Heerva's blog

             Harry Potter series are one of those where there is complete denial of God or Religion. Hogwarts and all the characters in the novels have gone through hardest time of their life. But then even we did not find anyone who is praying to God for help. There is not a single church also in the setting of the novels. When hard time comes people choose to act rather than pray. We also didn’t find that any where it was God’s miracle that save any of the characters or anywhere the God is coming and saving characters from catastrophe. So in one way J. K. Rowling has denied the existence of God or Religion in her books. May be these all are the reasons why some Christians are not happy with the books and they are asking people to not to read it. They believe that this books are celebrating Satanism. Because magic and witchcraft are symbols of Satan worshiping in the Christianity.           If we look from another angel then we can find some of elements of Christianity here. The ve

Harry Potter with lots of other elements has not left out the age old theme of Love and Death. The very first scene of love and death comes together is murder of Harry’s parents. They sacrifice themselves because they have loved the Harry and that has given protection to the Harry. Same thing Harry does. He goes to the forest willingly to sacrifice himself for the sake of Hogwarts protection and it also has provided protection to the Hogwarts. In matter of love Dumbledore also says that don’t pity dead, pity living and pity those who does not get love. So this is how the theme of love has portrayed. Death is also one of the theme of Harry Potter. It gives very good insight for death. It says that one can not cheat death. One or the other day people have to die. Other thing it says is that no one can bring dead ones back to the life. Dumbledore also says that there is no such spell which can bring dead back. It also says that to win over death means to win over the fear of death. If y

             Speculative Fiction is an umbrella term, which includes many other terms like science fiction, fantasy, horror, history, utopia, dystopia and super hero story. There are many terms which can be applied on Harry Potter books. We can say that Harry Potter series are fantasy books, as it take us to the world of magic and mystery. Though it is world of magic but it gives scientific reasons also, as it shows process of every magic so it can be considered as scientific fiction. With science and magic it gives elements of horror. All those dark forests and giant animals, at some place give feeling of horror. These books are not connected with real history. It does have the events of present world. But it obviously is talking about the history of the Hogwarts school. So it includes history also. At last we have super hero tale also. This is the story of a “boy who lived” and “chosen one” so we can take Harry as super hero. All these terms makes Harry Potter a speculative fiction

                  Whole Harry Potter series has the dynamics of power politics. Questioning authority is base of good democracy, but when power is not ready for criticism or in the name of reformation when power controls and separate people then they don’t accepts questions as something good, but rather they take it as disloyalty towards the authority. This started happening in Hogwarts also when government started interfering the education. Education is base of people. They learn to ask question when they are educating themselves. But when people from Ministry of Magic has become professor in school the atmosphere has started changing. Umbridge is a member of Ministry of Magic, she came in to education. Very first thing which she did was she started giving punishment for asking questions and started separating those who asks question. When fellow teachers ask her anything she accuse them of being disloyal to the authority. She has taken all the freedom of students. There are more res

             The writer of fantasy books have never thought of only write it for entertainment. Fantasy books always have some moral lessons or some lessons which people can put in to the real practice. Harry Potter is also same kind of novels which helps us in living our real life, but it told us by fantasy story. The first and important lesson according to me is accept the failure. Harry is hero of the novels but then even some times he can not win some battles, but then he accepts his failure and move forward. This gives another lesson worth putting in to real life practice is persistency. Failure or success doesn’t mean stop. One should have to keep on doing the same till they don’t achieve the height. This means one should never give up. Another important thing is love and sacrifice. It was Lily’s love and sacrifice which keeps Harry alive.              Other important lessons which we can take from Harry Potter is questioning the authority. It always happens in real world th

            Harry Potter has given many lessons which can make these books as self help books. For instance, finding happiness in dark times, doing duty honestly even if people don’t like you, recognize friend in disguise, loyalty, sacrifice, friendship, persistency, these all are the topics which can be taken as self help. But there is something more than this which make this books different from others self help cultured books. Those books asks to find reason of failure in one’s own self. It sooths the political agenda of government, who tells people that there is something lacking in you and not in the system. Harry Potter differs from these culture. Harry Potter teach us to question the authority. It teaches to doubt power also not only own self. It also teach us to fight against the power. We can take example of Dumbledore’s army, which was trained by Harry. That army was to fight against the Ministry of Magic. So it doesn’t sooths the agenda of government. It is rather teaching

             Pure blood, Half blood and Mud blood, these are the terms which are used in the Harry Potter books. These terms are to discriminate people, and also to show power of related to blood. Every where there is concept of superior and inferior, the base might differ. Here the base is blood. People in Harry Potter series used to think that those who have belongingness to pure blood family, have more talent and those who doesn’t belongs don’t have talent. But here making hero Half blood and Hermione, Mud blood, J. K. Rowling is showing very clearly her stance. So it proves that talent can not be inherited, it should be acquired.  Secondly pure blood don’t give certificate of goodness in person. We can clearly see that Malfoys who belongs to Pure blood family are in the favour of Voldemort and Harry who is Half blood and Hermione who is Mud blood they are fighting against the evil. So everything does not come with blood.              Then we can see racism also. As Rowling her sel

            Hermione is major character in the Harry Potter series. But how we will look at the portrayal of female characters if we do feminist reading of Harry Potter series. Many critics and people thinks that Rowling has not left any place to criticise her work from feminist point of view. We can not agree with 100%. As we can say that there are 50 – 50 of appreciation and criticism both. We can appreciate these novel by looking at the female characters as strong and knowledgeable. At Hogwarts Umbridge is the one who is slowly taking over the power from Dumbledore. The other point to ponder is here mother has given more importance then father. Harry’s mother Lily is shown more effective and presentable then in comparison to Harry’s father James. Mother of Ginny, Ron, Fred and George is Molly. She is house wife but when it comes to her daughter she can fight with Bellatrix and can defeat her also. So this way we can appreciate Harry Potter series from feminist perspective.        

           As a Children’s literature Harry Potter is full of moral lessons. One of very important moral lesson is to distinguish between good and evil. At every step of life, it will ask person to make choice and based on those choices our future depends. So morally good choices helps people. As in the friendship Hermione and Ron made choice to be defeated in the chess and let Harry win, because he has to complete the task. Harry also saves Malfoy from the fire and that was his moral choice. Harry can’t ignore it. It his personality to help others.            If we talk about philosophy, then the most important lesson was to fight with our self. It is said that when we are constantly looking in to the dark then darkness is also peeping inside us. Same has happened with Harry. He is constantly in the connection with Voldemort, if not physically then mentally. But while fighting with evil, evil has made impact on goodness of Harry. We can see sometimes evil is over powering the goodne

             “It is our choice, that show what we truly are, for more than our abilities” says Dumbledore. By and large Harry Potter series has been worked on idea of choice or better to say it has emphasised on choice. We can see that from the very beginning, from sorting hat to the Harry going in to the forest. The choice is the one which matters. There are phases where chance work more than choice, but choice is the one who dominate the narrative.              Voldemort has believed that his downfall is because of chance every time. He believed that it was chance that Harry happens to caught him or defeat him. But in the case of Harry it mostly a choice of Harry which had lead him to do, what he has able to do in the all series. May be Rowling wants to make magical world, which is not dominated by the fate. Things happens because people choose to act on them. If we talk about prophecies, then even it is not fate driven. Prophecies becomes true because characters choose to act acc

              Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling has made an immense effect on the culture. People were talking that people are not reading but when Harry Potter published, people were in long cues for purchasing the books. It has world of fantasy and so people considered it has children’s literature. It has many elements through which we can say that Harry Potter is children’s literature.              Rowling has used very simple language in these books so readability increases. Children can easily read and comprehend the books. Readability is important part of children literature which these books are able to give. So the language is not barrier for children. Second is that children don’t like the books which have perspective of adults. In these books we have children as main characters and narrative follow the children. The hero of the books grows with the people who are reading it. So it keeps the connection with readers. Characters of the books are portrayed same as real people