The best-selling book series in history, Harry Potter, is known particularly for its impact on society and the generation who grew up on it. The author, J.K. Rowling, was praised for giving social, moral, and political inspiration to young readers all across the globe, teaching adolescents to grow up standing up against injustice in their worlds. Onlookers at the time even coined the term “Pottermania” to describe the absolute craze surrounding children's books. Avid fans held midnight celebrations for the release of the latest book or waited in line for hours outside of their local bookstore. However, throughout all of this madness, the looming question remains: what is it about this series that made it so successful? Rowling knew everything about how to make a quaint pub or a used-time-and-again underdog storyline as interesting as it could be. She also knew as a lifelong writer how to draw in a reader using referentiality, breach, and character tropes, all of which combined to create an unexpected and unique impact on an entire generation. By looking specifically at Jerome Bruner’s characteristics of a narrative and Aristotle’s definition of a tragedy, the magnitude of the success of the Harry Potter series is able to be explained not just through Rowling’s pure talent as a writer. Through examining tropes and literary techniques specifically in the final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I will discuss the social resonance and importance of the series as a whole.
As written by Aristotle in Poetics, a tragedy is “an imitation of an action that is admirable, complete and possesses magnitude… effecting through pity and fear the purification of such emotions” (Aristotle, 10). According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is a character who evokes a sense of compassion in the audience. This person is usually heroic and noble, but is also subject to human error, having flaws just like anybody else. Often in Greek tragedies, the irony is that it is usually the nobility and pure morality of the tragic hero that leads them to their adversity, making the tale that much more tragic. While several traditionally “tragic” heroes emerge throughout the Harry Potter series, such as Sirius Black, Dumbledore, and Harry Potter himself, there is one who stands out and appeals to readers more often. This person is Severus Snape, a professor at Hogwarts, and a controversial character in every Harry Potter reader’s mind.
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Severus Snape is a controversial character for many reasons. Firstly and most prominently, he is the right-handyman of the dark lord himself, Voldemort, throughout the books, although this is merely hinted at for a majority of the series. He seems to teeter between the good and the bad of the Wizarding World, using both to his advantage. Snape was simultaneously abusive and cruel as a professor to Harry and his friends in every instance he could be, making the reader hate him for torturing their beloved hero. However, in the final book of the series, J.K. Rowling creates the perfect tragic hero out of Snape. At the Battle of Hogwarts, Voldemort kills Snape and leaves him to suffer after taking all that he could get from him. Harry finds him and, as he lies dying, Snape gives Harry his life’s memories in the form of his tears, and all is revealed. Harry watched Snape’s memories, seeing his lifelong friendship with Lily Potter and his undying love for her, even as she rejects him for being a Death Eater and ends up marrying James Potter. Harry is also shown how it was ultimately Snape’s fault that Voldemort was able to murder Lily and James, and the immense feelings of guilt and self-hatred he had after the fact. As an attempt to make it up to hthedeceased love of his life, he vowed to protect Harry, for whom she died, for the remainder of his life. As Harry was a living and breathing reminder of the love he lost out on and the man he lost that love to, the abusive tendencies he showed towards Harry came as no surprise. Perhaps the most heartbreaking part of this love story is how Lily never knew of Snape’s love for her and thought of him as an evil follower of Voldemort as their friendship deteriorated due to differing ideologies. Snape sacrificed the rest of his life to be a dual spy for both Dumbledore and Voldemort, desperately trying to reconcile the image Lily had of him while she was living. These memories at the time of his death also included a conversation in which Dumbledore revealed that Harry needed to die for Voldemort to die, which was the piece of information that eventually led to the end of the Dark Lord’s reign. Because of how Snape embeds himself in the reader’s mind as a bad character and then is revealed to be a misunderstood and loving hero, he evokes a massive amount of emotion and compassion in the reader and makes the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good of the world.
As defined by Jerome Bruner, referentiality is the principle that a narrative references reality in some way, although not always in a direct way. The narrative should be able to be understood and comprehended by the reader, but not in an immediate way. This quality is particularly important to the success of a story because, without anything to relate to, the reader is left to feel alien to this fictional world that they do not understand. Harry Potter is a flawless example of this quality-- the so-called “Wizarding World” is one that the reader burns to be a part of because it shows them the world that they already know but with an added layer of magic and brilliance. Children reading were left wondering what house the Sorting Hat would place them in, which wand would choose them, and what their Patronus would be. Along with the specific relatable aspects of the series such as the fact that the characters are all students, struggle with homework, join sports teams, and develop romantic crushes on one another, the greatest theme here is the fact that the readers were coming of age at the same time as the characters in the books were. As the characters grew to be more complex and mature, the readers were as well, creating a parallelism between the books and real life. Although this is a more basic form of referentiality, Rowling has an incredible talent for connecting aspects of the world in which the readers live and this almost unimaginable fantasy world.
When looking at the more complex themes of referentiality in the Harry Potter series, many come to mind. Countless issues could be translated to modern-day injustices: mass incarceration, the ongoing fight against tyranny and apathy, political corruption, classism, and race discrimination in general. Perhaps the most obvious is that of racism. Although throughout the series, the explanation of the different “races” in the Wizarding World is explained as referring to the ancestry and “blood” of the person (muggles, muggle-borns, half-bloods, purebloods, and squibs), the issue becomes most prominent in the final book of the series during the Second Wizarding War. Voldemort, while fighting for total authoritarian power over the Wizarding World, essentially calls for the elimination of any beings who are not pureblood wizards. Many comparisons were made by critics between Voldemort and Hitler, as according to the books, Voldemort would have been growing up at the same time as Hitler came to power, and likely adopted his ideas regarding racial purification. “Muggles” and “mudbloods” are discriminated against in the Wizarding World because of their so-called “dirty” blood, a clear parallel with Adolf Hitler’s views of Jewish people in the early twentieth century. The fight against Voldemort emphasizes the importance of good moral strength, the dangers of authoritarianism, and opposition to violence. Rowling teaches through her writing that goodness is not an innate quality, but a choice a person makes when faced with difficult decisions to do the right thing. This consistent allusion to the hatred of the real world is one that easily could have gone unnoticed by young readers, but is clear to older readers who are socially aware, and makes the moral implications of the series much more prominent, making the series as a whole a stimulating read for people of all ages.
Jerome Bruner, in “The Narrative Construction of Reality”, writes that breach refers to how narratives “breach” the normal state and surprise the reader, whether that be through a plot twist or a character surprising the reader with action. The final Harry Potter book has endless breaches that keep the reader on their toes, but three are most prominent and essential to the plot. The first, a character breach, is that of Neville Longbottom, a longtime friend, and fellow student of Harry Potter. When the series begins, Harry’s first interaction with Neville is incredibly characteristic of Neville. They meet each other on the train ride to Hogwarts, and Neville spends the whole way fumbling for his lost pet toad, whom his grandmother had just given to him before getting on the train. This immediately introduces Neville as a clumsy and idiotic character, one of little importance and help to the antics Harry and his trio get themselves into. It is also revealed in later novels that Neville has a history of family trauma, with his parents in a mental hospital due to being tortured by the evil Bellatrix Lestrange when Neville was a child. However, in the final novel, he shows remarkable development, providing the reader with a heartwarming and beautiful breach of character. When the trio returns to Hogwarts through the tunnel in Aberforth’s home, Neville is the one who comes to get them and he is described as being covered in various types of injuries, all of which he got by standing up to the current administration. As he was portrayed iuselesslyin earlier books, the fact that he was the one holding Hogwarts together while the trio was gone proves how much confidence he had gained over the years. The most outstanding breach of his, however, was during the Battle of Hogwarts. When Harry has seemingly been killed by Voldemort and Voldemort invites the other side to join him, Neville is the one who breaks out of the silencing charm and challenges Voldemort. He shows remarkable bravery by keeping his strength and spirit even after their beloved hero, Harry, seems to be gone forever. He also cuts off Nagini’s head with the sword of Gryffindor, an action of bravery that normally would have gone to Harry, and sets off a chain of events that eventually leads to the death of Voldemort and the victory of Dumbledore’s Army. Going from a timid and self-conscious boy to an independent and brave young man, overcoming his family trauma and being able to stand up for himself finally, he fills the reader with a sense of pride, as if heweres a friend of their own.
Another remarkable character breach in the seventh book of the series was that of Narcissa Malfoy. Narcissa is the mother of the dreadful bully Draco, and in every portrayal is an elitist, classist, follower of Voldemort. While fans still speculate whether or not she was an actual Death Eater (Rowling never specifies or writes of her dark mark), she is still a cruel and horrible character. Especially because the readers grow an increasing hatred of Draco and everything he stands for throughout the series, the same goes for Draco’s family. However, in the final book, Narcissa shows a flash of humanity for the first time in the series. She is asked by Voldemort to confirm Harry’s death after he sacrifices himself, and while checking, she asks Harry if Draco is still inside the school. When he responds that he is, Narcissa lies to Voldemort and tells him that Harry is dead to be able to go back and get her son. As she was a loyal follower of Voldemort, this choice was incredibly out of character for her and also ties in with the whole theme of the series: the power of love. Even within Voldemort’s circles, where hatred is the most abundant, love still is the cause of his downfall, especially that which he cannot understand, which is the love between a mother and son. This action of Malfoy is what consequently leads to Harry being able to return to Hogwarts and take part in the final fight, leading to Voldemort’s death. This character breach is especially notable and brilliant because just as Lily sacrificed herself for Harry, causing the downfall of Voldemort with love, the love between Narcissa and Draco is what led to Voldemort’s second downfall, tying the whole plot together.
Even though the world was introduced to Harry Potter over 20 years ago in 1997, the world continues to hold the story above all others. Through continued spin-offs such as the Fantastic Beasts movies and a multimedia franchise, Harry Potter is an endless chain of literary magic. However, to put it simply, J.K. Rowling faced countless rejections of her beloved Harry Potter before it came to fruition. The entire genre of fantasy had been left untouched for years, with most writers viewing it as outdated or too difficult to make successful. Rowling undoubtedly has a way with words, using her skill and imagination with narrative elements to create an irresistible plotline. However, at the end of the day, this level of success cannot be put into words, or i formula. The impact it had on the entire world is something that could never have been predicted. Rowling created a passion for reading in an entire generation, at a time when ebooks and the internet were starting to gain traction, especially among the youth of the world. Harry Potter rejected the stigma of long books being only for adults, that being a diehard fan is dorky, and that reading is only for intellectual children or adults. The literary and emotional power of the series is one that restored the fading cultural importance of literature and the world of children’s books forever.
Works Cited
- Aristotle, and Malcolm Heath. Poetics. Penguin Classics, 1997.
- Bruner, Jerome S. “The Narrative Construction of Reality.” Critical Inquiry, 1991.
- Rowling, Joanne K. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Bloomsbury, 2014.
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