Merope Mrax: biography and characterization

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Merope Gaunt doesn't appear very often in the pages of a Harry Potter novel, and she can't be called the main character of the story. Nevertheless, she plays a significant role in the plot. By carefully studying the work, you can restore the full picture of the character's life.

Biography

The biography of Merope Gaunt is dedicated to the chapter "The Family of Gaunts" in the book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". Harry sees Merope while traveling with Professor Dumbledore through the Pensieve to the past. The flashback, in which the boy and the teacher find themselves, is provided by a certain employee of the Ministry of Magic, Bob Ogden, who is forced to visit the house of the Gaunts due to an offense committed in their village - an attack on a Muggle.

The girl lives with her father Marvolo Gaunt and brother Morfin. Gaunts are distant descendants of Salazar Slytherin, one of the founding fathers of the Hogwarts wizarding school, and, like their famous progenitor, are obsessed with the purity of blood. Simply put, they hate all Muggles and even wizards descended from them.

Despite the nobility of the family, the Glooms live extremelypoor, since all the money was spent several generations before Marvolo was born, and they consider working below their dignity.

Both father and brother treat the girl rudely, treat her like a servant. At the same time, Marvolo Gaunt is dissatisfied and angry because his daughter's magical abilities are weak. The dislike of relatives is intensified due to Merope's love for Muggle Tom Riddle. Like many members of the Slytherin family, Marvolo and Morfin speak the snake language and communicate in it among themselves. During the entire scene of the Gaunts' conversation with Ogden, Merope does not utter a single word. Seeing the cruelty of family members, Bob tries to stand up for the girl, but he himself flees, faced with the aggression of Morfin.

Dumbledore tells Harry about the further fate of the heroine upon his return from the Pool.

Marvolo and Morfin were arrested for anti-Muggle crimes and being rude to a Ministry official. Left alone in the house, Merope freed herself from the eternal oppression of her father and mastered the spell. She decided to give the young man she fell in love with a love potion to drink. The plan was successful, as a result, Tom Riddle and Merope Gaunt fled the village with a scandal. Marvolo could never forgive his daughter for running away and marrying a Muggle.

Upon learning of her pregnancy, Merope stopped giving Tom Riddle a love potion. She hoped that he had already truly fallen in love with her or would want to keep the union because of the child, but she was mistaken. Tom left the girl, she died in childbirth.

Appearance

Merope Gaunt was not very beautiful, which is explaineda large number of consanguineous marriages between pure-blood wizards. The following is known about her appearance: dull lifeless hair, a pale face with rough features, slanting eyes and a doomed look. She was wearing a torn gray dress.

Character

From the behavior of Merope in the chapter "The Gaunt Family" it can be assumed that the girl was extremely timid and unsure of herself, she was very afraid of her father and brother. At the same time, Merope Gaunt was obviously characterized by independent thinking, since, contrary to the idea of the superiority of magical origin imposed on her from childhood, the girl fell in love with an ordinary person. It didn't matter to her that he didn't belong to the wizarding world. On the other hand, after all the humiliation experienced in the family, Merope did not hate her father - she wished to give his son his name.

Meaning of name

In ancient mythology, Merope is one of the seven sisters of the Pleiades, nymphs, daughters of a titan. According to legend, six sisters - all except Merope - married the gods, and only she married a mere mortal.

The surname Mraks in the Russian version is a translation of the English surname that Merope bears in the original book, Gaunt, which translates as "gloomy". Another possible meaning of the word - "exhausted" - was lost in translation. It could be no less important for the author, since the Gaunts, the last representatives of the once prosperous family, live and die in poverty and loneliness.

The surname Riddle, which Merope took from her husband,in the English book it is written as Riddle. This word means "mystery".

Role in the plot

Despite the fact that Merope is rarely mentioned in the book, she played a huge role in the history of Harry Potter, becoming the mother of the main antagonist, Lord Voldemort. In the orphanage, her son was named the way the girl wished before her death - Tom Marvolo Riddle, in honor of the father of the child and the father of Merope herself.

One of the main ideas running through the whole saga is that love is a special kind of magic, the most important and, in fact, invincible. From birth, Tom was completely deprived of the ability to love precisely because of the love potion, which made the boy the fruit of the "artificial" love of Merope Gaunt and Tom Riddle Sr. According to another version, the future Dark Lord grew up as an egocentric because of the lack of motherly love.

Although Harry Potter, like Tom Riddle, lost his parents at an early age, there is a huge difference in this loss. Lily, Harry's mother, died protecting the baby, and Merope died leaving him defenseless.

JK Rowling confirmed in an interview that Tom might not have become the darkest wizard of all time if his mother had survived.

Merope Gaunt also carried a family heirloom, Salazar Slytherin's locket, which her son later made into a Horcrux. The girl sold the medallion very cheaply at the Gorbin and Burks magical antiques shop, escaping poverty and probably not seeing much value in it.

In the movie

In the Harry Potter films, Merope Gloom is mentioned, butnever appears. The only thing known about Voldemort's mother is that she died. She is credited with the possession of two relics - a ring and a medallion. In the book, the owner of Peverell's ring was Marvolo Gaunt.