Style and allusions

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  • Genre
    • Boarding school
      • British school genre - Whited p. 143 (Steege), Anatol p. 7 (Smith)
      • Soccer/quidditch, boy’s tale? - Whited pp. 234, 251 (Doughty), Anatol pp. 4-5 (Lavoie), Heilman p. 213 (Alton)
      • Hogwarts - transitional between child and adulthood - Whited p. 132 (Natov)
      • Victorian boarding school + bildungsroman - Heilman pp. 209-11 (Alton)
      • More on bildungsroman - Berndt & Steveker p. 17 (Pharr)
  • Style
    • Ordinary/extraordinary   Done
      • Ordinary/extraordinary - Whited p. 129 (Natov); exotic/familiar - James p. 234 (Butler);
      • Heroic Hs, sneaky Ss, difficult French names - Whited p. 130 (Natov), Anatol p. 183 (Park)
      • Harry as everyman, a fairy-tale hero; emphasis on ordinariness - Anatol pp. 97-98 (Ostry); Heilman p. 233 (Nikolajeva)
      • Blend of portal fantasy and secret magical elites - James p. 233 (Butler)
    • Blurs lines between technology and magic - Heilman p. 48 (Sheltrown)
    • “Magic is apparent as magic because it defeats the desires and sharpens the explanatory failures of Muggles.” Heilman p. 67, Gupta
  • Allusions   Done
    • Motifs from fairy/folk tales
      • Harry as King Arthur (sword in the stone) Heilman pp. 209-11 (Alton)
      • Cinderella - Anatol p. 195 (Gallardo)
    • Christianity - Heilman pp. 238-39 (Nikolajeva)
      • Psychomania; battle for the soul - Berndt & Steveker p. 27 (Singer)
  • Archetypes   Vague
    • Father figures: Prongs, spirit, identifcation; Hagrid, Sirius, Dumbledore - Whited pp. 110-12 (Grimes), Heilman pp. 73-74
    • (?) Oedipal power struggle between Harry and Voldemort; archetypal child - Anatol pp. 1-4 (Mils)

Themes

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  • Death   Done
    • Harry’s parents: Mirror of Erised, dementors - Whited pp. 134-36 (Natov)
    • Grief shifts, manifests differently over time; death of multiple characters - Heilman pp. 23-27 (Taub)
    • Theme of accepting death - Heilman pp. 39-40 (Ciaccio); masters of death Voldemort and Dumbledore - Heilman pp. 59-60 (Sheltrown)
    • Voices inside his head in P of Azkaban - Heilman p. 73
  • Good and evil   Done
    • First impressions can mislead: Snape vs Quirrell; Snape vs Moody. Harry confuses personal animosity with evil - Anatol pp. 132-33 (Shanoes), Whited pp. 247-49 (Doughty)
    • Good/evil is a choice, not an inherent attribute. Redemption and 2nd chances are important themes. (Harry doubting himself; Snape & Dumbledore) - Whited pp. 247-49 (Doughty), Anatol p. 134 (Shanoes)
    • Moral complexity of Snape (and Sirius) - Anatol p. 135-36 (Shanoes)
    • About Harry on the surface, but actually about Snape - Heilman pp. 84-85 (Appelbaum), Berndt Steveker p. 204 (Nikolajeva) (actually the entire chapter)
    • Snape as a complex and multifaceted character - Heilman pp. 110-13 (Birch)
  • Class/prejudice
    • Magical oligarchy
      • Glorifies the magical elite - Whited pp. 154-55 (Steege); Whited p. 169 (Mendlesohn)
      • Hierarchical Hogwarts administration - Whited p. 225 (Dresang)
      • Aristocracy of the boarding school - Heilman p. 189 (Bousquet)
      • Power hierarchy; pureblooded wizards superior to muggles; muggle genocide - Heilman p. 228 (Nikolajeva)
      • Pureblood oligarchy - Barratt pp. 14-15
    • House-elves   Done
      • Slavery of house elves; self-subservience - Whited pp. 178-81 (Mendlesohn); Anatol pp. 103-6 (Carey)
      • Anti-Muggle and -elf prejudice - Whited pp. 313-14, 325-27 (Westman)
      • Dobby ironing his own fingers - darkly comical element. Initially posed as a moral problem, but the author lost interest - Heilman p 165 (Dendle)
      • Compliant, brainwashed slaves; still enslaved by the end of the series - Barratt p. 50-52
      • Treatment of Dobby a disharmonious element; only respected after he dies a hero - Berndt & Steveker pp. 12-13 (Pharr)
    • Racial/ethnic otherness - Anatol pp. 163-75 (Anatol)
    • Dursleys “perfectly normal” - Whited p. 126 (Natov), fear of abnormality, desire to be wealthy, upper-class - Heilman pp. 66-67 (Piippo)
    • Middle-class British identity: Anatol pp. 179-89 (Park)

Sources

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  • Anatol, Liza Giselle, ed. (2003). Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Westport, Conn.: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-313-32067-5. OCLC 50774592.
  • Berndt, Katrin; Steveker, Lena, eds. (2016). Heroism in the Harry Potter Series. Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781315586748. ISBN 978-1-317-12211-1.
  • Heilman, Elizabeth E., ed. (2008). Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2d ed.). Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203892817. ISBN 978-1-135-89154-1.
  • Whited, Lana A., ed. (2002). The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-6330-8. OCLC 56424948.