can’t hurt it […] Each one is unique to the wizard who conjures it.’ (Rowling 3:257-258)

The Patronus is the embodiment of human positive resources. It is a vibrant and poetic
allegory of our vital energy, an aesthetic materialization of the powerful and beneficial
resources of human mind. The lesson taught by J.K. Rowling, through the creation of
Dementors, is that there is a way out. It takes courage, maybe heroism, guidance, motivation.
It is helped by the existence of simple pleasures (an Epicurian approach to life maybe), and a
firm belief in the virtues of laughter. In the Harry Potter series, it is important to remember
that the protagonists are partly fashioned by their biological and family history, and partly by
their own personal philosophy and choices. Suffering can be cured, and the magic resorted is
accessible to Muggles too: it comes from the mind. In the final chapter of Harry Potter and
the Goblet of Fire, Harry gives the money he has won to Fred and George:

‘You take it, and get inventing. It’s for the joke-shop […] I don’t want it and I don’t
need it. But I could do with a few laughs. We could all do with a few laughs. I’ve got a
feeling we’re going to need them more than usual before long.’ (Rowling 4:794)

Finally, laughter in the novel is on the one hand natural, springing from jokes and festive
meals between friends, and on the other hand it is an art, requiring creativity and practise. And
this art needs to be cherished and refined in order to be able to confront with the “sightless,
soul-sucking fiends” (Rowling 4:30) that suddenly arise from nowhere to prey on human
souls. Undeniably, there is pain, insufferable pain taking on expressionistic qualities and
fascinating the reader with fear and intensity. But there is also the transient warmth produced
by chocolate that runs through the protagonists’ veins, and there is the fleeting beauty of the
Patronus, an alias of the human mind’s resourcefulness. The presence of Dementors in the
Harry Potter series (re)kindles the protagonists’ creativity, their lust for life and their fighting
spirit, just as the origin of Dementors in real life might enhance the artist’s potential. Studies
have been carried about the link between artistic expression and depression, and there may be
a correlation between an artist’s productivity and his/her mood variations: “there do indeed
appear to be associations between the risk for bipolar disorders and both eminent and
everyday creativity” (Richards and Kinney 153).

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Whether they come out of Munch’s visions or J.K. Rowling’s mood variations, artistic
avatars, in literary material or pictorial shape, turn sensitivity into a form of disturbing and
horrific beauty. Dementors throw a dark shadow on a novel that hosts other instances of dark
substance: for example “thestrals” would also deserve, among others, a closer look and a
deeper thought. Their attitude, their aesthetic properties, and the way they interact with the
protagonists display the didactic, philosophical and inventive qualities of their creator. The
Potterian creatures remind us once more that literature is an artistic form of expression, a way
out of a crisis, and a way towards sharing and healing.

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Hammen, Constance. Depression. Hove: Psychology P, 2001. Print.

Holland, J. Gill. The Private Journals of Edvard Munch, We Are Flames Which Pour Out of
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