Do You Have A Bit Of Dobby In You?

Or, Go Easy On The Guilt And The Atonement
"...you'd be forgiven for thinking me mad - the way I acted this afternoon. The truth is, I feel rather light-headed and foolish in your presence, Cee, and I don't think I can blame the heat. Will you forgive me?" This was the main body of the letter Robbie had intended to put in the envelope to be handed to Cee, or Cecilia. But, in a hurry to get dressed and reach the venue of the party at the Tallis Estate, he inserts a different sheet of paper instead. That day turns out to be quite eventful for him. For the first time, Robbie and Cecilia acknowledge their love for each other. And within the next few hours, Robbie is sent to prison for a crime that he did not commit, on the strength of evidence given by a 13-year-old girl, the girl who had once upon a time harbored a crush on him. I am recounting here the story of the 2007 movie, "Atonement", based on the novel by Ian McEwan.


* Trailer of the movie "Atonement", performed by Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Saoirse Ronan, Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave, YouTube / FocusFeatures.
It is an eventful day for Briony, the 13-year-old girl, too. For, it is the day when she comes face to face for the first time with the complex emotions of adulthood, which her yet-immature mind fails to fully grasp. Witness to two acts of passion, both committed in the privacy of darkness: one in the library and the other in the grotto --- Briony misconstrues the motives to be the worst imaginable, when in fact they were not. Her fanciful mind - all writers have this streak of fancifulness in them, do they not have - manufactures truth to reach her own conclusions. Already having decided that Robbie was a sex-maniac, Briony flatly accuses Robbie of raping Lola. Her accusation ruins the lives of Robbie and Cecilia. And in the process changes the course of her life, too. On the way to growing up, Briony understands her error of judgment about quite what was happening that day on the Tallis Estate. Remorse and guilt get hold of her. Her atonement: punish herself by taking on the most extreme of hardships that the then war-ravaged society had to offer - serving as probationary nurse in a military hospital.

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* Cover of the book, 'Atonement', by Ian McEwan, wiki.
Remorse and guilt are some of the darkest, the most somber, and also amongst the most subtle of human emotions. These emotions are strongly intertwined and strangely a consequence of the conflict between our experiences and the values and principles that have been ingrained in our psyche ever since we can remember. Right through the formative years, a certain set of do's and don't's keep drumming relentlessly into our ears. Don't do this, this is wrong; don't do that, that is sinful. The most heinous imagery of the purgatory is painted by our own subconscious mind that prevents us from treading the "prohibited" path or committing the "evil" act. That of course is precisely the intention of the community leaders and the seniors and peers who drum the preachings and sermons into our ears: the imagery makes us malleable and pliable, like putty in their hands. The problem is when, after agreeing to be putty, we intentionally or unintentionally find ourselves in the very same situation that we had been warned of all along. The imagery ensures that it is hell and damnation afterward.

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* Image of Garuda, the Hindu mythological King of Birds, who also happens to be the mount of the Hindu deity, Vishnu, wiki. An entire scripture comprising 18,000 couplets - appropriately titled "Garuda Purana" - has been woven around the conversation between the Bird and the deity, a conversation whose morbid subject is the diversity of treatment meted out to human beings in the after-life, a direct, mathematically-calculated outcome of the deeds and misdeeds performed when alive.

The scripture is ritually read aloud during the period of mourning after an elderly person in the household has died. As the droning voice of the priest - describing the different kinds of hell that await us - ricochets on the walls, our cowering mind begin to build our own bulwarks of propriety at the deeper subconscious level. And in the process we decide to also become our own judge. So when the time comes, as it always does, when something happens which our eyes perceive to be a "mistake", the inner judge takes over, pronounces the guilty verdict, and hands us the sentence. And off we march, to our very own private hell, to our own penance.

Dip into similar books and teachings of any religion around the world, and you will find that - whatever be the surface differences - the community leaders are one in their approach when it comes to controlling the herd and reining in delinquency: instill in their minds the fear of a bigger Force that is Lording over them, make them beware of the consequences of their actions, so that they hopefully fall in line.

That atonement absolves sins, is a common thread running down the ages throughout human civilization. Society has over time created an elaborate structure to dispense the appropriate dosage of atonement to the perpetrators. After serving retribution for an x period, the structure formally declares that our sins have been washed away, that we have been fully exorcised, that a catharsis has taken place, that our atonement is complete. And we try to move on with our life. At least that is the theory.

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* A scene from the 2002 movie "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", YouTube/iamshiloh, performed by Fiona Shaw, Harry Melling, Richard Griffiths, Jim Norton, Veronica Clifford, Daniel Radcliffe, and our hero - at least for the purpose of this article -, Dobby. The world is introduced to this house-elf thingy for the first time, jumping all over Harry's bed. Within the span of the first few frames, Dobby's character establishes itself as the perpetual, habitual atoner. A being that keeps looking for excuses to punish itself. "See, this is a sin I have committed! So now let me go and punish myself by banging my head against whatever comes in hand - the cupboard, the base of the table-lamp...

...Unbelievable it may sound, but there are human beings amongst us who too keep looking for excuses, just so that they can go punish themselves. Interesting, but both Dobby and these human beings also share the commonality of low self-esteem.

Two social psychologists from Netherland have coined the term "Dobby Effect", to link Rowling's fictional character Dobby's persona with the tendency in human beings to self-punish. We all have a bit of Dobby in us!

Sometimes, atonement is thrust upon us by society as the only road to walk on for survival. A classic example of how living-with-dignity and deliverance is possible only by walking on the atonement-road, is the "ideal woman" image that the male gender has thrust upon his yin counterpart in quite a few cultures around the world. This image describes the expectation of a male-dominated society from the female thus: virginal until married, fertile when married, and long-suffering until death. When she has escaped infanticide, that is. Any deviation from this road, and the veneer of "ideal woman" is stripped away, to be replaced by social-blacklisting at best and being-thrown-to-the-wolves at worst. Being born in the body and form of a female becomes, in some of these cultures, itself an act worthy of penance, but theirs is not to question why. A penance that is to be performed through life-long suffering, stoic forbearance and forgiveness of all sins - menial, mortal and male. Any philosophical theorizing that we are here on earth as pleasure-seeking tourists from another world is an oxymoron to these women!

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* Japanese Ambassador to the United States Ichiro Fujisaki delivers an official apology to the last 73 U.S. survivors of the Bataan Death March at a meeting of the survivors group May 30, 2009, in San Antonio. Picture by Chad Henninger, ABC News, abcnews.go.com.

The rhetoric of apologia is an exalted art of the most refined order, of course, that career diplomats are honed in. Language communication experts identify four genres of apologia, developed by politicians down the ages, to distance themselves as sweetly and as greasily smoothly as possible from acts that are not deniable, not justifiable and not transcendable: absolutive, vindicative, explanative and justificative. The surviving POWs to whom Mr. Fujisaki's remorse was directed are in a better position to discern which genre the ambassador's speech fell in.

The list of apologies issued by different arms of the Japanese government over the past half-a-century is itself worthy of an exclusive page on Wikipedia. Contrast this with the behavior of a lot many countries which have committed acts of similar or even more heinous nature, both before WWII and after, but which do not suffer even an iota of remorse. Well, if indeed they are suffering, the tears aren't showing. There are infinite hues and shades in the palette of atonement, you see. Interestingly too, nobody is asking these coy perpetrators to come out with their apologies - never mind what genre of apologia you may choose, speak out, just speak out! - and absolve themselves.

Japan as a sovereign nation has gotten into the guilt-ridden-forgiveness-seeking mode, with the rest of the world neatly slipping into the mode of asking forgiveness from the country. Does anybody see a perfect psychological fit of give-and-take here? As with group dynamics between individuals, so with group dynamics between nations. After all, both are populated by the same set of human beings.

And while chewing on this, let's also pause to remember that the countries that demand forgiveness cannot really lay claim to the moral high ground of clean hands, themselves. And we begin to see the complex relationship that we as human civilization have with this complex emotion called remorse and guilt and its consequent affect of atonement.

Both you and I know of "crimes" that the statute books do not cover, but which we know in our heart of hearts we are culpable of. There is no gaol or penitentiary where we can go take refuge in for expiation; society has neither the time nor the patience for that which cannot be stereotyped. Yet, we know that a wrongdoing has been committed that cannot be condoned or brushed away offhand. Ask Briony, she will tell you what this really means. So what do we do now? Trapped by remorse, burdened by guilt, we want to free and unburden ourselves by performing reparations and amends. When opportunities for reparations are present, we strive to utilize them. But when they are not present, when we cannot right a perceived wrong, we go down the road of self-punishment and self-denial. We begin by denying ourselves the small and big things in life that give us pleasure. We shut ourselves away from anything and everything that gives us happiness. We penalize ourselves.


In Harry Potter's movies, we saw how Dobby would bang its head when in fits of repentance. And how Briony engages in extreme hardships at the military hospital. Both suffer in their private hell. All that is part of the fictional world. In reality, people go beyond, much beyond. This going-beyond manifests in the form of inflicting severe wounds to the self, both physically and emotionally, which again they hide from the people around them. When they are admitted to the hospital, caregivers usually go through the standard medical procedure of measurement of biomarkers, and begin injecting this chemical or orally-administering that drug. They pat themselves on the back when the physiological symptoms show signs of alleviation. The real problem - that of a soul whacked by guilt that is bent on inducing the worst harm - remains submerged. After a few days, when the patient relapses, these caregivers go through the same procedure, like robots. Which is a pity. It is only when you scrape the surface to dig deeper into the person's psyche, that the whole picture begins to emerge.


* Medical science usually relies on the standard biomarkers and administers the usual drugs as the first line of intervention. Which is quite the right thing to do. There is also a need to concurrently include some preliminary psychological investigation to figure out whether there are some deeper underlying reasons for the manifestation of the condition. An interesting case in literature recounts a young male who was admitted to a hospital in Sicily for treatment of severe anemia. The patient had been repeatedly admitted to various hospitals for this same condition in the prior two years; and all the time the administrators directed him to hematologists and internists, who would invariably put him through the same standard procedure, with the same results.

Fortuitously, in this hospital, the patient was also subjected to psychological examination, which brought to light that he had been indulging in frequent self-induced blood-letting, removing more than a liter of blood in each session. Subsequent deeper probe revealed that he was uncomfortable with his natural sexual orientation towards homosexuality. The seed of the idea that his feelings towards sex were "perverse" began germinating and getting fertilized the more he dwelt on it. His inability to protect his mother and younger siblings from his father's physical violence reinforced his self-perception of a "sinner". Somewhere along his line of thinking, the man began blaming himself for all that was happening in his world. As atonement, he turned inwards to inflict the maximum punishment possible, which in his case was self-inflicted hemorrhage. In psychiatric parlance, this condition is known as Lasthenie de Ferjol (LdF) syndrome. The paper reports that, once the root reasons began being addressed through psychotherapy, the patient's anemia condition was alleviated. However, the patient abruptly interrupted therapy and vanished.

While LdF syndrome cases emerge from their hiding only when expert guidance is available, people slapping themselves on their cheeks or boxing themselves on their jaws is not a very rare sight. They indulge in this act when they feel nobody is looking, of course. This self-inflicted physical abuse is part of the atonement procedure they devise to get rid of whatever feelings of guilt have made home in their minds.

The ultimate harm that one can inflict upon oneself is suicide, of course. Ending life is the ultimate atonement, the ultimate retaliation, the ultimate revenge, the ultimate escape from trauma and abuse and victimhood. WHO data report that the number of deaths-due-to-suicide exceeds deaths occurring due to murder or war. In the past 50 years, suicide rates have increased by almost 60%, mainly in the developing countries. While most suicides occur in China, India, and Japan, the rate of suicide in the U.S. has been increasing for the first time in a decade. Research links 98% suicides with mental disorders. Why a "disorder" happens in the mind of these individuals in the first place, what brings disorder and anomaly and chaos into a mind that was once not so, is a question that continues to beg for answers. The present research thrust is to identify particular mental disorders that are most likely to handhold the person towards suicide, and then work out a "sound suicide prevention strategy" around such cases, such as restricted access to guns, erection of barriers to deter jumping from high places, and the like. A moment of reflection reveals that the architects of the sound strategy have chosen to focus on the effect and not on the cause. The cause continues to fester, unattended.

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* Suicidal ideation - George Grie, 2007, wiki.
In the metaphysical realm, we attempt to look at the causes. We realize that at the time of birth, the mind is a blank slate, the proverbial tabula rasa, raw and pure. For the sake of argument, let's hypothesize that there is no baggage carried over from the past. As a child, we look wondrously around us, marvel at how the world is constructed, and we look forward to a gloriously happy life. We look forward to the slate being etched upon by the tool of appropriate thoughts, the tool deployed by fellow human beings who happened to have arrived here before we did. We surrender ourselves unquestioningly to both the outpourings from the people around us, as well as to the circumstances that destiny has carefully strewed on our life-path.


The tool of thoughts depends on which community and culture we have landed in at birth. Right from Day One, dogmas, values, principles and beliefs begin to etch themselves on the blank slate. Coming from trusted sources, we imbibe them in our psyche as the ultimate and absolute code with which to guide our life. We try our best to adhere to what we have learned. However, there are so many things that are beyond our control. Our natural preferences, for instance, as the young, homosexual, LdF-stricken man discovered. Or our station in life, combined with our own low self-esteem developed through years of put-me-downs, as Dobby discovers. Or the lessons of Puritanism that we were taught at the breakfast table, which both Briony and Lola interpret in their own different ways. It is when the beyond-control things go against the grain of the etchings on the slate, that the difficulty arises in reconciling the two.


This is when dark, dense vapors of discomfort begin to form. These vapors begin to pollute the tranquil air of inner-peace. With time, the vapors condensate into the water of self-reproach, which streams ahead to join and contaminate the pure river of conscience flowing through the land of the subconscious. If not checked in time, eventually converting it into a huge sewer. The reaction of the pollutants with the elements of life-enrichment that make up the terrain - happens very subtly at first. So overpowering is the pollution that, before you know it, the terrain is covered with refuse and filth.


The consequence? Instead of looking after and protecting our self-interest, we abdicate all responsibility towards ourselves. We turn against ourselves. We subconsciously become our own enemy. We press the self-destruct button, and keep it pressed. We reject all the good that reaches out to us, and instead choose to wallow in sorrow and negativity. We deliberately hold ourselves back from reaching our fullest potential, and stride purposefully instead towards failure and settle for abject mediocrity.


Deep down, however, very deep below all the muck and squalor that now has us gasping for air, is still a tiny haven of purity and tranquility, our point-of-connect with the Cosmos, which at times makes its presence known by asking us to question what is happening. Why are we doing what we are doing? Why are we so unhappy? We are supposed to be happy here on earth, aren't we? Why has the quest for pleasure converted into a struggle to escape from pain? But before this solo thought can get as much as a toehold, it is swamped yet again by the deluge of regret and wrongdoing.


Look around you, and chances are that you will find somebody around with that air of self-righteous martyrdom. Somebody who had once held promise of great potential, but who somewhere along the way frittered away all their advantage. Maybe, just maybe, this could be just the time to self-introspect for you, too. Was there any incident in your past that continues to make you squirm whenever you are reminded of it? Or, is there such an incident that is so deeply buried in the subconscious that you are not reminded of it, because you don't want to be reminded of it? Are there any patterns of behavior in your personality that have been sabotaging your self-interests, but you simply aren't consciously aware of them? Reflect. Does the root of these patterns lie in some guilt or remorse? Is your self-defeating behavior a result of your subconscious decision to atone for the guilt? It helps to keep track of the patterns of our thoughts - some sort of an inventory of meta-thoughts - and see what underlying code of principles we might have been living by. The etchings on the slate can be wrong, you know. And they can be erased and overwritten by a fresh code that truly helps us enjoy our stay on earth.

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* Clips from the 1968 Indian Hindi movie, "Aadmi", performed by Dilip Kumar and Waheeda Rehman, SevenLoad/teresa50.

Rajesh has a dark, guilt-ridden past that he is uncomfortable with. During childhood, he had pushed a close friend down an abyss in a fit of anger, killing the friend. All because the friend had attempted to take Rajesh's favorite doll away. Rajesh's conscience does not let him rest in peace. Burning in the fire of repentance, Rajesh tries to seek atonement in vain by indulging in acts of altruism. In later life, he finds another friend in Shekhar. And when circumstances force Rajesh to surmise that Shekhar is attempting to take his girl away, his conscience emerges from within to take on a larger-than-life persona, to exhort him to repeat history and seek a similar revenge. Conscience can be a ruthless master!

There is an interesting contrast between the personalities of Lola and Briony in the "Atonement" movie. Lola is the eldest teenage child of estranged parents whose messy divorce she has witnessed. Lola finds it harmless to flirt with somebody like Paul Marshall. Lola has no qualms about lying about who caused those Chinese burns on her hand. And Lola discreetly keeps her counsel and lets Briony contrive a twisted rationalization that paints her consensual-sex act into rape, and that paints Robbie as the alleged perpetrator of the alleged crime. Not inclined to indulge in any remorse, Lola goes on to marry Paul, her "rapist" and millionaire lover, Lola goes on to meet the Queen of England, and Lola goes on to settle down to a life of marriage and prosperity. If on the one hand Lola's conscience never pricked her, on the other hand Briony ends up as a hospital nurse, Cecilia dies in penury in an underground railway platform during the war, and Robbie dies of septicemia as a private soldier in faraway Dunkirk. The love between the two remains unconsummated. Guilt, Lola? What is that? Remorse? What bird is it? Atonement? Duh.