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The World Beneath the Books

The World Beneath the Books

 

 

The World Beneath the Books

J.K. Rowling: The World Beneath the Books Interesting title

            The purpose of literature is to envision and portray a world in a way that will captivate the readers and draw them into the world of the book.  Exceptional authors are the ones who create a world of their own, while incorporating aspects of their individual lives in an exciting way.  Successful authors of great novels, often have reoccurring central themes throughout the novels in a series of book.  The many things that can influence what a writer puts into a work of fiction include what they are trying to do with the literary genre that they are writing in, such as fantasy, and what the intended audience is to be, along with how the readers will relate the ideas of the book to what is happening around them.  One of the most well known authors of this time is J.K. Rowling, creator of the best selling Harry Potter series.  Rowling’s Harry Potter novels are fictional stories that share a common theme with aspects of her own life incorporated in and an unexpected connection with the current issues. You should mention the genre in the thesis.
The genre of the Harry Potter novels that Rowling uses is Fantasy, “a form of fiction in which impossible events occur due to the use of magic” (“Fantasy Fiction”).   This genre is usually very conservative and “looks backward to an idealized, romanticized, pseudofeudal world” (Grossman). Rowling’s Harry Potter books don’t follow most of these clichés run-on in fact these works of art “take place in the 1990s [and] not in some never-never Narnia but in modern-day mugglish England, with cars, telephones and PlayStations” (Grossman) good quote. By adapting this conservative genre to her whim, Rowling makes her Hogwarts “secular and sexual and multicultural and multiracial and even sort of multimedia with all those talking ghosts” (Grossman). Like most fantasy novels these books start with run of the mill escapism but Rowling says that “I was trying to subvert the genre … Harry goes off into this magical world, and is it any better than the world that he has left?” (Grossman)  run-on she goes on to say that it is not the magic that makes this world any better it is the relationships and that “Magic in many ways complicates his life” (Grossman). Unlike most books in this genre there is some aspect of sex in the later novels because “Harry and his friends are now sixteen, and it would be weird if Harry didn’t have more on his mind than wands and snitches” (Grossman).
These books could also be classified under Magic Realism—awkward, because it is “characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastic or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction” (“magic realism”).  You could tie this effectively to what you wrote above—you don’t seem to understand how Magic Realism arose out of fantasy to do just what Rowling is trying to do. Even though these novels fit some of the characteristics of this genre they do not comply with all of them such as the fact that they are not Native American—this is not what the source said works of fiction (“magic realism”). While these novels reject many of the clichés of a fantasy story book they all have influences from Rowling’s personal life.
The Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling have subtle influences of her life and where she was when she got the ideas that came to her—awkward.  One of the major influences in her story from her own life is that she was on her way to London, England when she got the idea for the story (Vieira) so she set the whole series in London and in a part of London that only wizards can get to and muggles are oblivious. Another aspect from that trip to London, is the Hogwarts Express which is the train the students take to arrive at Hogwarts, because Rowling got the idea while “on the train from Manchester to London” (Vieira). Rowling’s own life also influenced her stories in her psychology of evil.  She says that “evil seems to flourish, in places where people didn’t get good fathering” (Grossman). Some of that stems from “her relationship with her father [that] has been uneven, and the father of her oldest daughter [whom] is no longer part of Rowling’s life” (Grossman). The biggest autobiographical aspect of these works of fiction however, is that fact that her mother died six months after she had started writing the first book in the series and as she says herself “Definitely Mom dying had a profound influence on the books” (Vieira). It would be better if you could discuss this aspect in detail. Because of her mom dying very early in the writing of the stories, they all share a common theme.
The aspect of death is a key point in the Harry Potter series due to that fact of Rowling’s mother dying.  While on an interview she states, while talking about her mother dying six months into writing the first book, “from that moment on, death became a central theme, if not the central theme of the seven books” (Vieira). She then goes on to say that the theme was not just death in terms of the malevolent people murdering the good guys, but of “how [people] react to death, [and] how much [they] fear it” (Vieira). This is a key part of the book to Rowling because “Voldemort is someone who will do anything not to die” (Vieira). One of the things that he does in hopes of escaping death is to kill people and tear his soul apart. He puts parts of it in different objects so that if his body dies then he can get someone to bring his soul out of that object which would bring him back to life. He does this because he is horrified of dieing which is also why he tries to kill Harry every time that he gets the chance, because of the prophesy that was created when Harry was born. Rowling states that “in many ways, all [her] characters are defined by their attitude to death and the possibility of death” (Vieira). Wouldn’t be interesting if Rowling could tell Voldemort’s story to deepen this psychological insight? Another theme that was repeated throughout all seven books was that of the importance of friendship (SparkNote—place title in quotation marks). This is shown in all the books by the fact that in all the books Harry was never able to do anything on his own just like no one in real life would have been able to, run-on he always has help from any number of his friends that are always willing to help him even when he is mean to them. Even at the middle of the last book when Ron leaves Harry and Hermione the camp and says that he is never coming back, he does wind up coming back to help them for the reason that they are such great friends.  While Death and the importance of friendship are the main themes of these novels, a connection to current events could be made by “Generation Hex” (Grossman), as Rowling calls the generation that grew up with Harry Potter. Break up overly long paragraphs.
The children that grew up with Harry Potter are the same ones that grew up with the threat of terrorism. This generation of children would without a doubt make the connection between this and what Rowling describes as “a borderless, semi-civil way with a shadowy, hidden leader whose existence the government ignored until disaster forced the issue and who is supported by a secret network of sleeper agents willing to resort to tactics of shocking cruelty” (Grossman). This unexpected connection to modern events makes this book more interesting to the reader and shows that it is not all fun and games. You could make this connection stronger—who are the terrorists in the Potter books?
The Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling are fantasy fiction stories that are complemented by aspects of her life and what has happened to her. These stories also include a shared theme in all seven books and an unexpected connection between Voldemort and the Death Eaters and the threat of terrorism. These works of fiction have quite a lot of things that make them.

Works Cited
“Fantasy Fiction: An Introduction.” BBC, 22 Dec 2003. Web. 1 Apr 2010.
Grossman, Lev. “J.K. Rowling Hogwarts and All.” Time, 17 July 2005. Web, 30 Mar 2010.
"magic realism." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 02 Apr. 2010
“SparkNote on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Sparknotes.com. Sparknotes LLC. 2005. Web. 4 Mar 2010
Vieira, Meredith. “Harry Potter: The Final Chapter.” msnbc.com, 30 July 2007. Web. 30 Mar 2010.
Evaluation

            Overall, this paper is very good.  You have an in-depth discussion of Rowling that touches on some of the very important aspects of her writing.  One improvement you could make is in the order. Consider dealing with the biographical aspects first and saving the genre for last.
Consider these comments as well:

  • Rethink your discussion of Magic Realism. The very divergences from Fantasy that you cite is what makes this book Magic Realism;

 

  • Discuss the terrorism issue more clearly. Obviously the Death Eaters are terrorists—how does Rowling use them to relate the books to contemporary events?
  • Revise to correct run-on and awkward sentences.

 

Grade: 96

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The World Beneath the Books

 

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The World Beneath the Books