Harriet the Spy

This set of chapters consists of attack and counterattack after Harriet’s classmates read about themselves in her journal. The theme of Defining Empathy is foregrounded because neither side of the conflict exhibits empathy for the other. Harriet is hurt and angry that others betrayed her privacy by reading her private journal, but she doesn’t express regrets over her spying or the notes that made her friends feel betrayed. For their part, her fellow students decide to give her a taste of her own medicine by passing around mean notes describing her. They then escalate their attacks by stealing her lunch, spilling ink on her, and staging a parade that is actually an anti-Harriet demonstration. Everyone is outraged, and neither side can see the events from the opposing view. At the same time, the students who find themselves mocked or criticized in the notebooks do begin to feel empathy for one another while they align themselves against their new common enemy. Although they occasionally suppress snickers when they tacitly agree with an observation from the notebook or find its take on one of their peers humorous, some of them also express an interest in their classmates for the first time, creating a sense of group identity and empathy in their shared sense of embarrassment.

The theme of the Power of Words is vital to this conflict and to the students’ attacks against Harriet. The note-passing, ink-spilling, and spy club signs all use words and writing implements to send hurtful messages. The students take vengeance on Harriet for her hurtful words by creating their own versions of her spy notebook in the form of notes and posters at the protest march, using the written word as a weapon to attack their enemy. The loss of her journal further threatens Harriet’s emotional stability. In fact, she purchases a replacement notebook on her way home after her classmates turn against her and immediately resumes her writing habit. Harriet retreats further into her notebooks until they are confiscated by her teachers. Without a piece of paper and a pen, she describes herself as no longer being able to think. Harriet has identified herself so completely with the fixed habit of journal writing that she feels not only a loss of intellect but also a loss of identity when her journal is taken from her. This connects the Power of Words to her need to find stability in routines.

In addition to the spy versus anti-spy battles that take place in these chapters, they focus most heavily on Harriet’s attempts to maintain her habits when they are threatened with disruption. As previously stated, Harriet derives great comfort from her routines. A sense of security is even more vital now that her primary caregiver and greatest source of security is gone. She becomes distraught when her lunch is stolen, not because she can’t get anything else to eat, but because it was a tomato sandwich, and Harriet has eaten them for lunch every day for the past five years. They provide a much-needed sense of continuity and stability in her life. The absence of the sandwich so unnerves her that she rushes home to have the family cook make her another one and then goes to bed, where she writes “in big, block letters […] EVERYBODY HATES ME” (194). The betrayal caused by the theft of her sandwich both disrupts her expectation of fairness—although she did not strive to treat others equitably—and makes her feel alone and vulnerable without her routines to protect her.