6 The theme of Love and Death Harry Potter

6 The theme of Love and Death Harry Potter.

This article focusses on the key theme’s of love, death and friendship in Harry Potter, mainly focussing on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows however it can be used as an overview for the whole series of books. In introducing the article Killinger states:

“After thousands of pages of harry Potter’s story, it is clear now that this has been J. K. Rowling’s theme from the beginning: love, friendship, sacrifice, and eventually life. For it is life that springs out of harry’s gift of him- self: the life of self-sacrifice, the life that defeats death, the life of ongoing friendship.”

Showing that the main aim of this article by John Killinger is the sacrifice of Harry himself and how this reflects on life and defeating death.  Killinger looks at these themes in the Harry Potter series from a Christian perspective as he is an Executive Minister as well as a Theologian at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York. However the article itself is rather informal as Killinger opens the article by saying “Friends. Amigos. Chums. Companions. Mates. Buddies.” If this article was written for educational purposes and for the use of scholars at the Marble Collegiate Church, terms such as “chums” and “buddies” wouldn’t be used to address the readership. The use of these informal terms would suggest that the article was written with a more informal purpose, possibly to inform those attending the Church of the connections between Christianity and Harry Potter, therefore making Christianity more accessible to those of a younger generation.

Killinger then reinforces his belief that the Harry Potter books relate greatly to the sacrifice of Christ by comparing quotes and scenes from the children’s books to those of events in the Bible. For example the article displays how Harry Potter is ‘the chosen one’, Killinger states:

“If there was any doubt about Harry’s being created in the image of Christ, it is surely dispelled in The DeaThly hallows volume, where he is repeatedly called ‘the Chosen one’.”

The article also uses references to Jesus’ disciples via Ron Weasley, Hermione Grainger and Neville Longbottom. Killinger also likens Dumbledore and Professor McCongial to God and Sophia, God’s female counterpart. However for my research the most relevant part of the article occurs when Killinger suggests:

“Harry would eventually die like Christ. And indeed, in the final novel, he does. He dies voluntarily, as Christ did, literally presenting himself to Voldemort for execution. And then, as Christ did, he returns from death, this time to deal a mortal blow to the prince of darkness himself.”

Here is where Killinger makes his article relevant to the theme which I am researching, the theme of death. It is stated that Harry’s death at the end of the series is based upon the sacrifice Jesus made in order to save his friends, and the rest of humanity from sin. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Harry presents himself to Voldemort as a sacrifice in order to save his friends, students and teachers of Hogwarts and once again the rest of humanity from the dark ways of Voldemort. Death becomes the ultimate sacrifice.

The audience of this article is clearly Christians and those interested in how Christianity is relatable to contemporary art such as literature. However the easy access to the writing makes it accessible to anyone interested in the links between Harry Potter and the sacrifice, as I found this piece of writing by searching “Harry Potter and the theme of death”. No academic login or identification is required, therefore making the audience to be anyone who is interested, however, as said earlier, I do believe the main readership would be those who are interested in Christianity.

I believe this article to be useful during my research into how the theme of death is represented in the Potter books, as said before many links are made between scripture and the series of books. However in comparison to a literary criticism it is not as useful, no theories or theorists are explored in relation to Harry Potter and Christianity/the theme of death. Although outside of literary criticism this article could help the Christian readership deal with the idea that death is inevitable and that the main focusses in life, and the main focusses in the Harry Potter series, are those of love, life and friendship.

5 The theme of Choice and Chance Harry Potter

5 The theme of Choice and Chance Harry Potter.

The Harry Potter series is esteemed and loved for many reasons: the rich fantasy world, the beloved characters, the humor, the suspense-driven plots, the meaningful choices... and the way the plot fits together like a tightly constructed jigsaw puzzle. The endings of the Harry Potter novels are filled with "oh, yeah!" moments in which everything suddenly fits together in new and unexpected ways: the revelation of Tom Riddle as Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the unmasking of Peter Pettigrew in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,and the true identity of the Prince in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. At the end of each Potter novel a final resolution is reached and the loose ends are neatly tied up.

Except in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Deathly Hallows includes a full resolution for many issues, and Rowling's post-publication interviews provided closure for more details, for example with the very welcome (to me) news that Dolores Umbridge was finally made to pay for her crimes.However, the climax of the Deathly Hallows ’ the final confrontation between Harry and Voldemort ’ seems to leave several loose ends and ambiguities.

The climax of Deathly Hallows occurs when Harry sets off to sacrifice himself and allows Voldemort to hit him with the Killing Curse. The Horcrux within Harry is destroyed, Harry survives through his blood connection with Voldemort, and Voldemort's power is broken as a result.

This is the way I read it, but it leaves many unanswered questions. What exactly is the role of Harry's final sacrifice, and how did it defeat Voldemort in the end? Is the outcome the result of Harry's choice, or is it due to the chance acquisition of the Elder Wand? Harry's self-sacrifice seems to be the critical point at which Voldemort's power is broken, but the story of the Elder Wand points towards a resolution in which the outcome is determined mainly by chance. The following is an attempt to identify the loose ends in this, the most important final piece of the Harry Potter puzzle, and give my view that choice, not chance determines the outcome. Perhaps Rowling will provide help at some future date!

The question of choice versus chance runs throughout the Harry Potter series. The question appears first at the end of Chamber of Secrets, when Riddle/Voldemort tells Harry that "it was merely a lucky chance that saved you" after he is told that Lily's sacrifice was the reason he had not been able to kill baby Harry. Dumbledore subsequently tells Harry that "it is our choices [¦] that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."  Throughout the series, Voldemort continues to insist on chance as the cause of his downfall, right up to the bitter end. Dumbledore, by contrast, insists on the importance of personal choice in determining outcomes, rather than either chance or fate. Rowling has said that Dumbledore often speaks for her (and Voldemort certainly does not), so it seems that she would also believe in choice rather than chance. Although Harry Potter is a magical world in which fate (such as the house assignments made by a magical hat) at first appears to be dominant, Rowling is clear that hers is not a fate-dominated world. Professor Trelawney, the bumbling Divination teacher, almost always gets it wrong, and even though the world of Harry Potter contains magical prophecies, the prophecies come true only because people choose to act on them. Even the magical hat takes people's choices into account, as Harry reminds his son in the epilogue. Rowling herself has written that she does not believe in fate, but in "hard work and luck, and that the first often leads to the second."  Not fate, then ’ but is the outcome due to choice or chance in the end?

In piecing together the puzzle that is the conclusion of the series, it is first necessary to consider the history of the Elder Wand. The story of the Elder Wand (which is critical to Voldemort's downfall) provides the type of tightly-fitting resolution in which everything is explained. The Elder Wand is a uniquely powerful wand, but its special powers are only available to its true owner. For all others it is just a wand like any other. The Wand recognizes as its true owner only the one who has conquered its previous owner. Many Dark wizards have thought that it is necessary to kill the previous owner to gain the Elder Wand, but this is apparently not correct: Grindelwald, Dumbledore, Draco Malfoy and Harryall gained true possession of the Wand without killing the previous owner. According to legend, the past owners of the invincible Elder Wand met their downfall because they boasted about the Wand and thus attracted attention to it.Gregorovich made this mistake, leading Grindelwald to steal the Wand and defeat Gregorovich in the process. Dumbledore then gained the Wand by defeating Grindelwald.

Dumbledore was clever enough to keep his ownership of the Elder Wand secret and planned to die undefeated, so that the Wand would have no master and would no longer confer such deadly power upon an owner. Unfortunately, that "did not work as [he] intended."  Voldemort eventually found out that Dumbledore had the Elder Wand, and naturally thought that Snape, Dumbledore's killer, had become its master. However, Snape's murder of Dumbledore was arranged by Dumbledore and represented no defeat. In fact, it was Draco Malfoy ’ who had earlier disarmed Dumbledore ’ who had become the Wand's owner, though he never knew it and never actually possessed the Wand. Then, because Harry accidentally defeated Draco, Harry became the Wand's master. This lead to Voldemort's final downfall: Voldemort used the Elder Wand against Harry and was killed by the backfire of the spell as "Harry [¦] saw the Elder Wand fly high [¦] spinning through the air towards the master it would not kill." 

Voldemort's mistake in thinking that Snape rather than Draco was the master of the Wand may have been a mental lapse (overlooking Draco's disarming of Dumbledore), or it may have followed from Voldemort's Dark thinking that the Wand only recognizes the one who killed its previous owner. Even if he had known about Draco, it would not have mattered: Harry had already disarmed Draco when Voldemort found the Wand. Thus, in the end, the ownership of the Elder Wand was determined when Harry accidentally snatched Draco's wand out of his hands.

4 The discourse of Power and Politics in Harry Potter

4 The discourse of Power and Politics in Harry Potter

We take it for granted that if the State does something to harm our interests that we can often appeal against that decision somehow, whether to the department involved or to the courts.

State censorship & freedom of speechWe assume that we can vote for our representative in the national Parliament, that any time we are accused of a crime that the State will give us a fair hearing and that if we are found guilty the punishment will be reasonable. This is the norm across most of the world now, but it is not unfortunately the position for someone we all know very well. In JK Rowling’s famous books, the Ministry of Magic has an incredible amount of power with very few ways of ensuring it is used properly. This lack of control on the Ministry is arguably what makes it so easy to infiltrate and take over without the wizarding community realising or having an opportunity to protest, but is also a problem much earlier in the Harry Potter series. It is a good study in how not to organise a state, and it’s through using examples from the series that we can really begin to understand how important it is that executive and legislative power is controlled by and accountable to the people, and that there are limits on what power it can have over us.

““All right, Fudge is leaning on the Prophet…””

Rita Skeeter’s means of getting information would surely have been condemned by the Leveson Report.

The First Amendment of the USA, the Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights, Article 10 of the UK’s Human Rights Act, Article 5 of the German Basic Law… there’s hardly a constitution, human rights Act or international agreement on human rights that doesn’t fiercely protect freedom of expression. The ability to contribute to debate in society is the foundation of democracy, and protecting everybody’s right to publish their views is the surest way to make sure that the voices of minorities are heard. Obviously most states put some limits on this freedom for reasons of state security or to prevent the encouragement of crimes, but these limits are strictly monitored by constitutional or international courts – and of course the people. And political expression is the most heavily protected of all, since it is so incredibly important for democracy and for being able to criticise the government. It is actually impossible to bring any type of claim in the UK against somebody for something they said in Parliament, because the courts refuse to question anything said there.

The Quibbler appears to be the Daily Prophet’s only real competition.

Contrast the Daily Prophet. For one, it seems to be the only newspaper anybody takes seriously, at least to begin with. This is a real problem for different political views being represented in the wizarding world and for ensuring there is proper scrutiny of government. Secondly, it seems to be under significant control from the Ministry of Magic throughout much of the books, especially when many wizards – including Fudge – doubt the truth of Harry and Dumbledore’s story that Voldemort has returned and are determined to ignore the signs that he is back. It makes publicly contradicting the Ministry very difficult if the one well-known paper is being censored – Harry is in fact only left with the Quibbler, which is then immediately banned from Hogwarts. There aren’t any of the protections of free speech we would expect from our own governments.

We see undue interference with Hogwarts too, during Umbridge’s time as High Inquisitor at Hogwarts. Of course the State has to ensure that the education of its young people is up to scratch, but it doesn’t justify many of the Educational Decrees passed that year- or the refusal to teach Harry and his fellow students how to combat Dark Magic. The UK might be worried about the government giving too much autonomy to free schools, but too much control is just as much of a problem.

Democracy & Accountability

Almost everyone in the wizarding world, and most of JK Rowling’s readers, agree that Dumbledore would have made an infinitely better Minister for Magic than Cornelius Fudge. After the mistake of appointing Fudge, you would hope that choosing the new Minister would be done carefully and by at least consulting the wizarding community – after all, Voldemort is back. And yet we are simply introduced to Scrimgeour, and equally to Thicknesse when Voldemort manages to infiltrate the Ministry. As there had never been an open election or even discussion about a new Minister it’s easy enough for Thicknesse simply to be presented as the new Minister without anyone daring to speak out.

Even Arthur Weasley, presented as a thoroughly moral character, uses his position in government to further his own ends. Film still from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (C. Columbus, 2002).

It’s this way in which the Ministry simply decides what it is going to do in near secrecy and then presents it to the people which makes it so easy for things to go wrong very quickly. There seem to be enough Muggle-born wizards and witches that the Muggle-Born Registration Committee would not have come into place so very easily if there had been a way to oppose or block the initiative publicly (remember, Voldemort is trying not to draw attention to the fact that he is running the Ministry so he does everything within the Ministry’s usual powers). Without a Parliament, which must approve legislation and can ask the Minister how his policies are working, it’s much harder to stop abhorrent policies being introduced. And without political parties, which can argue about new policies, even the simplest decision is out of the hands of the people – who’s to say that the wizarding population wouldn’t like Ali Bashir to be able to sell flying carpets in the UK? Instead legislation is left to the Ministry, and even individual members of specific Departments. We know Arthur Weasley wrote the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Act, because he put in a loophole specifically designed to allow him to perform magic on his Ford Anglia.

Just as worrying is the complete secrecy surrounding the Department of Mysteries. Whatever we might think our governments wrongly keep secret in the name of national security, it doesn’t involve prophecies about us that we don’t have the right to see, instruments which can turn back time and brains in jars (hopefully!).

And of course, any discussion of accountability in the wizarding world has to take note of Lucius Malfoy’s influence over the Ministry – from Buckbeak’s trial to being given prime Quidditch World Cup tickets as a thank you for a charitable donation.  We have so many worries about lobbyists, political donations and those with a direct line to the President’s/ Prime Minister’s office in the real world that it shouldn’t be surprising that a Ministry with much less accountability has the same problems, but it is concerning all the same.

Due process

“‘Oh, so that’s why he wasn’t prosecuted for setting up all those regurgitating toilets! What an interesting insight into our justice system!’”

The Wizengamot is deeply corrupt. Film still from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (D. Yates, 2007).

When the government makes a mistake or acts illegally, the first point of call is the courts. And we also depend upon the courts to dispense criminal justice fairly and consistently. In a significant part of the world at least, we know we can depend upon the impartiality of the courts in enforcing the law against both us and the government. And yet in Harry Potter’s world we see that even if there is a judiciary – the Wizengamot – the proceedings are presided over by the Minister for Magic. This violates the hallowed principle of the separation of powers – that the three branches of the State (judiciary, legislature, executive) should have separate roles and be able to hold one another to account.

We also see instances where ‘justice’ isn’t exactly consistent. Harry receives a warning letter for a spell being performed by Dobby in the Dursleys’ house, is not even told off for blowing up his aunt and is temporarily expelled for performing defensive magic. We also see inconsistent law enforcement when Willy Widdershins escapes prosecution for turning in the DA. Whilst we might allow plea bargains with gang members in the real world, and so Karkaroff’s release makes some sense, turning spy for the Ministry on a completely different issue is somewhat different and much less justified because it’s irrelevant to his crime.

3 Confronting reality by reading fantasy

3 Confronting reality by reading fantasy

It was a quarter of a century ago that Bruno Bettelheim, the child psychologist, accounted for what may be the most impressive and otherwise mysterious publishing phenomenon of the season: the fact that the Harry Potter mysteries by the previously unknown J. K. Rowling are turning out to be among the best-selling books in history.

In his classic study of children's literature, ''The Uses of Enchantment,'' Bettelheim denigrated most children's books as mere entertainments, lacking in psychological meaning. The great exception to this rule was fairy tales, to which Bettelheim attributed something close to magical power. ''More can be learned from them about the inner problems of human beings,'' he wrote, ''and of the right solutions to their predicaments in any society than from any other type of story within a child's comprehension.''

That was quite a statement at the time, applied as it was to a form of literature that depicted fantastical worlds, seemed unnecessarily scary, depended on unrealistically happy endings and had very little claim on high literary culture.

But Bettelheim's main idea was that children live with greater terrors than most adults can understand, and fairy tales both give uncanny expression to that terror and show a way to a better future. The same can be said of the Harry Potter books, and that could well be the reason why the three published so far occupy the first, second and third places on the New York Times hardcover fiction best-seller list, something that no other author in living memory has achieved before.

Ms. Rowling's books are not fairy tales in the conventional Grimm Brothers sense, and they are not as good either. They lack the primal, brutal terror of the Grimm stories, and it was the expression given to that terror that was at the heart of their emotional usefulness for Bettelheim. The Harry Potter stories are light, modern tales, Indiana Jones-like fantasies for children.

Continue reading the main story

When I began to read them, having heard how great they were from my several addicted nephews, it was hard for me to understand what all the sensation was about. Conservative Christians have criticized the Harry Potter books, saying they lead their young readers in the direction of paganism. For me the problem was that Ms. Rowling's world of sorcerers, gravity-defying broomsticks, spells, potions, unicorns and centaurs, goblins, trolls, three-headed dogs and other monstrous and magical creations seemed so divorced from any reality as to kill off the narrative excitement. But whereas adults see in Harry Potter a fairly conventional supernatural adventure story -- one not nearly as brilliant or literary as, say, ''The Hobbit'' or the ''Alice in Wonderland'' books -- something more fundamental evidently reverberates in the minds of children, something as powerful as the witch of ''Hansel and Gretel.'' And read from this point of view, the Harry Potter books do indeed contain many of the elements that Bettelheim identified in the Grimm tales. Ms. Rowling's success in this sense may show the continued power of the form and the archetypes that those long-ago Germans perfected.

The key here is, not surprisingly, the hero, Harry himself, who is 10 years old in Ms. Rowling's first book. One of the first things we learn about him is that his parents died when he was an infant; he is being raised by an aunt and uncle who are dumb, stiff and uncomprehending and who treat him with stingy cruelty. Following Bettelheim's model, this would be very similar to the archetype of the evil stepmother as a representative of the ''bad'' parent who frighteningly and uncontrollably replaces the ''good'' parent. What children see at the outset in the Harry Potter books is a lonely boy being raised by evil people, and all parents seem evil to their children at least some of the time.

Unknown to Harry is that his real mother and father, who died when he was a baby, were important sorcerers who were killed by a certain Voldemort, the evil genius of this story, who has been trying to seize power for eons. Here Ms. Rowling's adventure takes on a primal quality that links it with many classic tales, from ''Great Expectations'' to ''Star Wars'': there are a family secret and a family struggle passed down from one generation to another, and a lot of meaning comes when the true nature of that struggle is revealed.

What is important in the fairy tale scheme is that Harry's situation contains many of the inchoate fears of childhood, not just the parental abandonment fear. Harry is skinny and weak and wears glasses patched together with tape, and in this sense he seems to stand in for the vulnerability, the powerlessness that children feel. He lives in a cupboard under the stairs, since his spoiled cousin has both of the children's bedrooms upstairs, so in a sense he is expelled, like Hansel and Gretel, even from the evil home he has.

Most conspicuously, Harry is picked on by his cousin, Dudley, the son of Harry's guardians, who treat Dudley with blatant favoritism. There could hardly be a stronger echo of another common fairy tale theme, exemplified by Cinderella's evil stepsisters.

To Bettelheim the conflict between Cinderella and her stepsisters represents the intense sibling rivalries that children feel and the fears that these rivalries give rise to. Fairy tales, with their eventual happy endings, point a way out for the child who otherwise, Bettelheim said, has no hope ''that he will be rescued, that those who he is convinced despise him and have power over him will come to recognize his superiority.''

In the early stages of Harry's story the disadvantages he feels are partly recapitulated outside his home. After he learns that he is somebody, the son of famous sorcerers, Harry goes off to Hogwart's School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. There he discovers that other students all seem to know more than he does, that they are insiders while he is the quintessential outsider.

One boy in particular is the head of a small gang that picks on him. A teacher seems intensely and for no reason to dislike him. But gradually Harry emerges as an independent figure whose talents and skills are widely recognized. The rest of Ms. Rowling's first volume shows Harry assuming his true identity, gaining the courage to overcome obstacles and winning a battle against the adversaries of his ancestors.

Web Resources

1) 

https://mind-hacks.wonderhowto.com/how-to/reading-fantasy-books-could-make-you-better-person-0158479/

2) https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/30/books/critic-s-notebook-the-reality-of-the-fantasy-in-the-harry-potter-stories.html

3) https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/30/books/critic-s-notebook-the-reality-of-the-fantasy-in-the-harry-potter-stories.html

2 Discourse on the purity of Blood and Harry Potter

2 Discourse on the purity of Blood and Harry Potter

The term 'pure-blood' refers to a family or individual without Muggle (non-magic) blood. The concept is generally associated with Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, whose aversion to teaching anybody of Muggle parentage eventually led to a breach with his three fellow founders, and his resignation from the school.WHERE THE TERM 'PURE-BLOOD' ORIGINATED FROM

Pure-blood is the term for wizards and witches who claim to have no Muggle or Muggle-borns in their family tree; however, when traced back far enough, nearly every family tree had some non-magical ancestors.

By 1995, the number of pure-blood families were declining. Most pure-blood families were related by then in an effort, by some, to retain their status by marrying only other pure-blood families, but it had eventually led to inbreeding. While some families, such as the Malfoys, had allowed for marrying half-bloods, others such as the Gaunts, Lestranges, and Blacks, required their family to only marry pure-blood individuals, or those with no Muggle or Muggle-born ancestors. This refusal of marrying Muggles or Muggle-borns had led to difficulty in propagating their families.

The pure-blood families are all interrelated. If you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry pure-bloods, your choice is very limited; there are hardly any of us left.SIRIUS BLACK'S OVERVIEW OF BLOOD PURITY

Pure-blood individuals are people who have no Muggles or Muggle-borns as parents or grandparents. Traditionalist pure-bloods like to keep the generations "pure" by breeding with other pure-bloods and are generally the ones who use the term 'Mudblood', a term considered derogatory by the wizarding world. Families of pure-blood status are often avoiding marrying their heirs off to Muggle-Borns and Half-Bloods, believing that the next generation could lose their capability to perform magic. Mudblood means Muggle-born, suggesting they have dirty blood and thus have no right to be a witch/wizard. Pure-bloods who do not share these prejudices are considered "blood traitors" by the ones that do.

In the 1930s, a wizard, commonly believed to be Cantankerus Nott, published a Pure-Blood Directory featuring twenty-eight families he believed to be pure-blooded, though many objected to this designation.

So-called pure-blood families maintain their alleged purity by disowning, banishing, or lying about Muggles or Muggle-borns on their family trees. Then they attempt to foist their hypocrisy upon the rest of us by asking us to ban works dealing with the truths they deny. There is not a witch or wizard in existence whose blood has not mingled with that of Muggles...

Black Family Tapestry

Some pure-blood families can trace their pure-blood status through many generations of magical ancestors and deny ever having any Muggles within the family, such as the House of Black, the motto of which is "Toujours pur", meaning "Always (or Still) Pure". However, the truth is that if they ever did exist in the past, true pure-blood wizards and witches do not exist today. They merely erase Squibs, Muggle-borns, and Muggles from their family trees.

Half-bloods who consider blood purity very important also hide their Muggle ancestry, clinging to the magical heritage they do have.Many Death Eaters are believed to have done this, and their leader himself took on the name Lord Voldemort out of a desire to not keep the name of his "filthy Muggle father".It is likely that Voldemort told his followers he was a pure-blood, or that most of the Death Eaters knew better than to question Riddle's blood status, given the reaction of Bellatrix Lestrange to Harry's "accusation" that he was in fact a half-blood.

Web Resources

1)https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Muggles%27_Guide_to_Harry_Potter/Magic/Half-blood

2) https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Pure-blood

3) 

https://dharabarayjada.blogspot.com/2019/03/discourse-on-purity-of-blood-in-harry.html?m=1

1 Feminist reading of Harmione’s character in Harry Potter

1 Feminist reading of Harmione’s character in Harry Potter

Without Hermione, Harry would’ve died in book 1,” read another.

In 1997, readers were first introduced to the brilliant and bookish character in Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone ― a young witch born to Muggle (non-magical) parents, with lots of “bushy brown hair and rather large front teeth.” In 2017, Hermione’s face is on protest signs around the world. She’s been reimagined as the center of the Harry Potter series, tasked with battling the patriarchy. You can even purchase posters, T-shirts and embroidered crafts on Etsy that ask “What Would Hermione Do?” 

Over two decades, the young British witch from J.K. Rowling’s beloved Harry Potter series has grown from a literary smart girl into a powerful feminist symbol.

So, What Would Hermione Do?

Perhaps the greatest lesson that Hermione teaches us is how valuable it can be to take risks. After all, saving or changing the world often requires some form of sacrifice, danger and facing down the forces of evil. 

“What would Hermione Granger do? A lot,” wrote HuffPost’s Chloe Angyal, a week after the presidential election. “She’d take real risks, lots of them, and endure a great deal of uncertainty, fear and suffering. We’re going to have to do the same.”

When our own world begins to feel darker and in need of saving ― from terrorism, bigotry, or even the leaders of our own government ― it’s only natural to turn to pop culture for inspiration. And who better to emulate than Hermione Granger, the clever, idealistic young woman who uses her brains rather than brawn to create lasting, widespread change? (The fact that Emma Watson has become an outspoken feminist, UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and HeForShe spokesperson since finishing the Harry Potter franchise makes the political associations we have today with Hermione even more potent.) 

Work sites

1) https://m.huffingtonpost.in/entry/hermione-granger-feminist-symbol-20-years-later_us_59381659e4b0b13f2c65d5c6

2) https://feminisminharrypotter.weebly.com/hermione-granger.html

3) https://www.bustle.com/articles/136244-the-5-least-feminist-moments-in-harry-potter

Webquest Activity on Harry Potter

Introduction

Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young wizard, Harry Potter, and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The main story arc concerns Harry's struggle against Lord Voldemort, a dark wizard who intends to become immortal, overthrow the wizard governing body known as the Ministry of Magic, and subjugate all wizards and Muggles (non-magical people).

• The Philosopher's Stone (1997)
• The Chamber of Secrets (1998)
• The Prisoner of Azkaban (1999)
• The Goblet of Fire (2000)
• The Order of the Phoenix (2003)
• The Half-Blood Prince (2005)
• The Deathly Hallows (2007)

Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, on 26 June 1997, the books have found immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide. They have attracted a wide adult audience as well as younger readers and are often considered cornerstones of modern young adult literature. The series has also had its share of criticism, including concern about the increasingly dark tone as the series progressed, as well as the often gruesome and graphic violence it depicts.
The series has also had its share of criticism, including concern about the increasingly dark tone as the series progressed, as well as the often gruesome and graphic violence it depicts.
As of February 2018, the books have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history, and have been translated into eighty languages.
The last four books consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, with the final instalment selling roughly eleven million copies in the United States within twenty-four hours of its release.

1)  Feminist reading of Harmione’s character in Harry Potter


2) Discourse on the purity of Blood and Harry Potter



3) Confronting reality by reading fantasy



4)  The discourse of Power and Politics in Harry Potter


5)  The theme of Choice and Chance Harry Potter


6)  The theme of Love and Death Harry Potter


 7 ) Moral and Philosophical reading of Harry Potter


8)   Mythical and Magical creatures in Harry Potter



9)  Christianity and Harry Potter

Play

Play

1) Ghashiram Kotwal



2)  The Hairy Ape

Poem

Poem

1) Prayer for My Daughter


2) Baby Running Barefoot - D.H. Lawrence

Novel

Novel

1)  Far from the Madding Crowd

2) Heart of Darkness

3) The Namesake

4) The Bluest Eye

Baby Running Barefoot

Baby Running Barefoot - D.H. Lawrence

In the first line the poet talks about the "Barefeet" of baby who runs across the grass. He then tells about her little white feet, nod like the flower, nod in the wind he beautifully had described. How a baby child runs across the grass out of innocence to watch baby running across medowfield is the most beautiful sight D.H.Lawrence brilliantly and beautifully has captured the beauty of little baby's play in his poem.

                 When baby runs barefooted it this sight which soothes your eyes. He compares baby's white play with the song of robin. Robin song its listeners in the same way the sight of baby running barefooted attracts. All the watchers, you cannot take of your eyes when a child is playing in the Medlow-field.

                    The poet has compare baby's to feet with two white butterflies, like two white butter settled in the cup of one flower baby's barefoot set in the grass. The poet has compare grass with the cup of flower and two white baby's white feet with two white butterflies. Baby's white feet also does not stop at one place like white butterfly it run away from one place to another like white butterfly away with a flutter of wings.

                The poet wants baby to wander around him like wind shadow over the water. He want to enjoy the innocence of little baby it also happen sometime that some of us do not enjoy childhood like others and when we see such little baby playing around. We see are innocence in them more than the babies we enjoy their play as it not only soothe our soul than the poet compares her little barefoot with syringe buds, and pink peony flowers baby's buds and firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

Conclusion
                    Thus in this poem the poet describes not only beauty of the baby but her childlike innocence.

Prayer for My Daughter

 Prayer for My Daughter

Prayer for My Daughter is a beautiful personal poem by William Butler Yeats reflecting his gloomy mood and a fear of a disturbing future. The poem was composed in 1919 and appeared in 1921. It was written during the World War I, thus it reflects the post-war agitation that was prevalent during that time. Though the war ended but Ireland was still in disturbance. William Butler Yeats’ daughter Annie was born that time and the poet was worried for her future. He is worried that his infant daughter has to face the challenges and hardships of the future and how best would she be able to fight them. The poet suggests some characteristics that she must undertake which can sustain her future and keep her safe and happy.

The Hairy Ape

The Hairy Ape
 The Hairy Ape is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It is about a beastly, unthinking laborer known as Yank, the protagonist of the play, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich. At first, Yank feels secure as he stokes the engines of an ocean liner, and is highly confident in his physical power over the ship's engines and his men.

However, when the rich daughter of an industrialist in the steel business refers to him as a "filthy beast", Yank undergoes a crisis of identity and so starts his mental and physical deterioration. He leaves the ship and wanders into Manhattan, only to find he does not belong anywhere—neither with the socialites on Fifth Avenue, nor with the labor organizers on the waterfront. In a fight for social belonging, Yank's mental state disintegrates into animalistic, and in the end he is defeated by an ape in which Yank's character has been reflected. The Hairy Ape is a portrayal of the impact industrialization and social class has on the dynamic character Yank.

Ghashiram Kotwal

Ghashiram Kotwal

Ghashiram Kotwal is a Marathi play written by playwright Vijay Tendulkar in 1972 as a response to the rise of a local political party, in Maharashtra.
The first show of this play was done on 16 December 1972 at Bharat Natya Mandir in Pune. The play saw a huge controversy and success in the following years. It made the trip to Europe in the year 1980. Later in the year 1986, the group also done plays in US and Canada. They also travelled to Russia, East Germany, Hungary etc.

The play begins with an invocation to lord Ganesha. Then the Brahmins of Pune introduce themselves and we can see the morally corrupt state of affairs in Pune. Nana Phadnavis who is the Diwan (Chief Secretary) of Pune is also corrupt and visits the lavani dancer. Ghashiram is working with the lavani dancer. Ghashiram being a Brahmin goes to collect alms at the Peshwa's festival the next day. However he is ill-treated there and is charged with pick-pocketing and imprisoned for the offence. He then decides to take revenge. So the play continues on to reach the next part of this play.

Ghashiram barters his own daughter to get the post of Kotwal (police chief) of Pune from Nana. Having got the post he begins to enforce strict rules in the city. He starts asking for permits for everything and starts throwing people in jail for the smallest offences. In the meantime, Ghashiram's daughter is impregnated by Nana, and dies during childbirth. The situation goes out of hand when a few people in the jail die from suffocation. The Brahmins then complain to the Peshwa. The Peshwa summons Nana who orders Ghashiram to be killed in the most inhumane way possible.

T.Y.B.A

1) Novel


2) Poem


3) Play

The Namesake

The Namesake

The Namesake is the story of two generations of the Gangulis, a family of Indian immigrants to the United States.

When we first meet Ashoke and Ashima Ganguli they are living in a small apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, about to welcome their first child into the world. The young couple met through an arranged marriage in Calcutta, India, where Ashima had lived her whole life before leaving to accompany Ashoke as he studies engineering at M.I.T. Ashoke has been set on traveling abroad ever since a terrible train accident a few years previous, which he barely survived. He was discovered by the rescue party because of the blowing pages of the book he had been reading when the train derailed—a copy of The Collected Stories of Nikolai Gogol. For Ashima, however, the journey abroad has proven difficult. She feels lonely and homesick in America, clinging to letters from her family and devising makeshift Indian recipes with the ingredients she can scrounge together Soon their son is born, in the foreign environment of the American hospital. Ashoke reflects on how lucky this boy is—the baby receives the present of a book from a Bengali friend—and how different his life will be from Ashoke’s own. Ashima, too, is struck by how different her son’s life will be, but she pities him because he will grow up alone, without the extended family that was so central to her own development. The couple waits for their son’s “good name” to come in a letter from Ashima’s grandmother in India, but in the meantime they must give the hospital a temporary “pet name,” and so they settle on “Gogol,” the writer whose book saved Ashoke’s life and made possible this new one.

The novel then tracks Gogol’s growth, as the family moves into a small suburban town when Ashoke is hired as an assistant professor at the local university. Gogol becomes central to his mother’s life, filling some of the loneliness she feels for India. When he begins kindergarten, his parents decide that his “good name” will be Nikhil—Ashima’s grandmother had suffered a stroke, so her naming letter was lost in the mail—but at school Gogol continues to be called by his “pet name,” frightened by the idea of changing it. His sister Sonali (Sonia) is born, and the two siblings begin to bond as the carriers of American influence in the house. The two children, with their natural, unaccented English and socialization in the American school system, are the reason for Ashoke and Ashima’s adoption of Christmas and of certain American food items. At the same time, Ashoke and Ashima take their children to regular gatherings of their Bengali friends in America, and the family takes extended trips to Calcutta, at one point living with relatives for an eight-month period. During this trip, Sonia and Gogol feel like outsiders. India is a foreign place to them, even as they see their parents’ joy at being home.

Gogol grows to despise his name, and is deeply embarrassed by his namesake—the author Nikolai Gogol—and by the fact that the name is not linked to any part of his identity. He does not yet know the story of his father’s train accident. When he is eighteen, he decides to legally change his name to Nikhil, and when he leaves home for Yale this is the name that will follow him. It is as Nikhil that he meets his first love, Ruth, an English major who never meets his parents, even though the two are together for more than two years. They break up after Ruth spends a semester (and then a summer) abroad in England. Nikhil’s escape from the world of “Gogol” is still incomplete, though, as every other weekend he travels home, where his family stubbornly persists in calling him by his pet name.

The escape is pushed one step further when, living in New York after having finished an architecture degree at Columbia, Gogol falls in love with a sophisticated young art historian named Maxine Ratliff, who lives with her elegant and wealthy parents, Gerard and Lydia. Gogol moves into their house, which becomes almost a replacement for his own home. He is fascinated by the Ratliffs, whose vacation home in New Hampshire, with its own family graveyard, is emblematic of the ease, security, and solidity he has never felt growing up divided between two cultures.

His escape with Maxine’s family is cut short when his father dies, unexpectedly, of a heart attack. Ashoke had been living in Ohio on a teaching fellowship, and so was far from his wife and children at the time. Struck by the tragedy of this loss, Gogol returns to his family, finding comfort in the Bengali traditions he had once rebelled against. He drifts away from Maxine, who was never a part of that world, and the two stop seeing one another. Later, returning to New York, he goes on a date (suggested by his mother) with one of the other Bengali children present at the many gatherings of his childhood—Moushumi Mazoomdar. The two hit it off, surprised at the ways in which their familiarity and similar backgrounds draw them together, since both have tried hard to distance themselves from their past. Soon enough, they are married at a large Bengali ceremony in New Jersey.

Although they are happy enough at first, soon small remembrances of Moushumi’s past with her ex-fiancé Graham begin to trouble their relationship. Moushumi, a French Ph.D. candidate at NYU, has always sought independence, and cannot help but feel that marrying Gogol was in some way “settling.” In the end, she has an affair with an old crush, Dimitri Desjardins, and she and Gogol are divorced. In the novel’s last chapter, we see the family coming together again, Sonia accompanied by her new fiancé Ben, to celebrate one final Bengali Christmas Eve in their home, which has been sold. Ashima has decided to live for six months of every year in Calcutta. Reflective and sad that this link to his past is evaporating, Gogol finds a book in his room—a copy of The Collected Stories of Nikolai Gogol that his father had given him as a birthday present years before, when all Gogol had wanted was to escape that name. Now that there will soon be no one left to call him by it, he feels a desire to reach out toward his past once more, and he sits down on his childhood bed to read his father’s favorite story.