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durham_knits at 10:24pm on 22/06/2005
durham_knits at 10:24pm on 22/06/2005An essay on Harry Potter, with (rather obvious) predictions for HBP.
Harry Potter and the Issue of Death: Transcending Traditional Children’s Fiction
The world of boarding-school fiction is an insular one, but even in the protected world of the boarding school, as presented by authors such as Enid Blyton and Thomas Hughes, children are impacted by a very adult concept: death. In the very simplistic world of Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers, the issue of death is a fear hovering over students’ actions: in the first book, one of the main characters is seriously ill, and in the final book, a main character is forced to leave school to care for her ill father (First Term 118, Last Term 161). In Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Tom’s good friend becomes very sick with a fever and nearly dies, but manages to recover and touch Tom’s life for the better in the process (Hughes 305-320). A boy does die of the fever that puts Arthur in danger, but the boy is so minor a character that his death is similarly unimportant to the overall scheme of the book (Hughes 305). These cases suggest that death in the boarding-school genre, though treated as a serious issue, is presented as a natural product of life through illness and as a fear, rather than a reality for main characters. However the most popular series of the genre, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, are steeped in overtones of violent death, transcending the boundaries of the genre by helping a new generation of readers come to terms with a changing world.
The world of Harry Potter is one full of magic. In the first book, along with an introduction to that world, Harry learns the truth of his parents’ death (violently, at the hands of an evil wizard named Voldemort) and learns that his parents’ murderer intends to gain immortality using the rare Philosopher’s Stone, a concept borrowed from popular medieval mythology. According to one of the library books at Hogwarts, “The Stone... produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal” (Philosopher’s Stone 161). Though it is the only Philosopher’s Stone in existence, the immortality that its maker, six hundred and sixty-five year old Nicholas Flamel, enjoys seems to come without a price. Through magic, Rowling has enabled her characters to overcome death – however rather than allow Voldemort to gain eternal life, Nicholas Flamel allows it to be destroyed. “After all,” Headmaster Dumbledore explains to Harry, “to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure (PS 215). Dumbledore treats death much the same as Doctor Arnold of Tom Brown’s Schooldays: after Thompson dies of the fever, Arnold explains that after a death good and evil are contrasted and those in mourning “feel what it is so to live as that death becomes and infinite blessing, and what it is so to live also, that it were good for us if we had never been born” (Hughes 306). For Flamel, death will be as natural as for Thompson – the issue of the Potters’ murders fades into the background by the end of Philosopher’s Stone. Chamber of Secrets treats death in much the same manner as the first book. The ghosts haunting the school celebrate their death-days much as Harry and his friends celebrate their birthdays (Chamber of Secrets 94-104).
It is in the third book that Harry is finally forced to face the manner of his parents’ demise. The Dementors, creatures who feed on happy thoughts, come to guard the school. Every time Harry is confronted with one, he hears an echo of the night of his parents’ murder – he hears his father sacrificing himself to give Harry and his mother time to flee and hears his mother pleading for his life (Prisoner of Azkaban 66, 134, 138). The echoes are a temptation for Harry – though giving him nightmares, he finds himself wanting to hear their voices again. “They’re dead, and listening to echoes of them won’t bring them back,” he tells himself, but the pain of their loss in such a terrifying manner remains (PoA 180).
In the third book also, Harry is stalked by the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort – Sirius Black, his father’s best friend and his godfather. The violent manner of James and Lily Potter’s deaths becomes a forefront for Harry as he meets Sirius Black face to face: “For the first time in his life, he wanted his wand back in his hand, not to defend himself, but to attack... to kill” (PoA 249). Though Sirius Black turns out not to have been the traitor, Harry comes very near to taking Sirius’ life in the very way his parents were killed. This choice between killing and sparing a life is a conundrum that Tom Brown and Darrell of Mallory Towers never have to face.
In the fourth book of the series, the threat of death which Harry faces in each of the other books changes from a distant hazard to a very real, very present peril. Through the work of a spy, Voldemort snatches Harry and a classmate, Cedric Diggory, from the school grounds and proceeds to murder Cedric before Harry’s eyes (GoF 553). Cedric’s death changes the atmosphere of the books as a whole. The wholly innocent boy, in no way a part of Harry’s feud with Voldemort, becomes a victim of Voldemort’s machinations and dies simply because he was there. This violent death presents the other side of loss to children growing up in an age where terrorism is an ever-more-pressing threat. Children of the British Isles grow up with knowledge of the violence in Northern Ireland, where children every bit as innocent as Cedric die so that either side can make a point. Tom Brown and Mallory Towers generally stay clear of politics, but Voldemort’s attacks of terror (chillingly recalled by Mr. Weasley in GoF 127) are incredibly reminiscent of attacks such as Omagh and Manchester.
Finally, death sweeps in and carries off a dear character in book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In the death of Sirius Black, Harry loses his father, again, and this time it’s a family-member he cares about; his only family, since the Dursleys can hardly be called such. Though the death of Sirius Black has the most overwhelming impact on our heroes – an impact which will no doubt be carried quite strongly in Half-Blood Prince this July – Sirius’ demise is hardly the only death in Order of the Phoenix. Broderick Bode, while a minor character, is murdered by an animated plant. While the list of characters that actually die in the book is fairly short, near-death experiences or descriptions of death are rampant. Arthur Weasley nearly meets his end only halfway through the book, when he is bitten by Voldemort’s pet snake while on guard duty at the Ministry (OP21). Mad-Eye Moody shows Harry a snapshot of the old Order of the Phoenix and spends ample time discussing those who didn’t make it – like Benjy Fenwick, of whom only pieces were found (OP9). Molly Weasley is confronted with images of her children, dead, when she takes on a Bogart, Minerva McGonagall is nearly killed by a large number of stunning spells, Dolores Umbridge is nearly trampled to death by centaurs, not to mention the numerous injuries, many serious, inflicted on Harry’s friends and the Order in the final battle at the Ministry. Lastly, and most importantly, Dumbledore informs Harry that it is he who must defeat Voldemort – Harry must kill or die, according to the terms of the prophecy. By the end of Order of the Phoenix, Harry has lost his innocence entirely; he must face death in the same manner as any other adult (and more directly than many).
Rowling tackles issues that contemporaries of Hughes and Blyton did not have and presents them through Harry’s impulses and experiences. Though not necessarily intended as a commentary on violence, the Harry Potter series nonetheless starkly presents the issue when compared to the simplistic worlds of Tom Brown and Mallory Towers – Harry Potter is written for children of the 1990’s and 2000’s, and addresses issues of violent death being raised now. So what might that mean for Half Blood Prince? If the trend toward death and violence continues, as JKR has suggested it might, we can no doubt expect the deaths of numerous minor characters, the grave injury of many more (perhaps permanent harm to one of the trio, as none managed to escape OP unharmed), and certainly the death of at least one more major character. The wizarding world is descending into war against an immensely powerful terrorist force. Like the trials our own world faces in these times, it is inevitable that some will not return. I only wonder if Hughes and Blyton could have imagined such a dark future for the genre.
Harry Potter and the Issue of Death: Transcending Traditional Children’s Fiction
The world of boarding-school fiction is an insular one, but even in the protected world of the boarding school, as presented by authors such as Enid Blyton and Thomas Hughes, children are impacted by a very adult concept: death. In the very simplistic world of Enid Blyton’s Mallory Towers, the issue of death is a fear hovering over students’ actions: in the first book, one of the main characters is seriously ill, and in the final book, a main character is forced to leave school to care for her ill father (First Term 118, Last Term 161). In Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Tom’s good friend becomes very sick with a fever and nearly dies, but manages to recover and touch Tom’s life for the better in the process (Hughes 305-320). A boy does die of the fever that puts Arthur in danger, but the boy is so minor a character that his death is similarly unimportant to the overall scheme of the book (Hughes 305). These cases suggest that death in the boarding-school genre, though treated as a serious issue, is presented as a natural product of life through illness and as a fear, rather than a reality for main characters. However the most popular series of the genre, J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, are steeped in overtones of violent death, transcending the boundaries of the genre by helping a new generation of readers come to terms with a changing world.
The world of Harry Potter is one full of magic. In the first book, along with an introduction to that world, Harry learns the truth of his parents’ death (violently, at the hands of an evil wizard named Voldemort) and learns that his parents’ murderer intends to gain immortality using the rare Philosopher’s Stone, a concept borrowed from popular medieval mythology. According to one of the library books at Hogwarts, “The Stone... produces the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal” (Philosopher’s Stone 161). Though it is the only Philosopher’s Stone in existence, the immortality that its maker, six hundred and sixty-five year old Nicholas Flamel, enjoys seems to come without a price. Through magic, Rowling has enabled her characters to overcome death – however rather than allow Voldemort to gain eternal life, Nicholas Flamel allows it to be destroyed. “After all,” Headmaster Dumbledore explains to Harry, “to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure (PS 215). Dumbledore treats death much the same as Doctor Arnold of Tom Brown’s Schooldays: after Thompson dies of the fever, Arnold explains that after a death good and evil are contrasted and those in mourning “feel what it is so to live as that death becomes and infinite blessing, and what it is so to live also, that it were good for us if we had never been born” (Hughes 306). For Flamel, death will be as natural as for Thompson – the issue of the Potters’ murders fades into the background by the end of Philosopher’s Stone. Chamber of Secrets treats death in much the same manner as the first book. The ghosts haunting the school celebrate their death-days much as Harry and his friends celebrate their birthdays (Chamber of Secrets 94-104).
It is in the third book that Harry is finally forced to face the manner of his parents’ demise. The Dementors, creatures who feed on happy thoughts, come to guard the school. Every time Harry is confronted with one, he hears an echo of the night of his parents’ murder – he hears his father sacrificing himself to give Harry and his mother time to flee and hears his mother pleading for his life (Prisoner of Azkaban 66, 134, 138). The echoes are a temptation for Harry – though giving him nightmares, he finds himself wanting to hear their voices again. “They’re dead, and listening to echoes of them won’t bring them back,” he tells himself, but the pain of their loss in such a terrifying manner remains (PoA 180).
In the third book also, Harry is stalked by the man who betrayed his parents to Voldemort – Sirius Black, his father’s best friend and his godfather. The violent manner of James and Lily Potter’s deaths becomes a forefront for Harry as he meets Sirius Black face to face: “For the first time in his life, he wanted his wand back in his hand, not to defend himself, but to attack... to kill” (PoA 249). Though Sirius Black turns out not to have been the traitor, Harry comes very near to taking Sirius’ life in the very way his parents were killed. This choice between killing and sparing a life is a conundrum that Tom Brown and Darrell of Mallory Towers never have to face.
In the fourth book of the series, the threat of death which Harry faces in each of the other books changes from a distant hazard to a very real, very present peril. Through the work of a spy, Voldemort snatches Harry and a classmate, Cedric Diggory, from the school grounds and proceeds to murder Cedric before Harry’s eyes (GoF 553). Cedric’s death changes the atmosphere of the books as a whole. The wholly innocent boy, in no way a part of Harry’s feud with Voldemort, becomes a victim of Voldemort’s machinations and dies simply because he was there. This violent death presents the other side of loss to children growing up in an age where terrorism is an ever-more-pressing threat. Children of the British Isles grow up with knowledge of the violence in Northern Ireland, where children every bit as innocent as Cedric die so that either side can make a point. Tom Brown and Mallory Towers generally stay clear of politics, but Voldemort’s attacks of terror (chillingly recalled by Mr. Weasley in GoF 127) are incredibly reminiscent of attacks such as Omagh and Manchester.
Finally, death sweeps in and carries off a dear character in book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In the death of Sirius Black, Harry loses his father, again, and this time it’s a family-member he cares about; his only family, since the Dursleys can hardly be called such. Though the death of Sirius Black has the most overwhelming impact on our heroes – an impact which will no doubt be carried quite strongly in Half-Blood Prince this July – Sirius’ demise is hardly the only death in Order of the Phoenix. Broderick Bode, while a minor character, is murdered by an animated plant. While the list of characters that actually die in the book is fairly short, near-death experiences or descriptions of death are rampant. Arthur Weasley nearly meets his end only halfway through the book, when he is bitten by Voldemort’s pet snake while on guard duty at the Ministry (OP21). Mad-Eye Moody shows Harry a snapshot of the old Order of the Phoenix and spends ample time discussing those who didn’t make it – like Benjy Fenwick, of whom only pieces were found (OP9). Molly Weasley is confronted with images of her children, dead, when she takes on a Bogart, Minerva McGonagall is nearly killed by a large number of stunning spells, Dolores Umbridge is nearly trampled to death by centaurs, not to mention the numerous injuries, many serious, inflicted on Harry’s friends and the Order in the final battle at the Ministry. Lastly, and most importantly, Dumbledore informs Harry that it is he who must defeat Voldemort – Harry must kill or die, according to the terms of the prophecy. By the end of Order of the Phoenix, Harry has lost his innocence entirely; he must face death in the same manner as any other adult (and more directly than many).
Rowling tackles issues that contemporaries of Hughes and Blyton did not have and presents them through Harry’s impulses and experiences. Though not necessarily intended as a commentary on violence, the Harry Potter series nonetheless starkly presents the issue when compared to the simplistic worlds of Tom Brown and Mallory Towers – Harry Potter is written for children of the 1990’s and 2000’s, and addresses issues of violent death being raised now. So what might that mean for Half Blood Prince? If the trend toward death and violence continues, as JKR has suggested it might, we can no doubt expect the deaths of numerous minor characters, the grave injury of many more (perhaps permanent harm to one of the trio, as none managed to escape OP unharmed), and certainly the death of at least one more major character. The wizarding world is descending into war against an immensely powerful terrorist force. Like the trials our own world faces in these times, it is inevitable that some will not return. I only wonder if Hughes and Blyton could have imagined such a dark future for the genre.
curious