Research Essay on Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a turning point in the series’ storyline wherein the themes get increasingly darker and more serious. Harry Potter is famous for defeating the dark wizard, Voldemort when he was a baby after Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. Voldemort disappeared and Harry went to live with his aunt and uncle in a non-magical house for ten years. In Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter is entering his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is fresh off the attack of the newly resurrected Voldemort. Thirteen years after his first defeat by Harry, Voldemort has returned to seize power over the wizarding world and achieve an all-wizard society and power over the non-magical community. He is operating in secret with his followers, death eaters, many of whom hold places of power within the ministry. Harry was the only person who witnessed the return of Voldemort, which led to a divide among the magical population. One part of the magical community believes Voldemort has returned and that Harry is being truthful about Voldemort’s return. This half of the community is led by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the most powerful wizard in centuries. The rest of the magical community, who believe Harry is lying, is led by the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and the greater part of the Ministry of Magic. Fudge believes Harry and Dumbledore are attempting to overthrow the Ministry by starting rumors that Voldemort has returned, but this could not be more untrue. Dumbledore is attempting to unite the magical community against Voldemort and his followers. As the situation heightens, it leads to social unrest, class conflict, and eventual revolution within the magical community. The Harry Potter storyline is more than just an epic story where good conquers evil but a fairly accurate social critique as many of the situations discussed have been mirrored in recent years, especially within American society.

To analyze the story of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it is important to first review the concepts of Marxism. Karl Marx was a philosopher and an economist. His theories examine an economic and social system that argues social unrest arises when there are social inequalities between classes that prevent the working class, or the proletariat, from ascending into the upper classes, or the bourgeoisie. Marxism expresses that it is impossible for there to be no inequalities that would prevent growth within a capitalist society where social classes exist. The Bourgeoisie remains in power and controls society due to hegemony, or dominance over other social groups, through ideology. Ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. (Berger) By applying Marxist theory, the focus is put on the class structure and shows the attempts of the upper class to depoliticize and invalidate those beneath them, which the lower class attempts to revolt against.

The story of Harry Potter displays two main social groups which represent the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariat strives for validation and adequate representation and seeks more power, which they often struggle to do due to the dominance of the bourgeoisie. In this case, to achieve a higher status, the proletariat strives to prove Voldemort’s return and prepare and protect the community from him. The proletariat consists of Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and the Order of the Phoenix. The Order of the Phoenix is a secret society created by Dumbledore to undermine and destroy the campaigns of Voldemort and his followers. The Order of the Phoenix is made up of everyday people Dumbledore has managed to convince of Voldemort’s return. They work all hours of the day and night in a crusade to protect the magical world and the non-magical community from Voldemort. Their efforts are never rewarded since they must work in secret to protect themselves from the bourgeoisie, who has much more power and dominance. Many times, members of the Order of the Phoenix express the difficulty of their goal, explaining the sensitive nature of their work, for they would be sent to prison for speaking against the ministry. They never give up, however, because they are fighting for the good of the magical society. At the early points of the story, their main goal is to just spread the message to the magical community that Voldemort has returned. Although this seems like a simple goal, their efforts are often undermined and invalidated by the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie is made up of Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry of Magic is the main antagonist throughout the events of Harry Potter, though they do not realize it. Fudge is only concerned about himself and his status. He is aware of his ineptitude and his biggest fear is being overthrown by Dumbledore. Fudge is able to keep his job solely through hegemony. He understands that the return of Voldemort threatens his high status as Minister for Magic, therefore he leads a campaign of his own to discredit Dumbledore, who, until recently, was well-liked and looked upon as the greatest wizard who ever lived. The ministry assures its people that they are safe, that Dumbledore is losing his marbles, and that it is impossible that Voldemort has returned. By doing this, he is unknowingly doing just as Voldemort would like him to. His ego and his ignorance get in the way of protecting his people, which is his main job. The bourgeoisie does everything in its power to depoliticize Dumbledore since they are unaware of the Order of the Phoenix’s existence. In this case, Dumbledore represents the proletariat in the mind of the ministry and believes that he is acting alone to take over Fudge’s position. The Ministry is also using its power to control the media and education in order to exploit the magical community.

The Order of the Phoenix is aware that the ministry is using the media, the newspaper, and the Daily Prophet, to further undermine their efforts. The public, however, is oblivious to the fact that they are being told lies and shown propaganda to control them and their beliefs. This is an example of an Ideological State Apparatus or ISA. “ISAs are institutions that generate ideologies that subject internalize and act in accordance with” (Berger). The Daily Prophet began printing stories negative stories about Harry in order to invalidate his story when he first declared that Voldemort had returned. They made up false stories claiming that Harry was not right in the head and just wanted more fame. Once Dumbledore stated that Harry was being truthful, the Daily Prophet turned on him, as well, claiming he was going crazy in his old age. Fudge became reliant on the media in order to keep his reputation and job. An already divided community was even further divided in opinion through the ministry’s use of the media. The ministry owns the media, and therefore, controls the masses.

Harry found that it is hard to dispute the media to change a hegemonic society. In an attempt to substantiate his claims, Harry goes to a reporter to tell his story about the night that Voldemort returned. The reporter claims that the Daily Prophet would not print the story because it would show Harry in a good light, which led Harry to find another publication source, the magazine, Quibbler. Harry’s friend, Hermione, believed the Daily Prophet would not print the story because Fudge would not let them, which reinforces the ministry’s use of an ISA. The public doesn’t believe that Voldemort has returned and therefore believes Harry is a liar Even some of Harry’s friends turned on him due to his media coverage. This message was brought to them through the ministry’s use of the media. The media is powerful enough to manipulate the public’s opinions of Harry and Dumbledore, who were both admired before the Daily Prophet turned on them. Once Quibbler published Harry’s article, more people began believing his story. This is an example of knowledge being social, which Marx theorizes causes ideas to not be entirely one’s own. This was also one of the first hints toward a revolution before the ministry realizes it.

The bourgeoisie also uses its power when it comes to student education at Hogwarts. The ministry, mainly Fudge, was worried Dumbledore was teaching the students magic to fight against the ministry. This kind of paranoia led to the placement of Dolores Umbridge, Undersecretary to Fudge, as professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. This was the beginning of the ministry’s interference at Hogwarts, which is also another form of an ISA. Umbridge used her position at Hogwarts to relay propaganda to the impressionable students, such as telling them Harry was lying about Voldemort’s return. She stopped teaching them how to defend themselves against dark magic in the hope that students would feel they would have no reason to use it. She used her power to create a new, higher position for her at Hogwarts, High Inquisitor, which gave her even more power over the running of the school. Umbridge banned the Quibbler from Hogwarts once she found out about Harry’s article, which is another example of the bourgeoisie using an ISA to control society. She was also able to change the curriculum to better fit in with the ministry’s agenda, get rid of professors that didn’t align with the ministry’s beliefs, and punish students who spoke against her or the ministry. As stated earlier, the ministry had already been using this technique to silence those who sided with Dumbledore. This kind of punishment is an example of a Repressive State Apparatus, or RSA, which is direct enforcement of behavior. (Berger)

Another example of the ministry’s use of an RSA against Harry is when the ministry attempted to arrest Harry and expel him from Hogwarts during the summer for using Magic outside of Hogwarts. Harry was attacked by creatures that were sent to harm him. Harry used magic to save his own life, which is legal according to wizarding law. Harry, Dumbledore, and the ministry were unaware of who had sent the creatures to attack him. Harry later finds out that it was Umbridge who had sent them. Harry was summoned to appear in court to testify about why he used magic and whether it was warranted. Fudge and the rest of the ministry used this opportunity to quiet Harry by arresting him, and thus, depoliticizing him. Harry was not the only person the ministry attempted to silence through the use of an RSA. After learning Harry had been teaching illegal defense classes to his classmates, defying ministry decree, Umbridge and Fudge blamed Dumbledore. They believed Harry’s defense group was Dumbledore’s private army he was planning to use to fight and overthrow the ministry, which was untrue. The two of them attempted to arrest Dumbledore and take him immediately to wizard prison without trial in an attempt to silence him once and for all. Dumbledore, however, had no intention of being imprisoned and he was able to escape before the ministry could arrest him. Dumbledore overpowered the Ministry of Magic singlehandedly and therefore showed that he is magically more powerful, but not socially or politically.

The back-and-forth conflict and class struggle can be frustrating for the reader, which makes the last part of the book much more powerful. When Harry and several other of his classmates realize what Umbridge is trying to do, they form a secret defense group of their own as their way of revolting against the ministry and Umbridge. Harry began teaching his classmates defense against the dark arts secretly to better prepare them for their future. This is a direct violation of Umbridge’s new rules and regulations she had placed upon the students, stating there would be no more academic or extracurricular activities. It also is a rebellion against the ministry’s use of an RSA. This is a small example of a social revolution as defined by Marx to be necessary to overthrow an existing social system. Marx states that in order for a social revolution to occur, “the existing social and political system must be changed…by violence” (Schaff, 1973). The proletariat had been belittled and discredited for so long, that they decided to fight back. The book ends in a fight between the Order of the Phoenix, part of the ministry, and some death eaters. This explosion of violence and revolution is what Marx claims is necessary to overthrow the class system. After this final fight, the proletariat was able to gain power by showing the bourgeoisie and the rest of the magical community that Voldemort really had returned and was back at full strength with more followers than ever. This information caused the magical community to revolt against the ministry and force Fudge out of office. From that point on, the magical world looked to Dumbledore for help when it came to fighting Voldemort.

Although it seems clear that the Ministry of Magic has the highest power in the greater wizarding world, there is evidence to support a more powerful, underlying upper class. Voldemort, although remaining in the shadows for most of the book, appears to have more influence on society than even Fudge. Several of Voldemort’s supporters were employed at the ministry but remained in hiding in order to covertly influence ministry decisions. One attempt at corruption was noticed by Harry, which included a death eater bribing Fudge to get a law passed. Voldemort wished for his return to be entirely kept a secret between him and his followers. This goal seemed to be lost when Harry Potter escaped telling the world of Voldemort’s return. However, the ministry acted exactly as Voldemort wished and completely ignored the fact that he had returned thus giving Voldemort the power he desired. Through the persuasion of the death eaters placed within the ministry, Fudge acted exactly as Voldemort wished, which means Fudge was operating under false consciousness. He believed he had the power, but he did not. Because Fudge wished to retain his social status, he put the magical community in much more danger than he would have if he had listened to Harry and Dumbledore early on. Dumbledore pointed this out to him the first time he had told Fudge about the return of Voldemort, saying, “You are blinded…by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood” (Rowling, ch. 36). Fudge’s false consciousness and love for his social status caused the magical community to be ill-prepared for the return of the most powerful dark wizard to ever live.

All of these themes have been mirrored in recent years, especially within American society. There have been many social revolutions within the past five years, such as the #MeToo Movement, the Climate Crisis Movement, and the March for Our Lives. The March for Our Lives movement has especially exemplified many of the same aspects of revolution as mentioned in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The movement was set up by a group of teenagers who had recently experienced a shooting in their high school where many of their classmates were killed. The American government did not do anything to help prevent more shootings, which is why much of the younger generation revolted. Similarly, when Voldemort returned to the Harry Potter universe, he killed one of Harry’s classmates. The ministry ignored the fact that a student had been killed and failed to act. These similarities have not gone unnoticed by the American people. A viral tweet that was circulating at the time of the march said, “ You know, when I said I wanted the world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and magic stuff, not the entire plot of book 5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly threat so the teenagers have to rise up and fight back” (Denzikan, 2018). Similar to the march, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix involves a group of oppressed individuals fighting for justice and fighting to change the political and social ideologies to protect themselves and society.

There have been studies performed that analyze the correlation between the Harry Potter generation and their social views. According to a particular study done by Anthony Gierzynski, professor of political science, there is a direct correlation between the political development of a generation and Harry Potter. “Reading the books correlated with greater levels of acceptance for out-groups, higher political tolerance, less predisposition to authoritarianism, greater support for equality, and greater opposition to the use of violence and torture” (Gierzynski, 2017). As any Harry Potter reader could verify, these are significant themes that are discussed throughout the series. It has been widely agreed upon that the media one consumes often plays a role in societal ideologies and political mindsets. For those who have read and appreciate the story of Harry Potter, anything may be possible because it seems to have prepared them for the real world. Through these findings, it can be believed that the Harry Potter phenomenon has had an effect on the political and social ideologies of its generation.

Although Harry Potter is often described as a children’s book, there are very mature themes, ideas, and situations presented and discussed that often directly correlate with reality. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix displays Karl Marx’s theories on class struggle and eventual revolution in many ways. The Harry Potter books display obvious cases of injustice and a struggle for power, as well as an inspirational display of revolution to change the class dynamic. The series has been inspirational in more ways than one. The role of entertainment media is an important aspect to consider in the development of views on politics, governments, policies, and leaders. This is as important as ever in an age of unlimited choice of media. The storyline is meant to leave readers with a hopeful message for the wizarding world and has also been inspirational when it comes to fighting for justice in their own world.

Research Essay on Harry Potter

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a turning point in the series’ storyline wherein the themes get increasingly darker and more serious. Harry Potter is famous for defeating the dark wizard, Voldemort when he was a baby after Voldemort killed Harry’s parents. Voldemort disappeared and Harry went to live with his aunt and uncle in a non-magical house for ten years. In Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter is entering his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is fresh off the attack of the newly resurrected Voldemort. Thirteen years after his first defeat by Harry, Voldemort has returned to seize power over the wizarding world and achieve an all-wizard society and power over the non-magical community. He is operating in secret with his followers, death eaters, many of whom hold places of power within the ministry. Harry was the only person who witnessed the return of Voldemort, which led to a divide among the magical population. One part of the magical community believes Voldemort has returned and that Harry is being truthful about Voldemort’s return. This half of the community is led by Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, and the most powerful wizard in centuries. The rest of the magical community, who believe Harry is lying, is led by the Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and the greater part of the Ministry of Magic. Fudge believes Harry and Dumbledore are attempting to overthrow the Ministry by starting rumors that Voldemort has returned, but this could not be more untrue. Dumbledore is attempting to unite the magical community against Voldemort and his followers. As the situation heightens, it leads to social unrest, class conflict, and eventual revolution within the magical community. The Harry Potter storyline is more than just an epic story where good conquers evil but a fairly accurate social critique as many of the situations discussed have been mirrored in recent years, especially within American society.

To analyze the story of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, it is important to first review the concepts of Marxism. Karl Marx was a philosopher and an economist. His theories examine an economic and social system that argues social unrest arises when there are social inequalities between classes that prevent the working class, or the proletariat, from ascending into the upper classes, or the bourgeoisie. Marxism expresses that it is impossible for there to be no inequalities that would prevent growth within a capitalist society where social classes exist. The Bourgeoisie remains in power and controls society due to hegemony, or dominance over other social groups, through ideology. Ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. (Berger) By applying Marxist theory, the focus is put on the class structure and shows the attempts of the upper class to depoliticize and invalidate those beneath them, which the lower class attempts to revolt against.

The story of Harry Potter displays two main social groups which represent the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. The proletariat strives for validation and adequate representation and seeks more power, which they often struggle to do due to the dominance of the bourgeoisie. In this case, to achieve a higher status, the proletariat strives to prove Voldemort’s return and prepare and protect the community from him. The proletariat consists of Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and the Order of the Phoenix. The Order of the Phoenix is a secret society created by Dumbledore to undermine and destroy the campaigns of Voldemort and his followers. The Order of the Phoenix is made up of everyday people Dumbledore has managed to convince of Voldemort’s return. They work all hours of the day and night in a crusade to protect the magical world and the non-magical community from Voldemort. Their efforts are never rewarded since they must work in secret to protect themselves from the bourgeoisie, who has much more power and dominance. Many times, members of the Order of the Phoenix express the difficulty of their goal, explaining the sensitive nature of their work, for they would be sent to prison for speaking against the ministry. They never give up, however, because they are fighting for the good of the magical society. At the early points of the story, their main goal is to just spread the message to the magical community that Voldemort has returned. Although this seems like a simple goal, their efforts are often undermined and invalidated by the bourgeoisie.

The bourgeoisie is made up of Cornelius Fudge and the Ministry of Magic. The Ministry of Magic is the main antagonist throughout the events of Harry Potter, though they do not realize it. Fudge is only concerned about himself and his status. He is aware of his ineptitude and his biggest fear is being overthrown by Dumbledore. Fudge is able to keep his job solely through hegemony. He understands that the return of Voldemort threatens his high status as Minister for Magic, therefore he leads a campaign of his own to discredit Dumbledore, who, until recently, was well-liked and looked upon as the greatest wizard who ever lived. The ministry assures its people that they are safe, that Dumbledore is losing his marbles, and that it is impossible that Voldemort has returned. By doing this, he is unknowingly doing just as Voldemort would like him to. His ego and his ignorance get in the way of protecting his people, which is his main job. The bourgeoisie does everything in its power to depoliticize Dumbledore since they are unaware of the Order of the Phoenix’s existence. In this case, Dumbledore represents the proletariat in the mind of the ministry and believes that he is acting alone to take over Fudge’s position. The Ministry is also using its power to control the media and education in order to exploit the magical community.

The Order of the Phoenix is aware that the ministry is using the media, the newspaper, and the Daily Prophet, to further undermine their efforts. The public, however, is oblivious to the fact that they are being told lies and shown propaganda to control them and their beliefs. This is an example of an Ideological State Apparatus or ISA. “ISAs are institutions that generate ideologies that subject internalize and act in accordance with” (Berger). The Daily Prophet began printing stories negative stories about Harry in order to invalidate his story when he first declared that Voldemort had returned. They made up false stories claiming that Harry was not right in the head and just wanted more fame. Once Dumbledore stated that Harry was being truthful, the Daily Prophet turned on him, as well, claiming he was going crazy in his old age. Fudge became reliant on the media in order to keep his reputation and job. An already divided community was even further divided in opinion through the ministry’s use of the media. The ministry owns the media, and therefore, controls the masses.

Harry found that it is hard to dispute the media to change a hegemonic society. In an attempt to substantiate his claims, Harry goes to a reporter to tell his story about the night that Voldemort returned. The reporter claims that the Daily Prophet would not print the story because it would show Harry in a good light, which led Harry to find another publication source, the magazine, Quibbler. Harry’s friend, Hermione, believed the Daily Prophet would not print the story because Fudge would not let them, which reinforces the ministry’s use of an ISA. The public doesn’t believe that Voldemort has returned and therefore believes Harry is a liar Even some of Harry’s friends turned on him due to his media coverage. This message was brought to them through the ministry’s use of the media. The media is powerful enough to manipulate the public’s opinions of Harry and Dumbledore, who were both admired before the Daily Prophet turned on them. Once Quibbler published Harry’s article, more people began believing his story. This is an example of knowledge being social, which Marx theorizes causes ideas to not be entirely one’s own. This was also one of the first hints toward a revolution before the ministry realizes it.

The bourgeoisie also uses its power when it comes to student education at Hogwarts. The ministry, mainly Fudge, was worried Dumbledore was teaching the students magic to fight against the ministry. This kind of paranoia led to the placement of Dolores Umbridge, Undersecretary to Fudge, as professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. This was the beginning of the ministry’s interference at Hogwarts, which is also another form of an ISA. Umbridge used her position at Hogwarts to relay propaganda to the impressionable students, such as telling them Harry was lying about Voldemort’s return. She stopped teaching them how to defend themselves against dark magic in the hope that students would feel they would have no reason to use it. She used her power to create a new, higher position for her at Hogwarts, High Inquisitor, which gave her even more power over the running of the school. Umbridge banned the Quibbler from Hogwarts once she found out about Harry’s article, which is another example of the bourgeoisie using an ISA to control society. She was also able to change the curriculum to better fit in with the ministry’s agenda, get rid of professors that didn’t align with the ministry’s beliefs, and punish students who spoke against her or the ministry. As stated earlier, the ministry had already been using this technique to silence those who sided with Dumbledore. This kind of punishment is an example of a Repressive State Apparatus, or RSA, which is direct enforcement of behavior. (Berger)

Another example of the ministry’s use of an RSA against Harry is when the ministry attempted to arrest Harry and expel him from Hogwarts during the summer for using Magic outside of Hogwarts. Harry was attacked by creatures that were sent to harm him. Harry used magic to save his own life, which is legal according to wizarding law. Harry, Dumbledore, and the ministry were unaware of who had sent the creatures to attack him. Harry later finds out that it was Umbridge who had sent them. Harry was summoned to appear in court to testify about why he used magic and whether it was warranted. Fudge and the rest of the ministry used this opportunity to quiet Harry by arresting him, and thus, depoliticizing him. Harry was not the only person the ministry attempted to silence through the use of an RSA. After learning Harry had been teaching illegal defense classes to his classmates, defying ministry decree, Umbridge and Fudge blamed Dumbledore. They believed Harry’s defense group was Dumbledore’s private army he was planning to use to fight and overthrow the ministry, which was untrue. The two of them attempted to arrest Dumbledore and take him immediately to wizard prison without trial in an attempt to silence him once and for all. Dumbledore, however, had no intention of being imprisoned and he was able to escape before the ministry could arrest him. Dumbledore overpowered the Ministry of Magic singlehandedly and therefore showed that he is magically more powerful, but not socially or politically.

The back-and-forth conflict and class struggle can be frustrating for the reader, which makes the last part of the book much more powerful. When Harry and several other of his classmates realize what Umbridge is trying to do, they form a secret defense group of their own as their way of revolting against the ministry and Umbridge. Harry began teaching his classmates defense against the dark arts secretly to better prepare them for their future. This is a direct violation of Umbridge’s new rules and regulations she had placed upon the students, stating there would be no more academic or extracurricular activities. It also is a rebellion against the ministry’s use of an RSA. This is a small example of a social revolution as defined by Marx to be necessary to overthrow an existing social system. Marx states that in order for a social revolution to occur, “the existing social and political system must be changed…by violence” (Schaff, 1973). The proletariat had been belittled and discredited for so long, that they decided to fight back. The book ends in a fight between the Order of the Phoenix, part of the ministry, and some death eaters. This explosion of violence and revolution is what Marx claims is necessary to overthrow the class system. After this final fight, the proletariat was able to gain power by showing the bourgeoisie and the rest of the magical community that Voldemort really had returned and was back at full strength with more followers than ever. This information caused the magical community to revolt against the ministry and force Fudge out of office. From that point on, the magical world looked to Dumbledore for help when it came to fighting Voldemort.

Although it seems clear that the Ministry of Magic has the highest power in the greater wizarding world, there is evidence to support a more powerful, underlying upper class. Voldemort, although remaining in the shadows for most of the book, appears to have more influence on society than even Fudge. Several of Voldemort’s supporters were employed at the ministry but remained in hiding in order to covertly influence ministry decisions. One attempt at corruption was noticed by Harry, which included a death eater bribing Fudge to get a law passed. Voldemort wished for his return to be entirely kept a secret between him and his followers. This goal seemed to be lost when Harry Potter escaped telling the world of Voldemort’s return. However, the ministry acted exactly as Voldemort wished and completely ignored the fact that he had returned thus giving Voldemort the power he desired. Through the persuasion of the death eaters placed within the ministry, Fudge acted exactly as Voldemort wished, which means Fudge was operating under false consciousness. He believed he had the power, but he did not. Because Fudge wished to retain his social status, he put the magical community in much more danger than he would have if he had listened to Harry and Dumbledore early on. Dumbledore pointed this out to him the first time he had told Fudge about the return of Voldemort, saying, “You are blinded…by the love of the office you hold, Cornelius! You place too much importance, and you always have done, on the so-called purity of blood” (Rowling, ch. 36). Fudge’s false consciousness and love for his social status caused the magical community to be ill-prepared for the return of the most powerful dark wizard to ever live.

All of these themes have been mirrored in recent years, especially within American society. There have been many social revolutions within the past five years, such as the #MeToo Movement, the Climate Crisis Movement, and the March for Our Lives. The March for Our Lives movement has especially exemplified many of the same aspects of revolution as mentioned in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The movement was set up by a group of teenagers who had recently experienced a shooting in their high school where many of their classmates were killed. The American government did not do anything to help prevent more shootings, which is why much of the younger generation revolted. Similarly, when Voldemort returned to the Harry Potter universe, he killed one of Harry’s classmates. The ministry ignored the fact that a student had been killed and failed to act. These similarities have not gone unnoticed by the American people. A viral tweet that was circulating at the time of the march said, “ You know, when I said I wanted the world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and magic stuff, not the entire plot of book 5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly threat so the teenagers have to rise up and fight back” (Denzikan, 2018). Similar to the march, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix involves a group of oppressed individuals fighting for justice and fighting to change the political and social ideologies to protect themselves and society.

There have been studies performed that analyze the correlation between the Harry Potter generation and their social views. According to a particular study done by Anthony Gierzynski, professor of political science, there is a direct correlation between the political development of a generation and Harry Potter. “Reading the books correlated with greater levels of acceptance for out-groups, higher political tolerance, less predisposition to authoritarianism, greater support for equality, and greater opposition to the use of violence and torture” (Gierzynski, 2017). As any Harry Potter reader could verify, these are significant themes that are discussed throughout the series. It has been widely agreed upon that the media one consumes often plays a role in societal ideologies and political mindsets. For those who have read and appreciate the story of Harry Potter, anything may be possible because it seems to have prepared them for the real world. Through these findings, it can be believed that the Harry Potter phenomenon has had an effect on the political and social ideologies of its generation.

Although Harry Potter is often described as a children’s book, there are very mature themes, ideas, and situations presented and discussed that often directly correlate with reality. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix displays Karl Marx’s theories on class struggle and eventual revolution in many ways. The Harry Potter books display obvious cases of injustice and a struggle for power, as well as an inspirational display of revolution to change the class dynamic. The series has been inspirational in more ways than one. The role of entertainment media is an important aspect to consider in the development of views on politics, governments, policies, and leaders. This is as important as ever in an age of unlimited choice of media. The storyline is meant to leave readers with a hopeful message for the wizarding world and has also been inspirational when it comes to fighting for justice in their own world.

The Harry Potter Phenomenon Analysis

Introduction

With the release of J.K. Rowling’s debut novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the United Kingdom (UK) in 1997, the Harry Potter phenomenon had its inception. It cannot be disputed that the Harry Potter series has traveled on the Hogwarts Express on its own and has become a worldwide phenomenon. Beyond the enthralling plot of a boy wonder immersed in a wizarding world, a global cult of fans clings to J.K. Rowling’s every word, throng movie cinemas to witness the onscreen enchantment, to quell their insatiable demands for Potter merchandise. This paper looks at Harry Potter through the lens of technology, how it came to be, and its dynamic through society and media.

Harry Potter Phenomenon Through Lens of Technology

The Monster Book has changed from being a fictitious object on paper and on film to a real-world item that has been made by numerous scholars, artists, engineers, and Harry Potter enthusiasts. The Monster Book functions in the domain of the supernatural, as seen through clocks that can find people since it is a sentient object in the Harry Potter world (Harrison 331). Outside the fictional universe, the growing number of homemade monster books emerging from basements and design studios are enhanced with digital tools to create the impression of magic. As a result, the actual world adopts illusionist magic in place of the supernatural magic found in the fictional world.

In the research and development stage, some of these magical technical items include a water faucet that coils up in reaction to wasteful water consumption and a clock that tolls the location of members of the family. These artifacts, along with others like them, may jointly benefit by having their own special workshop, much like The Monster Book. Such a workshop incorporates a fundamental idea of sustainable design by including creativity and production within its scope. Products and technology may be designed with the ability to modify and adapt from the very beginning.

At each step of the process, ethical considerations will need to be applied since many of these new technological affordances include the collection of personal data. Technology’s advantages should conversely also be examined for what they obscure and efface and if their overflow of information raises concerns. Software is at the root of this seeming paradox since it logs and shows metadata on an object’s connections with the outside world but fails to clearly record its second-order exchanges with users. While the book’s physical structure, such as its pages and spine, show signs of usage and aging, the software interface seems not to. Therefore, the software of the book looks impenetrable to material change, while the hardware is susceptible to it at the perceived level.

How the Phenomenon Came to be

There was no big-time marketing at the start of the Harry Potter phenomenon. Instead, a buzz was built and maintained in a very grassroots manner only on personal recommendations, playground talks, and customer satisfaction. Children and adults who originally read the novels and shared their thoughts with their social networks might be thought of as the Connectors. On the other side, the mavens are the reviewers, reporters, and interviewees who started talking about Potter in broad media outlets or on radio and television platforms (Einwächter 98). Since these groups sowed the seeds of the Potter phenomenon, the connectors and, later, the mavens were crucial to the publication of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

There were just 500 copies of Philosopher’s Stone’s initial printing. During the British Book Awards, the book did win the Children’s Book of the Year prize (Dugan 154). The book initially became popular as a result of positive evaluations from children. The novel immediately gained popularity as the teenagers who first read it shared the word with their friends about how amazing it was. Children have extensive networks owing to all the activities they engage in, from a camping trips to after-school sports, making them the perfect connectors. Although mavens play a crucial role in the early stages of transmedia storytelling, connectors are still a crucial component.

The majority of these pieces are from British publications that focus on J.K. Rowling’s life narrative as well as the literary value of the books. As interest in Rowling and Potter’s books grew, the number of articles about them nearly quadrupled between 1998 and 2000 (Dugan 154). These kinds of pieces, along with TV/radio interviews, are what first brought J.K. Rowling’s work to public attention and started the hype about Harry Potter on the internet.

As more adults joined on the Harry Potter bandwagon, Bloomsbury saw an opportunity in this untapped market and, in 1998, released a vintage edition of the first novel with an adult cover. Hence, this allowed more people to read it without feeling self-conscious about it being children’s fiction. Adults started to tell their networks about it, which started a similar word-of-mouth pattern among an older crowd. Consequently, the line between children’s and adult literature was officially dissolved, and from 1998 forward, there was a growing tendency for adults to read children’s books and boldly flirt with childhood once more.

Role of Technology in the Harry Potter

Due to the growth of the Internet, Harry Potter remained alive and multiplying. The Harry Potter webmaster, Emerson Spartz of Leaky Cauldron, contends that the Potter universe once more erupted, moving from a publishing phenomenon to a cultural phenomenon (Einwächter 100). Around 2000, the rise of new media literacy had heightened. The use of new media literacy for persuasive communication requires the development of critical thinking skills as well as the capacity to evaluate and create material using new media formats. As a result, community hubs were beginning to emerge on mailing lists, message boards, and blogs.

Due to this, the fans became captivated on the internet while they waited impatiently for news of the fifth Harry Potter novel. The fans were creating their own fictional stories, engaging in lengthy debates in which they dissected every aspect of the canon, and coming up with creative ideas to keep the wait bearable. By the time the fifth novel was released in 2003, a passionate, active, and thriving internet community was flowing over into the internet and bookshops.

Why it is a Phenomenon

In the realm of literature, Harry Potter managed to become more than just a blockbuster. The Potter phenomenon has expanded beyond the literary community through transmedia storytelling and had a remarkable impact on popular culture (Schiller 103). Since the advent of video games, reading books has not been incredibly popular. Instead of reading books, children become more intrigued by what is on cable television or the electronic game they play. J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter have rekindled children’s enthusiasm for reading, and parents are also reading the novels aloud to their children. Hence, this has been the novel’s largest cultural influence to date.

Without Rowling’s creation of a unique universe and language for Harry and his colleagues, there would not be a universal language like that of Harry Potter and the Wizarding World. These languages and worlds are now well-known and understood on a global scale. This is transformed from a book into its own fantastic world owing to Potter’s language. In addition to telling an engrossing, emotionally gripping tale that draws on conventional morality tales, Rowling also vividly depicts a world that many people wish actually existed. Since the people she creates in this fantastical universe are so genuine and relatable, anybody and everyone can find some way to connect with the narrative she is presenting.

Rowling invented a language to correspond with her fantastical universe; wizards naturally needed their own dialect and terminology and unique animals. Words like “Quidditch,” for example, now add to vocabulary and take permanent places in imagination (Haverals and Geybels 274). If the books had not been so extensively read or embraced, these terms would not be understood by everyone, demonstrating the fame of the books and their impact on society.

The Dynamic between Society and Media in the Harry Potter Phenomenon

The popularity of Harry Potter opened the door for mainstream geek and fan culture. It welcomed cultural fusion since its stories could be shared on many social media channels. When stories are shared across several media channels, and readers or viewers have the ability to change or otherwise respond to culture, this is known as cultural convergence. Interestingly, the Television series made being a geek appear fashionable. The Potter novels were often not read alone; instead, readers sought to discuss them with their friends and subsequently make new acquaintances who shared their enthusiasm for the series. Online debate of young adult (YA) novels and science fiction grew increasingly prevalent as more Potter fans became active.

It became more and more difficult to dismiss fantasy and science, fiction enthusiasts. This was due to the success of the Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies, as well as the growing prominence of the Potter fanbase online. Through Potter, the concept of a contemporary, mainstream fandom developed around a significant sci-fi/fantasy and was well-established and widely acknowledged. Both in and outside of the fandom, Potter enthusiasts continue to express their creativity (Tsay-Vogel and Sanders 5). Potter fan sites, archives of fan literature and fan art, and email group discussions emerged online in the early 2000s.

Numerous Harry Potter fans attended conventions, and cosplay from the series became commonplace at major geek and comic gatherings. As a result of being able to get together and discuss a similar issue, there was a sense of community practice among the people (Tsay-Vogel and Sanders 2). A community of practice (CoP) is a group of individuals who come together to achieve individual and group objectives and have a similar concern, set of issues or topic of interest. Numerous music groups dedicated to portraying and singing about different characters from the novels were created by Potter fans on YouTube. Subsequently, Quidditch, a completely exclusive Potter fan activity, joined it (Haverals and Geybels 274). The first real-life Quidditch match was developed by students at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2005, and it later became an international phenomenon.

Conclusion

J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which began in the late 1990s, was not anticipated to become a huge global success but eventually became. Studying popular culture, like the Harry Potter films, is an increasingly popular study subject, and identifying Harry Potter-specific resources might help. Scholars should examine how, why, and what else the narrative implies beyond being a fantastic and skillfully written book since the tale of one eleven-year-old child has evolved into such a popular cultural figure.

Works Cited

Dugan, Mary Katherine. “Harry Potter around the UK.” Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries, 2019, pp. 151-167. Web.

Einwächter, Sophie G. “Negotiating Legal Knowledge, Community Values, and Entrepreneurship in Fan Cultural Production.” Media in Action. Interdisciplinary Journal on Cooperative Media, no. 2, 2017, pp. 93–112. Web.

Harrison, Jen. “Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, 2018, pp. 325–343. Web.

Haverals, Wouter, and Lindsey Geybels. “Journal of Cultural Analytics vol 6, no.1, 2021, pp. 225-284. Web.

Schiller, Melanie. “Transmedia Storytelling.” Stories. Screen Narrative in the Digital Age, 2018, pp. 97-108. Web.

Tsay-Vogel, Mina, and Meghan S. Sanders. “Fandom and the search for meaning: Examining communal involvement with popular media beyond pleasure.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture vol, 6, no. 1, 2017, pp. 1-17. Web.

“Harry Potter Casts a Spell for Tolerance” by A. M. Paul

This paper is based on the article taken from the website of the New York Times newspaper. The article is called “Harry Potter Casts a Spell for Tolerance”, it was written by Annie Murphy Paul and posted on the website on the fourteenth of August.

The author of the article explores the role of literature in the social and moral development of the adolescents and children. The article explains that through reading about familiar experiences in popular literature young people can perceive the equality of all social groups, learn to respect the differences of people, be tolerant and friendly towards the diverse members of the society.

Taking a fantasy novel by J. K. Rowling as an example of explanations of social discrimination and the value of tolerance the author demonstrates how such methods provided through popular books can educate young people about the life in a diverse society.

“Harry Potter” novels present diverse social groups within its fictional society, but instead of the cultural clashes typical for our society such as the differences between white and black people, between Muslims and Christians, the author creates her own conflicting social groups such as wizards, muggles and mudbloods (Paul 2014). The article notes that literature can help young people to develop tolerance by enforcing their diversity of imagination.

The author of the article mentions that the best and only way to destroy the unfriendly stereotypes and judgments is a long-term communication between the members of the confronting groups. To increase the time teenagers spend experiencing the issues of diversity this aspect is brought into the products of modern culture such as movies and books.

This subject is an applied example of developmental psychology in adolescence. This stage starts with the beginning of puberty and goes on for several years. During the period of adolescence children grow to learn about the social roles and statuses of adult people, their responsibilities and duties.

This is the stage when teenagers start forming their social opinions and identity and employ the morals and behaviors they believe are appropriate in various situations. This is why proper social education is highly important at this stage. It allows the adolescents to learn more about such important aspects as manners, etiquette, tact, tolerance, respect, trust, and reliability.

It is a well-known fact that adolescents tend to unite into groups and follow the same behavioral patterns. For the children of teen age, it is highly important to feel like they belong together with someone, that their experiences are shared by other members of their social groups.

The device employed by J. K. Rowling in her novels allows the adolescents reading these books to recognize the experiences they have been through, relate to the characters and learn from their behavior. The experience of being discriminated educates young readers about the importance of tolerance and makes them realize that behind all the differences people are still equal, this is why hostility and ignorance in a diverse society are not appropriate.

It is important to know that in the United States adolescence started to be seen as a separate stage of personal development only in the twentieth century (Belsky 2010).

For generations young people have been known for their hot temper, emotional behavior, quick and radical judgments and the tendency to rebel against the common social rules, although the scientists started to associate all of these behaviors and call them as one of stages of life fairly recently.

Today, developmental psychology pays quite a lot of attention to the emotional, mental and physical processes that happen during the period of adolescence and the changes they cause on a psychological level.

When the government first decided that all adolescent people should go to schools and receive proper education, this caused a massive effect. First of all, it very quickly created a serious educational gap between young people and their parents that never attended high schools.

Besides, it served as another reason for young people to unite into groups, spend more time together, with the people that shared their wave length and with whom they could find understanding and speak a common language. Finally, these small unions soon produced many different subcultures with their own beliefs, rules, dress codes, and attitudes.

Feeling alienated and misunderstood is very typical for teenagers. This feeling often becomes the reasons of rebellions and protests. Unusual clothes, bright makeup, loud music, smoking, and other provocative behaviors are the signals that a teenager is going through a stage of adolescence.

What is often perceived by adult people as “acting crazy” is a normal reaction of an adolescent brain to all the changes that happen to a person’s mind and body at this stage of life. Puberty raises the levels of hormones in the body. As a result, a teenager start to go through multiple new experiences that at the beginning of adolescence are simply shocking for the young persons.

Feeling lost and lonely the teenager starts to look for people that go through similar experiences. This is when literature and films start playing an important educational role for the adolescents.

Puberty throws the teenagers into a completely new world where they have to re-evaluate their social status, re-think their identity, form their morals and opinions. Teenagers badly need any possible help with distinguishing between what is right and what is wrong.

It is fascinating to notice that most of the contemporary novels popular among adolescents contain examples of diversity and confrontations between the representatives of different cultures, social classes, religions, and races. “Harry Potter” books by J. K. Rowling are, without a doubt, very skillful and beautiful, but not the only examples of the author using fantasy literature with educational purposes.

Among the most popular novels that fulfill the teenagers’ desire to understand the society around them and learn to deal with its diversity are “Twilight”, “The Hunger Games” and “The Mortal Instruments”. Te films based on this book help to carry out and spread their educational capacities.

Besides, contemporary cinema started to introduce more diversity into its products and emphasize the social and cultural diversity using including diverse groups of main characters and showing the ways they work through their differences, grow closer, learn to cooperate and develop genuine relationships and friendships.

To conclude, it is highly important that such an important aspect of modern life as social and cultural diversity is taught not only in schools but through the mass media and social media too. Learning about the society that surrounds us is a crucial part of the psychological development of an individual; this is why today the scholars, psychologists, and artists have united their efforts to deliver the message about the value of tolerance.

Reference List

Belsky, J. (2010). Experiencing the Lifespan. (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishing

Paul, A. M. (2014). Harry Potter Casts a Spell of Tolerance.

Rowling’s “Harry Potter” Books in Connection to Mythology

Harry Potter has become a legend for young adults worldwide. The Harry Potter phenomenon has gripped the hearts and minds of the readers with its magical and fantastic land. J.K. Rowling heavily draws upon classical mythology, myths, and folklores for the names and themes of the novels.

The essential element of the book is the creation of the mythical element of a magical world and the classical theme of a tension between two abstract concepts good and evil. The novels no doubt have references to ancient Greek, Roman, and Christian mythology. With reference to classical myths and a more modern, but fantastic hero is created through Harry Potter. Therefore, the question that this paper aims to answer is if Harry Potter is a hero in the classical sense. The thesis statement for the essay is that Harry Potter is an epic hero.

Harry Potter is the hero of the series of Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling. He is an orphaned boy and lived in a world away from his family. Like the Greek hero, Harry too has been removed from the family environment. This essentially allows the hero to act without the fear of being drawn back by evil through manipulations of his family life. Similarly, harry has been removed from his family and he grows up as an orphan in an unfriendly and hostile house of his Aunt and Uncle.

Harry Potter lives in a mythical world of magic and creatures from classical mythology like a unicorn, centaurs, trolls, mermaids, etc. Most of the myths in the Harry Potter series have their origin in the Greek or Roman mythologies. The classical hero is created from Gods and Goddesses who then transcend into human civilization. Rowling too creates a child hero based on the ancient mythological model. Heroes from the classical mythologies are usually descendants of someone important or powerful (Segal 14). This idea of a hero was first initiated by Rank (Rank, The myth of the birth of the hero: a psychological interpretation of mythology 68).

This model is the universally accepted cycle of life – birth, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. A classical hero is predestined by birth and is not a character that is acquired. Similarly, Rowling’s Harry Potter is a hero by birth, when he closely escapes death from the deadly blow of Lord Voldermort. The encounter leaves a scar on his forehead that establishes his constant connection to the Dark Lord.

Till he is nine, he is separated from the magical world and does not even know of its existence. In addition, it is common to find in classical mythology that during the pregnancy of the mother, there are oracles or divine dreams cautioning against the birth of the child (Segal 14). A similar episode is observed in Harry’s life when the oracle makes Voldermort look for the child who would bring his end. According to Rank and Dundes, a child hero is then reared by foster parents after he is orphaned and later he returns to the place of his birth and gains magical power to kill the evil force (Rank and Dundes 140).

Like many classical heroes like Hercules, Zeus, Apollo, etc. Harry Potter too almost killed by Lord Voldermort after his birth. However, he survives and is removed to a discrete place in the “muggle” world, away from the world of magic. This is similar to the classical accounts of the aforesaid Greek heroes. Therefore, the account of Harry Potter’s birth is similar to the myths of the birth of classical heroes.

Harry’s greatness is expressed at the very beginning of the novel, as he was able to repulse the death curse by Voldermort that transforms the latter into a formless entity. Voldermort had remained undefeated by most of the powerful wizards of the time, and a mere child succeeded in it. A prophecy is foretold that states that harry will be the vehicle of the end for Voldermort in the most quintessential classical genre.

A classical hero is of strong moral fiber with honorable conduct and strong ethics sense. He is the possessor of boundless courage and stands as a role model for society. Similarly, Harry Potter adopts these moral and ethical characters and shows human qualities that are essentially missing in those who are evil. Thus, Harry shows loyalty, moral ethics, and love and care for others that are constantly reemphasized throughout the novels.

Therefore harry shows compassion and camaraderie for the weak and the neglected others like Ron hailing from a respected but poor wizarding family, Hermione who was ‘muggle born’, Neville Longbottom, Luna, Hagrid, etc. one such example is seen in the case of the fourth book, The Prisoner of Azkaban where Harry befriends the new defense against dark arts teacher Lupin, even though others make fun of him. Harry understands the meaning of poverty, himself having spent half in life in want of many desired objects. Therefore harry assumes the role of a perfect mythical hero.

A hero returns to his own land when he reaches adulthood (Campbell 287). Harry returns to the magical world when he is nine, the age when he enters the wizarding school Hogwarts. Like all classical heroes, Harry has power in his wand and he emerges from obscurity. The villains in all classical mythologies are power-hungry tyrants, established in a seat of power, whose doom lies in his arrogance (Campbell 289).

Like most classical villains, Lord Voldermort appears to be a classical villain who is proud of his own power that he assumes to be his own while neglecting the greater more powerful nature of magic itself. Harry emerging from the muggle world brings in the secret formula for the destruction of Voldermort. Such heroes can be found in nursery tales of Jack the Beanstalk where jack slays the giant that is similar to the tales of heroes like Herakles and Theseus (Campbell 292). Harry is the warrior hero who kills monsters like the giant Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and kills the Horcruxes, till, in the end, he kills Voldermort himself.

Heroes are often described in classical mythologies as lovers (Campbell 293). In The Chamber of Secrets, Harry rescues Ginny, with whom he eventually falls in love and marries (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). This demonstrates the classical character of a hero who saves his love from the villain. In the case of Harry, Ginny was taken in by Tom Riddle’s diary, the young Voldermort’s evil creation where he had hidden a part of his soul. Therefore, by saving Ginny, Harry shows another trait of a classical hero.

Harry was a fitting image of his father and mother. Harry’s parents were members of the Order of the Phoenix, the group that fought against the dark forces. Therefore, they were heroes in their own part. Harry grew up more like his father, with his looks and habits, but he had the sensibility of his mother. The series shows through mythical encounters that Harry and James Potter were one.

In the book, The Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry is rescued by his own Patronus, but he mistakes himself to be James Potter (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Therefore, Harry’s resemblance is emphasized in the book, wherein Harry mistakes himself to be his father. Therefore, Harry becomes the image of his father in physical as well as to conduct.

A hero in the classical myth is found to be going through a series of riddle guessing journeys in order to reach the oppressor and bring forth his end (Raglan 191). A hero is found to come across various choices that actually show the difference between the good and evil in the myths. In case of Harry, during his initiation at Hogwarts, he did not want to be in Slytherin, and so the Sorting Hat put him to Gryffindor (Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. ).

Therefore, this episode emphasizes the desire of the Hero to choose the right way. Further, through Harry’s journey through the six years of his life in the magical world, Harry gradually learns of the various ways and secrets of the magical world and absorbs them in order to kill Voldermort. Harry with the help of his two friends Ron and Hermione are found to solve riddles in order to reach Voldermort. Rowling uses the real name of Voldermort to be Tom Riddle indicative of the riddles that encompass the evil villain, who himself was a great wizard.

Harry Potter is an epic hero. He has the classic traits of a hero from classical mythology and a show how he transforms from a non-significant entity in the real world, is transcends to become a hero in the magical world. The use of classical themes, motifs, and creatures help in creating a mystifying world of harry Potter where he excels as a hero in the classical sense. Further the classical epic concept of a morally upright hero slaying the evil demon is revisited in harry Potter that makes him a complete epic hero.

Works Cited

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2008. Print.

Raglan, Lord. The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. London: Courier Dover Publications, 2003. Print.

Rank, Otto and Alan Dundes. In quest of the hero. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Print.

Rank, Otto. The myth of the birth of the hero: a psychological interpretation of mythology. NA: Forgotten Books, 1952. Print.

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury, 1999. Print.

—. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997. Print.

—. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999. Print.

Segal, Robert Alan. Hero myths: a reader. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2000. Print.

“Harry Potter” Movie and Novel: Plot Changes

Abstract

The changes of the plot throughout the movie in comparison with the original novel are disturbing watchers since the times of cinema appearing and performance of the derivative movies. Sometimes these changes are rather surprising and innovative by the writer, who assisted the scriptwriter. But often, these changes are rather disappointing, and the movie director is not able to pass the moods and surroundings of the epoch, relations showed in the handiwork. (Ash, 2003)

Harry Potter is a unique novel, as almost all the published books had been performed and rolled. Only ingenious books by genius writers had been subjected to such honour. Performance of all the 5 books (and planned performance of the sixth and seventh novels) is undoubtedly a significant occasion in the cinema and literary world.

Introduction

Since the publicizing of his first adventure, Harry Potter has outlined more incongruity both amongst parents and others who usually solve what their children need to read and among the researchers than any other children’s book in current memory. This may be as J. K. Rowling has done somewhat innovative and joined a number of the “rules” of the incredible. (Griesinger, 2002)

To start with, she has left the imaginary into the real. She has dumped the kingdom of traditional fantasy and laid her story in nowadays England, rather than in the fantasy and medieval flavoured bizarre world of Middle Earth or Earth Sea, or even the world of Alan Garner’s The Owl Service where the magic is a residue, a revenant, of antique and influential legend. There are no weapons in this sorcery. Rowling offers the being of witches and magicians in the world we live in here and now in a way that is bothering to those who like their planet to stay motionless. (Nel, 2002)

In Harry’s world, almost nothing stays still. The objects in photographs and oil pictures move about; the latter irregularly leave their frameworks completely to visit other pictures. The location for most of the books’ action, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is charmed so that it cannot be planed on a map, and its building is unstable: “There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Hogwarts: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump” (Sorcerer’s Stone, 131). It is as if Rowling is depicting to the readers from the start: Don’t think that anything would stay still. Don’t expect things to be what you’re used to or even what you might approve of.

Thus far, the initial five novels have been performed into a series of motion pictures by Warner Bros. The sixth, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince began filming in September 2007, with a scheduled release of 21 November 2008.

Background of the research

The background research here includes the collection of any material devoted both to the books and to the screen versions.

The books mainly avoid locating the story in an exacting real year; though, there are a few notions, which simplify the definition of the exact date when this or that book takes place. Thus the timeline is adequately stated in Chamber of Secrets, in which Nearly-Headless Nick noted that it was the five-hundredth centenary of his death on October 31, 1492; thus, Chamber of Secrets takes place from 1992 to 1993.

This chronology was again repeated in Deathly Hallows, in which the date of death on James and Lily Potter’s tombstone is October 31, 1981. Thus, as Harry was a year old at the time of his parents’ killing, his year of birth is 1980, and the main action of the story originates from 1991 (the second chapter of Philosopher’s Stone) to 1998 (the end of Deathly Hallows). The dates are not stated in the movies, but some of them flow a bit unmentioned and lost in the details of the plot. Though it is rather difficult to follow the year, when the story takes place, movie watchers may follow the changes and move into adulthood of the beloved characters. (Nel, 2002)

The series of books is the following:

  1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (26 June 1997) (titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States).
  2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998).
  3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999).
  4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000).
  5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003).
  6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005).
  7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007).

As for the movies, the first five books have only been performed by the moment. The analysis of these five books and their screen versions is the main goal of the paper.

The themes of the book are different from the themes of the movie.

According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is the theme of death. She says:

My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry’s parents. There is Voldemort’s obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We’re all frightened of it.

Rowling has stated that the books comprise “a prolonged argument for forbearance, a protracted appeal for an end to prejudice” and that also pass on communication to “question authority and… not suppose that the organization or the press tells you all of the truth”. (Whited, 2002)

While the books could be said to include many other topics, such as power/ abuse of power, love, bigotry, and choice, they are, as J.K. Rowling states, “profoundly entrenched in the whole plot”; the writer prefers to let themes “grow organically”, rather than sitting down and purposely trying to instruct such ideas to her readers. Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction Rowling has been determined in recognizing her characters’ sexualities and not leaving Harry, as she put it, “stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence”. (Cohan, 2005)

Rowling said that, to her, the ethical implication of the tales seems “blindingly understandable.” The key for her was the alternative between what is right and what is easy, “like that, that is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble.”

The themes of the movie do not differ from ones in the novels, but their representation is a matter of separate discussion. The themes depicted in the movie are usually accepted by the watcher differently from the ones in a book, as word lines are realized individually on personal perception, and the movie director aims to emphasize all the necessary details by means of some objects mimics of the characters, phrases etc. But if the main theme of the novel is the relations among students of Hogwarts, the movie reduces this point, and the first place among themes is occupied by the adventures and solving of the appearing problems by Harry Ron and Hermione and their friends in Hogwarts. (Berg, 2006)

Research question

The facts that are composing the essence of the research question may be found only after a thorough reading of the novels and watching the movies. But it is necessary to mention that the changes in the adaptation version are inevitable. The challenge for a filmmaker is to condense the source texts in a way that retains the central experience or meanings of the original. For example, Jackson (“Lord of the rings”) and his crew make simpler the dispute at the Council of Elrond, but they distil the essence of the scene–we glimpse Boromir’s half-covered objectives for the ring and Frodo’s troubled but courageous conclusion to bear the ring himself.

Columbus’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone does not thrive as well as Jackson’s film, although it does at period hit its mark – as when, for example, Harry goes straight from Diagon Alley to Platform 9 3/4 (in the novel, he goes back to the Dursleys first). This delayed acknowledgement of his magical skills may seem an insignificant point, but miniature details like these combine over the route of the film plot. (Berg, 2006)

Research objective

The research objective for the paper is to define the changes in the interest level by means of comparing the original novels and their screen adaptation. This research would be useful either for philologists or for actors, performers and scriptwriters to take into account the experience of adaptation sequel novels.

Hypothesis

Surely, new electronic equipment has made what we usually call loyalty to the thoughts probable in new ways, well outside earlier simulation technologies and special effects. The many new versions of fantasy literature are, debatably, the consequence of these technological breakthroughs. One of the key clichés of film adaptation theory is that spectators are more demanding of loyalty when dealing with the classics – with the work of Shakespeare or Dickens, for example. But a whole new set of what we might call popular cult classics – the classics of fantasy–are now being made visible and audible in the movie theatre. And the readers of classic cult writers are likely to be just as challenging of film adaptations as are the admirers of the more customary classics.

What occurs when these readers see their preferred books depicted on-screen according to someone else’s thoughts? The reply can be found anywhere in the audience responses to the current adaptations of The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter novels. (Ash, 2003)

Methodology

The methodology of writing the paper is the collection of data from various sources. It is rather difficult to find all the inconsistencies; that is why the collection of the information by means of looking through the reviews and annotations to the books and movies may be regarded as the best methodology of writing this paper. As for the definition of the interest level and its comparison between the book and the, it depends only on the personal preferences of every particular reader. The key point of defining this difference in interest level is the fact, what admirer likes most: either to stay alone with the characters of the story/movie, or to invite friends to the cinema, or for watching the movie on the DVD with the whole company. (Cohan, 2005)

Data collection and analysis

Some changes appear to be rather successful, in spite they deviate from the original plot. Thus, in the third novel, “The prisoner of Azkaban”, the following changes may be regarded as successful. But the rearranging and shortening of the plot often lead to disappointment. Thus, for example:

  • Harry’s Broom: In the book, Harry did not get the broom, but at the end of the movie, and ride off into the sunset. He got the broom just after his first Quidditch match (his Nimbus 2000 was shattered when he was attacked by the dementors), and Professor McGonagall kept the new broom to have it experimented.
  • Fidelis Charm: This charm was portrayed in detail in the book as a type of magical protection; this was not shown in the movie.
  • Hogsmeade Trips: only one trip to Hogsmeade is shown in the movie, unlike the book describes two trips.
  • Hogsmeade Scene: The scene outside Hogsmeade in the book includes Ron being intimidated by Draco and Harry, unseen, covering him with sludge. Harry’s cloak slips, Draco sees his face, and Harry has to run back to the castle in order to not be banished. He meets up with Snape but is saved by Lupin. In the movie, this is altered to a winter scene, with Draco, Crabbe, and another student intimidating Ron and Hermione and Harry pelting the three of them with snowballs. In a later, different scene, Harry is walking the castle at night and is wedged by Snape and rescued by Lupin.
  • Harry’s School books: In the book, Harry gets his reproduction of the Monster book by owl post from Hagrid, down with the newspaper clipping of the Weasleys staying in Egypt, which demonstrates Scabbers, anniversary cards and the sneak scope. Later on, he is free to roam Diagon Alley to get other books etc. In the movie, it is fake at the Leaky Cauldron who has arranged his book list, and it is there at the Leaky Cauldron where Harry gets to see the implicating newspaper cutting and has the occurrence with the book.
  • Time Move Cycle: In the novel, Harry and Hermione are tremendously cautious not to interrelate with their past selves, yet in the movie, Hermione chucks rocks at the past Harry and Hermione, and she comments about her hair.
  • Hermione Slaps Draco: In the film, Hermione slaps Draco when she is on her way to Hagrid’s shed with Harry and Ron, though in the book, this scene happens when the trio is on their way back to the Castle with Hagrid after a Care of supernatural beings lesson.
  • Snape’s Tirade about Harry’s Father: In the novel, Professor Snape treats Harry to an outburst about how Harry’s father was an agitator at school, but this moment is not featured in the film.
  • Professor Trelawney’s Forecast: In the movie, Professor Trelawney constructs real predictions when Harry is returning a crystal ball to her after class, but in the book, this forecast occurs at the end of Harry’s Foretelling ending.

Magical Classes

  • Care of Magical Beings: Only Harry and Draco are seen contacting Buckbeak in the film, while in the novel, several other students try to do with the Hippogriff.
  • Snape’s Potions Classes: All potions lessons were cut from the movie. Snape does alternate for Lupin, where he allocates the paper on werewolves.
  • Transfiguration: All transformation classes are cut.
  • Neville’s Boggart: In the book, during a Protection against the Dark Arts lesson, Professor Lupin asks Neville to illustrate his grandmother’s clothes detail, yet in the film, he tells Neville he doesn’t let Neville describe the details.

At the Dursleys

  • Harry Studying: When the book starts, Harry is writing a paper on witch-burning, yet when the movie starts, Harry is practising magic (Lumos) under the covers.

Quidditch

  • Tournament: There is only one Quidditch match in the film, the Hufflepuff/Gryffindor one, and the eventual winning of the Quidditch cup is not shown, while the book discusses all three Quidditch matches. They are described in chapters 9 (Grim defeat), 13 (Gryffindor vs Ravenclaw) and 15 (The Quidditch Final).

Relations

  • Harry and Cho: There is no mention of Harry’s squash on Cho in this film, but there is in the book.
  • Ron and Hermione: While there is no hint of potential relations in the book, there is in the film when Ron and Hermione hold hands in a Care of Magical Creatures Class and at The Shrieking Shack.

Swapped or Changed Quotes

  • Ron agrees with Snape: In the book, when Snape calls Hermione an “insufferable no-it-all,” Ron defends Hermione, yet in the movie, Ron agrees with Snape’s comment.
  • Draco and Buckbeak: Draco does not refer to Buckbeak as “that bloody chicken” in the book.
  • Draco’s threats: Only in the movie does Draco threaten to get even with “that jumped-up mud blood” when Hermione punches him.
  • Dumbledore’s ignorance: Dumbledore does not pretend as though he had no idea what happened when Hermione and Harry return from the time turner trip in the book; however, he does in the movie.

But in the case of taken off phrases, these modifications usually improve the story. Thus, some phrases depict insignificant details, the disclosure and realization of which could have taken additional air time.

Some additions to the film played their own role in the development of the plot. Here they are

Film Additions

  • Shrunken heads that appeared in the Three Broomsticks and the Knight Bus
  • The frog choir singing at Hogwarts.

(data collected by means of the interviews with fans of the novel)

It’s in the details the gathering of minor details can generate a noticeably different understanding among books and films, which may clarify why the students who read the novel first were so critical of the film. The movie looks like the places in the book, but it doesn’t “feel” like them because these little details accumulate. To turn to another example, Dumbledore’s sense of humour stays concealed until the very end of the film when, at Harry’s hospital bed, he chooses an earwax-flavoured jelly bean. In the book, his unusual wit appears earlier and more frequently: At the opening dinner, Dumbledore says, “Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words.

And here they are, Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!”. The film excludes these amusing farces and also deducts Harry’s asking Dumbledore what he observes in the Mirror of Erised. The headmaster replies, “I see myself holding a pair of thick, woollen socks”. As a result, the Dumbledore of the film more closely resembles Tolkien’s Gandalf. While Gandalf and British author T.H. White’s Merlin are literary antecedents of Rowling’s headmaster, the film emphasizes Dumbledore’s serious side. A sense of humour may be a minor detail in and of itself, but it is the kind of detail that, over the course of the film, distorts the original character in ways that inspire criticism from fans of the book. (Purse, 2007)

Columbus is steadily checked with Rowling to make sure he was implementing the little details in the film correct. Kloves explained the film as being “really realistic” to the book. He added some conversation, which Rowling approved of. One of the lines initially comprised had to be removed after Rowling told him that it would directly contradict an event in the formerly non-realized Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Even so, as with most of the book to film changes, there are dissimilarities between the plot of the film and the original source material. The first chapter of the book starts from the viewpoint of Vernon and Petunia Dursley in the days leading up to them being given Harry to look after, underlining how Muggles respond to magic. The film parts this, starting with Hagrid leaving Harry with the Dursley’s. Next, a month of Harry’s summer, including several of Vernon’s efforts to escape the repeatedly inward Hogwart’s letters, is cut from the film. Some incongruity amid Harry and Draco, taking into account their first meeting in Madam Malkin’s covering gown shop, is not taken into account.

The personality of Piers Polkiss is cut, and some of Nicolas Flamel’s role is changed or cut generally. Norbert is cited for having been taken away by Dumbledore in the movie, whilst the book sees Harry and Hermione have to take him by hand to friends of Charlie Weasley. Rowling described the scene as “the one part of the book that she felt [could easily] be changed.” As such, the motive for the custody in the Forbidden Forest is also distorted.

In the novel, Harry and Hermione are put in custody for getting caught by Filch when they departed only after hours (so do Malfoy and Neville for obstructing with the circumstances), while in the film, Harry, Ron, and Hermione (as is Draco Malfoy for being out after hours despite his “admirable intentions”) are put in imprisonment as Malfoy caught them in Hagrid’s hut after hours.

The Sorting Hat’s song is taken away, as is Snape’s potion puzzle task on the way to the limestone. Imaginary changes included both Aunt Petunia and Dudley being made dark-haired, and Firenze, who in the book is explained as being palomino with light blonde hair, is exposed to be dark in the film. Moreover, the Quidditch field is distorted from a customary stadium to an open field circled by viewer seats.

Limitation and weakness

The limitation of such data collection is the potential inattentiveness of the researcher. One could miss some detail or interpret it in the wrong way. But as for the adaptation theory, novels are frequently adapted for films. For the most part, these adaptations attempt either to appeal to an existing commercial audience (the adaptation of best sellers and the “prestige” adaptation of works) or to tap into the innovation and novelty of a less well-known author. Inevitably, the question of “faithfulness” arises, and the more high profile the source novel, the more insistent is the questions of fidelity.

The child actors, moreover, who often seemed at sea in the early films, are children no longer and much improved as a result. Rupert Grint’s Ron Weasley and Emma Watson’s Hermione tend to hit a single note but hit it well, while a find named Evanna Lynch steals every scene she’s in as the delightfully touched-in-the-head Luna Lovegood. Best of all is Daniel Radcliffe, who at first barely registered as Harry but who has steadily grown up into the role, which he inhabits with the strenuous, sinewy intensity of someone girding himself for the darker days ahead. (Reider, 2005)

Thus, all the changes in the plot are made to attract as many audiences as possible. And it is commonly known that successful box movies sacrifice quality to profit.

But, as it is known about the preperformance efforts, Steven Spielberg initially negotiated to direct the film, he declined the offer. He wanted the adaptation to be an animated film, with American actor Haley Joel Osment to provide Harry Potter’s voice. Spielberg contended that, in his opinion, there was every expectation of profit in making the film and that making money would have been like “shooting ducks in a barrel. It’s just a slam dunk. It’s just like withdrawing a billion dollars and putting it into your personal bank accounts.

This fact has been included in the limitations chapter, as animated variants would attract cartoon admirers, and it is necessary to point out that cartoons with more than 2 (3) sequels are losing their popularity to every following series. The movie is not able to realize the sceneries that cartoon is able, but IT solves this problem, and there is almost nothing impossible for the movie director. (McFarlane, 1996)

The third film in the phenomenal Harry Potter franchise arrives under the helm of a new director, Mexican-born Cuarón, and his magic touch transforms the series into something altogether wondrous. Cuarón’s dark, quirky and strikingly original sensibility is 180 degrees different from that of Chris Columbus, the family-friendly helmer who directed the first two Potter movies, and he was the perfect choice for Azkaban, which takes the story into more complex territory.

But the real improvement is the firm way Cuarón and writer Kloves have streamlined Rowling’s Azkaban story down to its essence, creating a muscular narrative with real momentum that packs great emotional resonance. Potter purists may quibble with the changes, but Azkaban feels like the first Potter adaptation that is truly a movie, not a slavish imitation of a book.

Suggestions for improvement

Everyone who sees films based on novels feels capable of making remarks, at heights ranging from the gossipy to the learned, on the nature and achievement of the adaptation included. That is, the concentration in addition, unlike many other substances to do with film, is not a complex one. And it ranges rearwards and frontwards from those who talk of books as being ‘betrayed’ by impolite film-creators to those who observe the performance of comparing film and narration as a waste of time. (McFarlane, 1996)

The film-creators themselves have been sketching on literary bases, and particularly novels of varying degrees of cultural status since the film first stated itself as pre-eminently an accounting medium. In view of this fact, and given that there has been a long-running discussion on the nature of the relations between film and writing, it is shocking how little systematic, continued concentration has been given to the procedures of adaptation.

This is the more astonishing since the issue of alteration has magnetized critical concentration for more than sixty years in a way that few other film-narrated matters have. Writers across a wide critical range have found the subject mesmerizing: newspaper and journal reviews almost invariably offer judgment between a film and its literary precursor; from fan magazines to more or less scholarly books, one finds reflections on the incidence of adaptation; works serious and trivial, complex and simple, early and recent, address themselves to various aspects of this phenomenon almost as old as the institution of the cinema. (McFarlane, 1996)

Consequently, the only suggestion maybe not to perform novels that would possibly lose from the adaptation. As it has been stated several times throughout the paper, the apprehension of the book is exclusively personal, and the movie director may satisfy the audience only with beautiful special effects, sceneries and so on, but not the development of the plot. (McFarlane, 1996)

Conclusion

I don’t envy anyone the task of adapting a Harry Potter novel for the screen; it’s a thankless assignment that I wouldn’t take on if you paid me. Well, all right, maybe I’d do it if you paid me… and okay, I’d probably do it for free… and fine, maybe I’d empty out my savings and pay you for the privilege. (Warner Brothers, are you listening?) But the original point stands. J. K. Rowling’s novels are well-nigh unadaptable, and the proof is in the pudding.

Of the five Potter films to date, only Alfonso Cuaron’s Prisoner of Azkaban has soared more than a broomstick-length above the pedestrian or conjured up enough cinematic magic to rival its beloved source material.

Rowling’s books succeed by blending a host of different genres: Her fantasy landscape is closer to C. S. Lewis’s Narnia than Tolkien’s Middle-Earth, a mythological pastiche more than a proper sub-creation, and she takes the pastiche further than even Lewis did, filtering the fantasy through a Tom Brown’s Schooldays setting and a red-herring-strewn, Agatha Christie-style of plotting. In a big, baggy book, this comes off marvellously, but it’s murder on a screenwriter. You can be faithful to Rowling’s originals and find yourself losing any chance of narrative thrust in the subplot-strewn sprawl of her wizarding world, or you can compress the story and gain the momentum that cinema requires while sacrificing all the flourishes and complications that make the books worthwhile.

This dilemma has impaled every Potter movie so far. The hackish Chris Columbus, of Home Alone fame, chose the slavishly faithful approach in the first two films, turning out lifeless, ponderous white elephants that felt like the most expensive school plays ever mounted. Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell took the other tack, with more success, but Newell’s Goblet of Fire, while lively, showed the strain of compressing Rowling’s ever-more-complex universe to fit a multiplex-friendly 150-minute running time.

Talking about the success of the movies, “Order of Phoenix” is one of the most arguable. Although it is not a great movie, it is a pretty good one, in part because it does not strain to overwhelm the audience with noise and sensation.

There are some wonderful special-effects-aided set-pieces – notably an early broomstick flight over London – and some that are less so. People waving wands at one another, even accompanied by bright lights and scary sounds, does not quite sate this moviegoer’s appetite for action. But the production design (by Stuart Craig) and the cinematography (by Slawomir Idziak) are frequently astonishing in their aptness and sophistication. The interiors of the Ministry of Magic offer a witty, nightmarish vision of wizardly bureaucracy, while Harry’s angst and loneliness register in Idziak’s cold, washed-out shades of blue.

Even better, the Potter enterprise has become a breeding ground for the next generation of British acting talent. Radcliffe has already spread his wings (and dropped his pants) on the London stage, and cultural pessimists of my generation can take comfort in knowing that while our parents may have witnessed Malcolm McDowell and Julie Christie in their prime, our children will see Grint and Watson in theirs. “Order of the Phoenix” also introduces Evanna Lynch, a pale, wide-eyed 15-year-old nonprofessional from Ireland who, having read the book, decided that no one else could play Luna Lovegood, the weirdest witch at Hogwarts.

It seems Lynch was right. She’s spellbinding. Indeed as the series progresses, each book gets progressively longer, developing along with the reader’s literary abilities. A word-count comparison shows how each book, save the sixth, is longer than its predecessor, requiring greater concentration and longer attention spans to complete. This fact in itself can be seen as contributory to improved literary abilities in children who tackle the series.

Acknowledgement

The author expresses gratitude to all the philologists who devoted their researches to the Harry Potter novel and noticed all the possible inconsistencies between the book and the movie. Additional thanks to all my friends, who agreed to participate in the interview and help me with the systematization of the data analysis chapter. Thanks to all the fans of this masterpiece for not staying indifferent to writing this significant paper

References

Ash, Timothy Garton. “The Banality of the Good; Ignore the Sceptics: The Real Europe Is Foreign-Language Schools in Oxford and Flights to Rome for [Pounds Sterling]4.99. and It Is Deeply Americanised.” New Statesman 2003: 12.

Berg, Charles Ramirez. “A Taxonomy of Alternative Plots in Recent Films: Classifying the “Tarantino Effect”.” Film Criticism 31.1-2 (2006): 5.

Cohan, Steven, and Ina Rae Hark, eds. The Road Movie Book. London: Routledge, 2005.

Frank, Andrew J., and Matthew T. Mcbee. “The Use of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone to Discuss Identity Development with Gifted Adolescents.” Journal of Secondary Gifted Education 15.1 (2003): 33.

Griesinger, Emily. “Harry Potter and the “Deeper Magic”: Narrating Hope in Children’s Literature.” Christianity and Literature 51.3 (2002): 455.

McFarlane, Brian. Novel to Film: An Introduction to the Theory of Adaptation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.

Nel, Philip. “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bored: Harry Potter, the Movie.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 46.2 (2002): 172.

Purse, Lisa. “Digital Heroes in Contemporary Hollywood: Exertion, Identification, and the Virtual Action Body.” Film Criticism 32.1 (2007): 5.

Reider, Noriko T. “Spirited Away: Film of the Fantastic and Evolving Japanese Folk Symbols.” Film Criticism 29.3 (2005): 4.

Schutten, Julie Kalil. “Invoking Practical Magic: New Social Movements, Hidden Populations, and the Public Screen.” Western Journal of Communication 70.4 (2006): 331.

Whited, Lana A., ed. The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2002.

J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and Its Popularity

Introduction

Children’s books have been considered to be one of the most enduring forms of literature that have stood the test of time. Although considered as a late comer to the literature game, children’s stories have served a purpose from the day the first child based story was told verbally to the youth. It was an imaginative way that those before us thought of in order to warn children about the dangers of life without actually scaring them. For example, the story of “Little Red Riding Hood”, if analyzed properly, can be seen as carrying the message of the dangers of talking to strangers or, if you want to get deeper into it, the story explains, in child understandable terms, the dangers of pedophilia. In Harry Potter’s case, it is all about handling adolescent related bullying and unexpected responsibilities that forces a child to grow up sooner than he is prepared to. It is a theme that most children today can easily identify with.

Main body

It is because of the uniform content and constantly relevant themes of the children’s stories that have allowed it to endure the test of time. From the biblical stories of Adam and Eve to the current craze in the Twilight book series, readers seem to be united by literature. However, there seems to be a growing shift within the children’s literature movement that proposes to change the way we view children’s books ever since J.K. Rowling first laid her pen to paper and developed an unbelievable tale of reality based in fantasy called Harry Potter.

Through her Harry Potter book series, J.K. Rowling started a trend that bucked the historical aspect of children’s books by weaving together a story line that is so involving and interesting that her stories have come to be shared not only by children, but by their parents alike. It is this enigma that has cemented the place of her Harry Potter book series in the history of children’s literature. What are the reasons behind the intense popularity and unwaivering interest in the book series? Through this paper, I hope to analyze the popularity of the series and try to explain what has turned the books series into a modern classic of our times.

When reading the Harry Potter book series, it is hard for one to imagine that it had developed in the author’s mind during a 4 hour stop at an airport. With it’s mystical beings and magical characters, Ms. Rowling has often admitted that it was not easy for her to start writing the story. After all, she was newly divorced with a child on hand and living on welfare at the time. She even disguised her name for fear that boys would not read her book if they found out it was written by a woman. However, my research indicates that part of the popularity of the book series stems not only from the way Ms. Rowling told the imaginative tale of the boy who would fulfill a prophecy but rather from the fact that it was publicized by the Bloomsbury publishing firm as a must have book for children. A move that was emphasized by the tight security that Ms. Rowling demanded the publishers accord the book prior to publication (BBC, 2004).

By insuring the secrecy surrounding the release of the books, and allowing for long delays between book publications later on, the children’s interest in the ongoing story was tweaked and peaked. Just like any child favorite, children across the world were swept into the Harry mania that stretched throughout the publication of the book series and now extends all the way to the release of the movies that also share the same secrecy and “wait for the product” promotional tool that makes the “on-demand” generation simply clamor for more. Of course the highly imaginative “Hogwarts” themed book launches created a realism for the child reader’s that created long term memory association with the book series, a promotional ploy that many of the books that followed took to as well.

The book has continued to endear itself to new fans ten years after “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was released because, just like the early children’s books, it appealed to a set of readers who are only beginning to realize that books come in genre’s. By engrossing its readers in a mystery, fantasy, and adventure tale, Ms. Rowling managed to tell a story that adult readers seemingly points to a satire on society while children view it as a wondrous adventure for their ages. Indeed, her original take on such a complex tale, made child friendly is one of the reasons it remains to be a child favorite. Admittedly, Harry Potter is a world wide brand name aside from being a piece of historical children’s literature. However, through proper branding and promotions, the book will seemingly live on for generations to come as new generations of readers are born every single day.

While looking up other reasons that had to do with the popularity of the book series that was not related to its long term financial success, I found that that Harry Potter actually brought people together into a much closer relationship based upon common interest. This is a reaction that most families seem to share when it comes to the enjoyment they get out of the book series. We have parents who buy the book and have reading dates with their own children, dinner table discussions serve as a venue to analyze the content of the book and possible meaning of the stories, and even, helps parents understand what their own children are currently experiencing in their lives. In other words, Harry Potter has a long term psychological impact upon the readers as well. (Braveman, 2007).

In a way the Harry Potter book series has an enduring legacy as that one book that managed to close the generation gap between kids and teen, and teens and adults. It is a story that later on their lives, they can share with their own children or grandchildren and relive the magic of it all once again. A trait that all the popular children’s stories have shared since time immemorial.

However, we must also look into the aspect of society that disagrees with the enduring legacy that the book series has presented because of what they term to be atheist beliefs of the author which could severely impact the views and ideas of generations of children to come. 67 year old atheist professor Richard Dawkins argues that the book series teaches children to become “unscientific” in outlook and should have an effect on the children who grew up believing in spells and wizards ( Daily Mail, 2008). In a quote from the article, he speaks of how children’s stories had affected his childhood life:

Looking back to my own childhood, the fact that so many of the stories I read allowed the possibility of frogs turning into princes, whether that has a sort of insidious affect on rationality, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s something for research.

He points out something very true that can be found in all the children’s literature through the ages, each story told has an enduring effect on the life of the reader. The way the story touches the child’s life and how he chooses to apply the lesson learned in his future life shows the direct relation between the timelessness of a child’s tale, such as Harry Potter, and the life of a child. In the case of Harry Potter, all the misunderstoof misfits of this generation have a hero to look up to who actually not only improved his lot in life, but actually contributed to making a significant change in the world he lived in. Something that we all look forward to doing or ambition to do in our daily, average lives.

The Harry Potter series encourages the readers to immerse themselves in a mythical world that provokes the readers to think while being entertained. It lures a child to imagine an experience as he reads the words on the pages and at times, begs us to question the reality of tolerance and the differences between one another in both positive and negative aspects. These are lessons that are far too complex for a child to learn or understand on his own. But, through the lifetime of the Harry Potter books, parents and teachers alike shall have a highly effective tool by which to teach the rules of tolerance, solidarity, and kinship amongst one another. These are the lessons within the story that further promote the series as an enduringly popular book series.

Finally, we come to one of the most enduring reasons as to why the Harry Potter book series continues to enjoy immense popularity, as well as becoming an almost permanent fixture in debate topics. Harry Potter has a highly satisfying psychological effect on the readers. Not all the endings for the characters in the series are happy. It deals with the normal progression of life told in a way that is not horrifying nor condescending of the reader.

J.K. Rowling, in all her imagination helps a child to understand that the progression of life is a normal change that occurs in any world that one can imagine to exist. From childhood, Harry goes on a quest that takes him on a journey of self discovery, understanding of his heritage, and what it means to become an adult. Throughout all his trials and tribulations, he shows that he both a human being who makes mistakes and a wizard who has the power to change some things, but not everything because there are simply things in life that one cannot alter.

Harry Potter will forever be a popular child character in the history of children’s literature because he is not solely based upon fantasy. His life and a majority of his trials are based upon real world experiences. Experiences that future generations of children will continue to undergo and need to understand how to deal with. If all else fails in helping a child understand and adjust, maybe a dose of the life and times of Harry Potter will help place him on the right track.

Conclusion

I know that in the future, there will be more writer’s who will mimick the writing style of J.K. Rowling. They may even come up with better stories and characters who will reflect the life and times of their era. When that time comes, these writers will look back on their times of childhood past and recall with great fondness that their imagination and desire to create imaginative storylines was greatly influenced by the book series called Harry Potter and the highly descriptive writing style of its author, J.K. Rowling.

These are the truly endearing reasons as to why J.K. Rowling and her Harry Potter book series shall have left a long enduring legacy on children’s literature and books for forthcoming generations to come.

Work Cited

“Atheist Richard Dawkins Warns Harry Potter Could Have ‘Negative Effect On children’”. MailOnline. 2008. Web.

Braveman, Emura. “Why Everybody’s Wild About Harry”. 2007. Web.

Granger, John. ” The hidden Key To Harry Potter: Understanding The Meaning, Genius, And Popularity of Joanna Rowling’s Harry Potter Novels”. Journal Of Religion And Popular Culture. 2003. Web.

O’Brien, Michael. “Harry Potter And The Paganization Of Children’s Culture”. Catholic Education Resource Center. 2001. Web.

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Tancer, Bill. “Life After Potter, Bonanza, And Gunsmoke”. Time. 2007. Web.

Thompson, Bob. “Harry Potter And The Future Of Children’s Books”. Washingtonpost. 2007. Web.

Fantasy Works: “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and “Harry Potter”

The introduction

The fundamentals of the books

While comparing children’s books, I would like you to become familiar with the history of their appearance. Thus, the first book I want to discuss is The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe written by famous novelist C. S. Lewis. It should be pointed out that a fantasy novel was written in the early fifties. Generally, I would like to state that the plot of the novel is to be considered in relation to socialization issues.

The second book I want to analyze is Harry Potter. This book is of the same genre as the previous one. It is a fantasy novel written by J. K. Rowling. Generally, there are seven books written about the adventures of a wizard – Harry Potter. In my opinion, the key themes of the novel seem to be culture, identity and power.

The body

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

There is a need to consider the importance of each book in detail.

Let’s start from the novel written in 1950. I would like to draw the readers’ attention to the fact that Lewis’s book can be analyzed from different perspectives.

For instance, the list of the characters the author provides us with, gives us an opportunity to suppose that there are the gender roles the novelist created, which form the children’s views in relation to the basic characteristics both sexes should possess. In other words, one can make a conclusion that sex differences in the novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe seem to be one of the most important themes, which should be analyzed.

So, the main characters the author describes in his book are Lucy Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Susan Pevensie, Peter Pevensie, The White Witch, Tumnus, The Professor, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Maugrim, Father Christmas, Mrs. Macready, and Giant Rumblebuffin. Generally, Lewis said that the main character of his story was Peter Pevensie.

In my opinion, this character seems to be special, as his intentions to protect his siblings play a significant role in children’s comprehension what a real man should be.

In other words, it is obvious that the author relies on a special psychological approach, which forms and determines the children’s attitudes in relation to the intrinsic characteristics of males. The fact that the events described in the book took place during the World War II allows us to suppose that the author wanted children also to become familiar with the realities of life.

Thus, it seems that, on the one hand, the novel is fantastic, – it is written for children to entertain them; on the other hand, a fantasy novel is a serious book, as it forms the world view of children. Anderson is of the opinion that “books open up new worlds to children. Books expose children to a variety of experiences they might not otherwise have been subjected to in their own lives” (2).

Taking into account this statement, one can suppose that the novelist’s fantasy is an effective way to familiarize children not only with their own culture, but also with another one. To my mind, there are magic depictions, which are mostly associated with various cultural issues. Of course, it is also necessary to state that the reflection of the relations between the main characters is extremely important, as such method has a social power.

Another important point I would like to highlight is the so-called society function the author popularizes in his novel. First of all, it should be pointed out that most of children’s books are written to help children accept society functions they are to perform. Thus, Lewis’s novel is not an exception. It helps identify emotions and shows the ways other people are to be treated.

Harry Potter

When speaking about another book – Harry Potter, I would like to add that J. K. Rowling’s depictions seem to be more real. Moreover, the novel about a wizard is recognized to be an important socializing tool.

While The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is based on the basic societal functions the author wants his little readers to become familiar with, Rowling’s novel represents new societal changes. This fact cannot be regarded as unusual one, as numerous things do not remain constant over time. For this reason, it is necessary to state that the key ideas of the books of the same genre are different, as the process of constant development cannot be neglected or avoided.

Both books are considered to be extremely popular. Thus, according to an American weekly magazine Times, the novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was included into the category TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.

When speaking about Harry Potter, there is a need to point out that more than 375 million copies of the novel “have been sold worldwide. This overwhelming success demonstrates that people all over the world feel entertained by the series and indicates strong positive parasocial relationships with the protagonist in readers from very different (cultural) backgrounds” (Schmid & Klimmt 253).

Of course, I cannot say that there are no similar features in the novels. For instance, I would like to draw the readers’ attention to the fact that socially constructed gender distinctions are present in both books. One more important aspect I would like to highlight is the plot of both novels, which influences children’s perception.

Thus, one is to keep in mind that the events, which are described in both books impact on the way children see images of themselves. Moreover, it is also obvious that the illustrations the authors provide their little readers with influence the way children comprehend stereotypical roles of the main characters.

In other words, the book written in the early fifties and one written within the past 10 year show good traits of character a person is to possess. Thus, the main characters both authors describe are considered to be kind, brave, honest, responsible, etc.; while negative characters are recognized to be totally different. They are greedy, dishonest, irresponsible, etc.

The importance of social class, which both authors touch on in their novels, cannot be omitted too. For this reason, when analyzing the plot of the novels, I have understood that children took into account the so-called individual responsibilities of the main characters, but not their social status. Generally, children are mostly interested in the actions the main characters are to follow to achieve their aims.

Liberal feminist theory seems to be another important aspect, which is to be highlighted. Thus, I have to state that gender stereotypes influence children’s comprehension of gender roles. In this case, one can speak about the so-called child stratification.

The conclusion

So, in my opinion, the objectives both authors wanted to achieve were successfully completed. The main difference between the two novels of the same genre is the so-called time period the books are written within.

Moral and ethical principles seem to be the key aspects Lewis and Rowling wanted to highlight. Generally, it is an old truth that good wins evil in all the times. Moreover, children should also understand that it is not so easy to overcome the difficulties; however, if the characters show patience, they will always succeed. For instance, Allyson Foreman says that a wizard Harry Potter is considered to be the so-called role model; and “in fact, serves as an excellent model for leadership.

Further, Harry’s actions convey a deeper meaning about the importance of moral and ethical development through a comparison of stages in the young character’s life” (22). The same can be said about the main characters of the novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

When comparing the novels, it becomes obvious that both authors depicted the issues, which were interesting and important within certain time period. In spite of the fact, however, one is to keep in mind that new changes will always occur, and thus, new realities will be described and analyzed.

The only thing, which can be probably constant, seems to be the principal goal of the main characters. The struggle of opposites will always exist, as without evil there will be no evolution. For this reason, all the events, which the authors describe in their novels, are extremely important to understand that the reality can be changed.

Works Cited

Anderson, Angela. Power Disparities and the Structure of Childrearing: A Content Analysis of Bestselling Children’s Books, 2011. Web. <>.

Foreman, Allyson. The Boy Who Lived To Lead: An Analysis of Harry Potter’s Moral and Ethical Leadership Development, n.d. Web.

Schmid, Hannah, and Christoph, Klimmt. A Magically Nice Guy: Parasocial Relationships with Harry Potter Across Different Cultures, 2011. Web.

The “Harry Potter” Novels by Joanne Rowling

Harry Potter is an unsurpassed literary work for people of all generations and ages, teaching kindness, friendship, love, and justice. As a character and network of literature pieces, Harry Potter found particular fame among teenagers. It was easy for teenagers to identify with the slightly clumsy and shy boy who had come a long way to being the wisest wizard. However, one of Joanne Rowling’s stylistic virtues in writing a great and inspiring story was the balance between humor and seriousness.

A virtuoso command of the English language and an understanding of how to portray teenagers plausibly from their psychology allowed the author to reach the hearts of millions of children worldwide. The balance between sarcastic remarks and philosophical sayings made Harry Potter not only another literary masterpiece but encrusted the story into the entire English-speaking culture (Yu et al. 179-180). Harry Potter became the subject of TV shows, lotteries, and sarcastic quotes dispersed into sayings that people still use to express ridicule or a joke.

Usually, the author puts sarcastic skirmishes and remarks into the mouths of children who comment on what is happening or make fun of each other. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter imply a struggle of opposites, so the first does not hesitate to demonstrate contempt (Waysdorf and Reijnders 173-174). The line “Training for the ballet, Potter?” became a common joke that spread thanks to YouTube and other social networks and became part of the parodies (Rowling, Chamber of Secrets 98). This sarcastic and biting question will later be the foundation of fan art in drawings and fan fiction. The author initially intended Ron Weasley to be a comedic character, and he gets involved in many embarrassing situations.

The incomprehensible and ingenuous Ron Weasley comments on what is often happening without awareness and sometimes serves as a conductor of common sense. This common sense is ordinary thinking, far removed from magic spells. The author deliberately demonstrates that Ron Weasley sometimes falls out of the context of Hogwarts and the life of wizards. Ron Weasley says: “Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world” (Rowling, Chamber of Secrets 114). This phrase makes readers laugh and smile as it refers to the description of insanity. It leads to the fact that Ron Weasley voices the question frozen in readers’ minds: ‘Maybe they are crazy, not wizards?’. Such a question completely deprives what is happening in romance and makes one doubt the holiness of the events experienced by the main characters. One of the main characters is Ron and Harry’s friend, Hermione Granger. In her image, severe and strict, most of the comical moments are built, tied to the opposition with Ron Weasley (Groves 29). Joanne Rowling often uses contrasts in her first books as the basis for humorous situations.

Adult and elderly characters (usually male), as opposed to childish characters, appear as carriers of wisdom. In the first book, the prominent sage’s task is for Albus Dumbledore, whose death will be an essential point in the entire franchise. Like a classic magician, he says: “The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution” (Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone 55). He is a teacher for children, and he plays the role of the wisest of mentors; therefore, the author puts the most severe sayings into his mouth.

Characters such as Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape talk about revenge, hostility, betrayal, and various abstract concepts close to ethics. Albus Dumbledore gives his students and other magicians ethical instructions about happiness. He states, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light” (Rowling, Prisoner of Azkaban 78). It is one of the essential motivational quotes from Albus Dumbledore throughout the entire book and film franchise. Such inspirational speech could have been put into childish characters, but Luna Lovegood could make an exception (Eberhardt 230-231). However, she is marginalized among other people, adults and children, so this exclusion only confirms her out-of-contextuality from the Harry Potter generation.

One of Joanne Rowling’s most significant accomplishments in writing the Harry Potter books was her consistent and balanced style. She made books interesting for children and teenagers by the right balance of comic episodes and comments with philosophical sayings. Thus, the narrative had a bright and remarkable catchy style that could appeal to both joke lovers and those who expected motivational speeches from the characters. The leading conductors of humorous dialogues were children whose conflicts were based on irreconcilable differences. Often these children were complete opposites of each other, as indicated by their origin and appearance. The conductors of philosophical and motivational sayings were teachers, in particular the figure of the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore. Such characters talked about abstract concepts close to ethics, teaching teenagers. By distributing stylistic speech norms across surfaces, Harry Potter became more than a literary masterpiece. Literary franchises fit securely into the cinema and English-language popular culture of the 21st century.

Works Cited

Eberhardt, Maeve. “Gendered Representations Through Speech: The Case of the Harry Potter Series.” Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, vol. 26, no. 3, 2017, pp. 227–46.

Groves, Beatrice. Literary Allusion in Harry Potter. Routledge, 2017.

Rowling, Joanne. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Reprint, Scholastic Paperbacks, 2000.

  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Scholastic Paperbacks, 2001.
  • Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Scholastic Paperbacks, 1998.

Yu, Helen H., et al. “Teaching leadership with popular culture: Practical lessons from Harry Potter.” Journal of Public Affairs Education, vol. 28, no. 2, 2022, pp. 156-81.

Waysdorf, Abby, and Stijn Reijnders. “Immersion, authenticity and the theme park as social space: Experiencing the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 2018, pp. 173-88.

“The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Conan Doyle, and “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” by J.K. Rowling

First Draft for Luigi: From The Hound of the Baskervilles

This brilliant draft skillfully develops a very interesting idea on why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles is so popular among readers. The idea is in a remarkable harmony of the two main protagonists’ images. The writer adroitly discusses a number of convincing points that explain why Holmes’ and Watson’s characters are so effective in their combination. The evidences shown in the argument of this paper are very strong, and can be hardly called into question. Among the most effective arguments, I would mention: “Watson’s down-to-earth personality allows Holmes’ brilliance to shine through”, and “Doyle has created a “mentor/mentee” relationship which helps to carry the story along” (“First Draft” 1). These arguments are very convincing, just like the sub-arguments that are developed below with the purpose of supporting and developing the offered ideas. Of course, the above quoted thoughts are not the only ‘precious gems’ in the writers treasury this time. Also, the argument regarding the effectiveness of the two images is well-supported by the fact that through the use of varied approaches, the trivial one by Watson, and the sophisticated one by Holmes, the readers acquire a chance to have their own vision of the committed crime as they have an option to chose what facts and evidences, and what kinds of their interpretations to believe. Thus, each reader may have one’s own interpretation of the written text that is based on his or her own vision and preferences. As a result, this piece of literature can be seen as the one having a special success among the wide public on the reason of its multidimensional approach to interpreting the events that are taking place during the development of the story plot. Finally, the argument that Watson’s character is very important in this detective story as it offers contrast and makes Holmes’ dryness diluted appears to be an incredible finishing touch in this essay.

Overall, the impression that the paper produces is more than great because it is even difficult to suggest the writer some more ideas on how to develop his central thought about the two complementary characters that make Conan Doyle’s book so appealing to the audience. Perhaps, I could only offer the writer to mention a particular example in the story when Watson demonstrates his down-to-earth way of thinking, and Holmes identifies himself as an ingenious master of exalted detective thought so that the readers could deepen their understanding of the writer’s vision. I also think, it may be even more convincing for the readers if the writer would be able to find the exact quotations from Conan Doyle’s text when Holmes’ saying is remarkably higher in its ideological coloration than Watson’s one. Finally, I would also want to thank the writer for his great writing style because the ideas are developed by means of expressions, constructions, and terms of remarkable beauty and precision.

Second Draft for Ashley: From The Texts The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

The second draft is remarkable for its structure that makes reading through its ideas and grasping their scope very convenient and easy. This feature seems to be the strongest factor that makes it rather successful.

Reading through the paper’s argument, the first idea that catches my attention is “The texts The Hound of the Baskervilles written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone written by J.K. Rowling, both revolve around primary characters that are seriously flawed individuals” (“Second Draft” 2). This idea is not easy to agree with as the majority of readers, including me, would state that brilliantly developed characters of Sherlock Holmes and Harry Potter are the most important factors, which make the pieces of literature where they are described, real masterpieces of word. Nevertheless, as the writer of the paper has a different vision of Holmes’ and Potter’s personalities, it is not a reason to state that his work is irrelevant; on the contrary, there is a great probability that there may be more readers who have similar opinion. Anyway, the idea that Holmes’ and Potter’s personalities are flawed is very effective in catching the reader’s attention, and heating their interest to encourage reading the paper to the very end.

When the writer mentions particular reasons why he sees Holmes and Potter as “character[s] that [are] infused with many weaknesses” in the section “arguments”, I (and I believe, the other readers) have the only question “can you explain this?!” (“Second Draft” 2). The writer calls Holmes “a serious drug abuser”, and Potter “a sanctimonious, insecure and metaphorically blind individual” (“Second Draft” 2). These statements are rather daring; on this reason, I believe, they should be supported by the quotations from the text, and their explanations. Of course, there is nothing wrong in expressing one’s thoughts openly even if they are that unconventional, but any writer who describes one’s vision of an object or a person, that are traditionally seen in a different way, should offer serious facts providing the grounds to assume that they may be right when they make such suppositions.

Next, the section of the paper, where the settings of the two literature works are described, is excellent. It really offers more details that help understand Holmes’ and Potter’s personalities in a better way. It is difficult to offer any other ways on how to add to the development of this section. Similar conclusions can be made regarding the following section that is called “thematic development”. This section offers interesting arguments that explain why both Holmes and Potter are triumphant in the end.

Overall, this draft can be seen as featuring a number of remarkable peculiarities that would not leave any reader without bright emotions. First of all, I really appreciate the development and the logic of this paper that provide it with significant level of coherence and cohesiveness. The subheadings are chosen in accordance to good traditions of critical analysis that makes it easy to comprehend what the author is trying to say in this paper. Next, the paper features a great number of unconventional ideas and unusual perceptions. It is hardly possible to find any better way to arrest the readers’ attention so well. As the writer has a different vision of what the majority believes to be white rather than black, his work catches attention for 100 %. The only moment I would like the writer to add when he develops such unusual vision is the exact explanation from the text along with his comments on why he interprets these parts of the text in this or that way.

References

“First Draft for Luigi”. Course Materials (2012): 1. Print.

“Second Draft for Ashley”. Course Materials (2012): 2, 3. Print.