5.Sweets as a comforter or a danger?

So onto a brighter note: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the first time we are introduced to Honeydukes sweet shop. Honeydukes is the one place I would love to go visit if I was able to attend Hogsmeade. A child’s dream, a sweetshop filled with weird yet bizarre sweets. I mean if you don’t believe me let’s take a look at Ron’s reaction towards it: `”It’s this sweetshop” said Ron, a dreamy look coming over his face’ (61). Ron is shown to transition from a conscious to an fantasy state as he becomes memorised by the numerous amounts of sweets that can be bought at Honeydukes.

However, this is not the first time we are introduced to these desirable sweets. In the first novel, we are introduced to the sweet trolley located on the Hogwarts Express. In this scene, we see Ron and Harry tuck in to a vast amount of delicious sweets which you and I would never find in the muggle world. Food is used in this part of the novel to highlight the transition Harry takes when entering into the wizarding world. Not only does food do this in the narrative, but it also invites the child reader into the higher fantasy. I would say that in this narrative Harry is like the reader, unaware of the culture of the magical world and in particular to the different foods they have. An example of this is when he first comes across the sweet trolley on the train- `he was ready to buy as many Mars Bars as he could carry- but the woman didn’t have Mars Bars. What she did have were Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, Droobles Best Blowing Gum’ (76) which would portray the transition from a low fantasy to a higher fantasy. Through the use of sweets, we have entered a different world however this could also have some consequences. Although sweets are known to be desirable they can always pose a danger. Bertys Bott’s Every Flavour Beans, the jellybeans which consist of every single flavour. In our minds, we would have never imagined flavours such as liver and tripe to be added to the list of flavours. Aren’t sweets meant to be delicious? Ron states to Harry ‘George reckons he had a bogey- flavoured one once’ (78) suggesting that bodily waste is used as flavour. The use of bodily waste can be seen as a dangerous approach as it shows that sweets can be deceptive. They look appetising on the outside but on the inside, they are vile. Could this mean that sweets are used as a metaphor to highlight to the reader that Harry will come across people who he can’t trust? Another interpretation could be that these jelly beans are used to show the transition into a higher fantasy as they are sweets which we would not find in the muggle world.

In contrast to this, chocolate can be seen as a comforter. In the third novel, Professor Lupin gives Harry and his friends chocolate on the train once the Dementors have left the train. Harry is said to have felt a ‘warmth spread suddenly to the tips of his fingers and toes` (68) implying that once he had eaten the chocolate he was able to feel at ease. This would conclude that chocolate acts as a coping mechanism and is able to relieve Harry of his anxious nature. In the film however we don’t see the full effect of the chocolate as we are unable to identify the warm reaction in which Harry is said to endure. In this clip Harry is shown to bite the chocolate and then question the encounter with the Dementor.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ6-h2zeBfg. It becomes evident that food is not seen a priority in the film therefore it becomes a minor element. With this in mind it becomes apparent that across the three-narratives food has slowly become absent due to the idea that it is not seen an importance.

So what can we say about sweets in the narrative? They do give us a mixed opinion on them as they are seen as desirable yet unappealing however our perception of them will change depending if we read the book or watch the movie.

Bibliography
 1.   Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Great Britain: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998.