Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J. K. Rowling
06/13/2006
Censorship The School Story Quest and Fantasy Literature Conformity Rowling's Magical Universe Race and Class Gender Mortality Friendship
Censorship: Rowling’s Harry Potter series is another example of a work that has drawn fire from censors, not for its representation of sexuality, but instead, because it is about witchcraft and magic, which has upset some Christian parents, and also because Harry’s universe is filled with violence and scary things. But regardless of these objections, Rowling’s Harry Potter books are some of the most widely read stories in the world, having been translated into dozens of languages, and they garnered her so much money that the author is now wealthier than the Queen of England. And while the books are generally considered children’s literature, I have included the first of her novels in our course nevertheless because of the series’ popularity with adolescents, and even adults. A good many of my own students are intimately acquainted with the Harry Potter series, so much so that jokes can be made about various characters in class without my having to go back and explain any background. In short, anyone wishing to profess a knowledge of adolescent literature should have some degree of familiarity with the Harry Potter series.
The School Story: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and the entire series really, follows the structure of the school story. The school story is a variation of the Entwickelungsroman or coming of age story. The first example of the school story in English is Thomas Hughes’ 1857 novel Tom Brown’s School Days. The school story is set in an educational institution, traditionally a boarding school, which is the specific site of the child/teen protagonist’s formation into an adult ready to take his/her place in the world. It focuses on the protagonist’s education and preparation for his or her adult role in life, and generally contains elements such as a fight with the school bully and a victory in sports. Central to the school story is the idea that more is learned outside of the classroom through social interaction with students and teachers than is learned in the formal instructional setting. After all, reading, writing and arithmetic gives students basic tools for independent learning, but the really important lessons about dealing with difficult people, how to live one’s life and negotiating one’s place within a cultural hierarchy are far too complex to be set down in books or addressed by mastering some elementary principles. Instead, these things are successfully addressed by learning how to think critically. Certainly we find all of these elements in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Hogwarts prepares Harry for life in a way that living with the Dursleys’ and attending the grim public school they've enrolled him in cannot. Harry has a brush with the school bully, Draco Malfoy, a victory in Quidditch, and learns his most valuable lessons outside of the classroom, often when defying the authority of his teachers and going on illicit adventures throughout the grounds. This formula is repeated throughout all of the books in the series, but Harry’s dilemmas become increasingly more complex as he, and the series too, matures.
Quest and Fantasy Literature: And Harry’s development into an adult wizard throughout the series is also not unique, but instead, follows the a pattern established in quest stories and fantasy literature. Harry’s most important duty is to learn the difference between good and evil so he can fight the later. He does this is a small way in Rowling’s first installment in the series when he prevents the sorcerer’s stone from falling into the wrong hands. Later books in the series culminate in Harry’s showdown against Lord Voldemort. Also note how Harry learns that he's a wizard. Harry has always suspected he was different, and is certainly treated that way by the abusive Dursleys, who make him sleep in the cupboard under the stairs, dress him in Dudley's cast off clothing, and don't even celebrate his birthday. But until Hagrid tells him he's wizard, Harry has always seen his difference as a bad thing. Also, in the film, before Harry learns of his heritage, his magical abilities only come out when he is angry. (He lets the boa constrictor out of its enclosure when he's annoyed by Dudley shoving him out of the way). This is significant. A part of a young woman's gender training is to suppress her anger. Her inability to do this is seen as a mark of her immaturity, or in some more traditional romances, a mark of her lower class origins. In horror, female anger is seen as monstrous (think Carrie at the prom) rather than a justifiable response to external stimuli. Male gender development also emphasizes the ability to control one's anger, but the adult male is not required to completely repress this emotion.
Conformity: Harry's Muggle family's most prized value is conformity. Their house is a suburban row house, just like every other house in the neighborhood (and the film visually represents this conformity when we see that every car parked in the driveway is the same model). When Harry is first brought to the Dursleys' doorstep, they are mortified that the neighbors might have seen the very strange looking trio of wizards in their home. And Mr. and Mrs. Dursley are sent into a rage whenever Harry even mentions magic, since this is the quintessential extraordinary thing. Violet Dursley hates her dead sister Lily so passionately because she's a witch, and claims that although their parents were proud when their daughter was accepted into Hogwarts, she was the only one in the family to see her sibling for the freak that she was. The Dursleys desire for conformity is a very bad thing, demonstrating their own lack of intellect and imagination. The Dursley home itself is one where very little reading or thinking goes on, but instead, the television is on nearly all the time. And their lack of imagination is demonstrated in how they raise their son Dudley, a big bloated lump of a child who lives to consume mass quantities--of food, television, and violent video games. Note the lack of television or other technological amusements in the wizard world. Here people amuse themselves by playing sports, reading and interacting with one another. These skills allow them to develop magic in the first place rather than rely on magic generated by others (such as we're doing while watching the film of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). Harry's struggle against conformity is not unique, but is a common theme in adolescent literature.
Rowling's Magical Universe: Rowling’s intricate magical universe is also not unique. She draws upon various literary and magical traditions when creating her witches and wizards. The magical world exists alongside of the Muggle world, often in plain view, though Muggles fail to see as they don’t believe in magic, and therefore quickly craft a comforting “logical” explanation for anything odd that occurs. This idea of a magical world existing alongside of the everyday world is seen in works of other writers, such as the Christian author C. S. Lewis. In The Chronicles of Narnia, the magical land of the series title can be accessed through a plain, everyday wardrobe, and when the daughters of Eve and sons of Adam visit this land for many of its years, they are only absent from their own world for an hour at most. The magic itself practiced in Rowling’s series has a foundation in reality too in that it is based upon medieval ideas about sorcery and alchemy. To perform a spell properly, the aspiring witch or wizard must not only know the correct words and have access to a good many difficult to obtain ingredients and tools, but hold the body correctly and say the words using a particular technique. This very complex magic is similar to the incantations and spells that medieval necromancers and alchemists used in their attempts to transform their own realities or change lead into gold. Another feature of this universe is the power of naming. Only Dumbledore and Harry are unafraid to say Voldemort's name. Everyone else is so frightened by him that they call him You-Know-Who, since saying his name potentially has the power to invoke him. The power of names has a long literary tradition. In the Book of Genesis, Adam is allowed to name all of the animals. In the folktale Rumplestillskin, the couple who promise him their firstborn can only negate the contract if they guess his true name. And in Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series, people don't share their true names with just anyone since this knowledge gives someone the power to cast a spell.
Race and Class: Draco Malfoy, his family, and those who follow Voldemort represent a racist oligarchy fighting to control the wizard world. When Draco first meets Harry, he tells him of his association with the lower class Ron Weasley that he should be care of who he chooses for friends, since some wizarding families are better than others. What Draco is referring to is race and class. The Weasleys are unacceptable to people such as the Malfoys as they are obviously lower class--they're poor and reproduce prolifically, and are stereotypically the Irish. The blond Draco is a pureblood wizard (the Weasleys are pureblood wizards too), which makes him different from people such as Hermione Granger, described as a Mudblood since she has Muggle parents. And while Harry himself is more pure (both James and Lily were wizards), Lily comes from a family with Muggles as well.
Gender: Rowling’s fictional universe itself is deeply sexist, as is seen particularly in the character of Hermione Granger. In a later novel, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore says of Hermione that she’s the brightest witch of her age, yet alas, Hermione is also female, and thus often must labor to overcome the handicap of her keen intelligence. A particularly telling example of the novel’s sexism is displayed in the chapter entitled “Halloween.” Ron and Harry are annoyed with Hermione in charms class because she has the temerity to perform a difficult spell correctly, and to offer assistance to Ron and Harry as well. When Professor Flitwick singles out Hermione for praise, Ron complains bitterly after class that “It’s no wonder no one can stand [Hermione] . . . she’s a nightmare, honestly” (172). Ron’s cruel remark will later put Hermione in mortal peril. Hermione overhears the crack and leaves the classroom in tears, hiding in the girl’s restroom for hours to cry over his cruelty. The result is that later, when Hogwarts is put under lockdown while teachers search for a troll that has gotten in, Hermione doesn’t hear the order to take shelter. Meanwhile, Ron and Harry’s typically impulsive masculine behavior further puts Hermione into peril. Believing that they, a pair of first years, can contain this very dangerous creature, they don’t go to their rooms as ordered, but instead, lock the troll in the girl’s restroom where it is presently hiding. This nearly costs Hermione her life, and Ron and Harry must come to her rescue. Worse still though is how Hermione must repay Ron and Harry for saving her after they were the ones who put her in jeopardy in the first place. Professor McGonnal is understandably furious at Ron and Harry for attempting to take on a troll by themselves, so Hermione makes up a lie to get them out of trouble. Hermione’s version of events represents her as the guilty party: she tells Professor McGonnal that she, not Harry and Ron, went looking for the troll on her own because she thought she could deal with the creature by herself due to her extensive reading knowledge (177), and that Ron and Harry bravely rescued her from her hubris. This event is a turning point in the novel because “from that moment on, Hermione Granger became” (179) Ron and Harry’s friend. Sadly, this friendship must be purchased at the expense of Hermione’s self-image. The lesson she’s learned from all of this is that it’s all well and good to excel in one’s studies, one should never be so competent as to make the boys feel bad about their own intellectual achievements. Someone should buy Hermione a copy of Reviving Ophelia. Sadly, things never get any better for Hermione. In each successive novel, she must be denigrated for being intelligent, while Harry is rewarded for not studying.
Rowling does seem to be trying to create a universe free of sex bias. Hogwarts is coed, and even Quidditch is played by mixed sex teams. And the school itself was founded by two male and two female witches. However, this universe is still firmly rooted in patriarchy. Each of Hogwarts four houses is named for the four founders, but the only two that play a major role in the story, Slytherin and Gryffindor, were founded by men, and the characters of their members are qualities typically associated with men. Members of Gryffindor are impulsive: they are “brave at heart,” and their “daring, nerve and chivalry” (118) set this house apart from the rest. Members of Slytherin, on the other hand, are ruthless: they are “cunning folk who use any means to achieve their ends” (118). The qualities necessary for someone to be placed in either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff are unremarkable by comparison. Ravenclaw is similar to Gryffindor in the intellectual rigor of its members, but they lack the bravery and impulsiveness of those in Gryffindor. Members of Ravenclaw are characterized by their “wit and learning” (118). And Hufflepuff is for the dumb students who at least try hard. They are “just and loyal . . . and unafraid of toil.” (118)
And Hogwarts students will become adults whose roles in life are sharply divided by sex. Adult female characters are always represented in a maternal role. The hyper fecund Mrs. Weasley is characterized by her mothering abilities more than she is by any skill she has as a witch. And Harry’s deceased mother Lily is similarly only characterized by her mothering role. In later novels, we learn that Harry’s father James was similar to his son in his intelligence, which wasn’t always demonstrated through high grades in school, and his recklessness. But Lily’s single most distinguishing feature is that she died saving her son, which gives him the strength to fight Voldermort. The female professors of Hogwarts are similarly always represented as fulfilling a maternal role. Professor Minerva McGonnal, for example, has no children and is not married. Instead, her family is her students. True, the same can be said of other Hogwarts professors, who are likewise single, but the males at least have lives outside of the institution and their students. Headmaster Dumbledore is known as a brilliant wizard, such a superstar, in fact, that he merits a trading card that students collect in their packages of chocolate frogs. And Professor Snape had a life outside of Hogwarts as well as a former protégé of Voldemort.
Mortality: The quest for the sorcerer's stone is about the finality of death and the inability to accept this fact. While the plot about the sorcerer's stone is handily tied up in this novel, the theme of immortality recurs again and again in the series through the character of Voldemort, who along with his Death Eaters, has cheated the grim reaper and returned to life. Mortality is also tied up in the Mirror of Eirsed, which lulls the viewer into believing too heavily in his or her impossible dreams. For Harry, this dream is seeing his parents alive. For Professor Quirrell and Voldemort, it is life everlasting. But death is not meant to be cheated, even as Nicholas Flammel, creator of the sorcerer's stone, finally comes to believe, permitting himself to expire at the ripe old age of 666.
Friendship: The Harry Potter series also explores the importance of friendship, a common theme in YA literature. Friendship is particularly valuable because friends help the individual achieve what cannot be done alone. This is illustrated in the search for the Sorcerer's Stone. Harry couldn't have possibly found the stone without the strengths of Hermione and Ron. All have skills necessary to getting through the maze of obstacles set up to guard the stone. Hermione's book learning is useful in getting past the death snare, Ron's chess prowess is necessary to get past the wizards' chess set, and Harry's Quidditch skills are necessary in getting the key to open one of the doors. And while all three are brave, they are still more brave with one another. And finally friendship also confers a sense of belonging on the individual, which in turn helps form identity.