ABSTRACT

 

 

J.K. Rowling uses a number of Biblical themes throughout her novel. The tropes common in children’s tales of punishment, forgiveness, good vs. evil, humility, and faith appear throughout the story in unconventional ways.  By avoiding the conventional answers to these traits throughout her novels, Harry Potter as a character gains a more human aspect through his reactions to these situations. Harry’s often unorthodox reactions to uncommon situations in comparison with the more common answers typically found in children’s literature help him to stand out from the plethora of perfect child protagonists, particularly the Jesus of children’s literature.

 

 

 

DEDICATION

 

 

This work is dedicated to my parents, who took my decision not to be a doctor with surprisingly good graces, all things considered. Thank you for believing in me and never telling me that my love for Harry was a waste.

 

 

 

Table of Contents

I Open…: Introduction. 1

The Dementor’s Kiss: Punishment. 2

I Must Not Tell Lies: Forgiveness. 3

You Will Lose Everything: Good vs. Evil 4

I Had Loads of Help: Humility. 5

Harry Is the Best Hope We Have: Faith. 7

…At the Close: Conclusion. 8

Works Cited. 9

 

 

I Open…: Introduction

 

      J.K. Rowling possesses a background uniquely geared toward the creation of such fantasy novels coached in Biblical themes. Rowling, a British author, possesses a BA in Classics and French from the University of Exeter. Her education and upbringing offer her a knowledge of the story of Jesus, expressed through her use of a number of different themes: punishment, forgiveness, good and evil, humility, and faith. These five themes are vital to the Biblical tale of Jesus Christ as well as the Christian mythos. Rowling utilizes these tropes, while subverting them through characters like Umbridge and events like Sirius’s wrongful imprisonment, making the themes more realistic.

 

      Through the use and subversion of Biblical tropes throughout Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling creates a dynamic protagonist who steps beyond the bounds of a traditional Christ-figure. By placing Harry in situations where he will have to come to his own decisions regarding these five topics, Rowling situates Harry a human Christ-figure, allowing the reader to sympathize with him in a way they would not have been able to otherwise. If Harry was the traditional, perfect Christ-figure of Judeo-Christian mythology, then the reader would not have any imperfections through which they can see themselves in Harry. By being imperfect, Harry becomes relatable. The reader connects with Harry’s struggles, which allows them to share in his triumphs.

 

The Dementor’s Kiss: Punishment

 

      Throughout the Harry Potter series, Harry encounters a number of different punishments in relation to various occurrences. Rowling shows an apparent lack of middle ground for punishments, ranging from monetary fines to wand-snapping, Azkaban, or even the loss of a soul through the Dementor’s Kiss. While the wizarding world possesses a judiciary branch in the Wizengamot, Harry’s experience in Order of the Phoenix shows that the judiciary branch of the Ministry of Magic can be dangerous and biased as they attempt to convict Harry without giving him a chance at a true defense. The Ministry or other people of power often punish characters without any sort of trial, such as Sirius Black’s incarceration in Azkaban and Barty Crouch Jr.’s loss of his soul to a dementor. Meanwhile, a number of Death Eaters walk free through most of the series through a combination of reputation, bloodlines, and exchange of gold.

 

      Often, Harry is the only character who recognizes someone as necessitating punishment. However, Harry’s ability does not exempt from the bias of his own experiences, often accusing Professor Snape or Draco Malfoy only to discover that he is incorrect in his judgement. This bias works against Harry in Half-Blood Prince when Harry attempts to convince Ron and Hermione that Draco has become a Death Eater. Due to previous experiences with Harry’s bias against Draco, Hermione and Ron do not believe Harry, even though he turns out to be correct about Draco.

 

       In his positioning as a Christ-figure, Harry’s ability to pass judgement is more accurate than that of characters in far superior levels of power. He is aware of Voldemort’s return as well as the return of the inner circle of Death Eaters long before the Minister of Magic is willing to accept Voldemort’s return.  However, unlike the traditional Christ-figure, his reasoning can be unsound and he is occasionally tricked into passing incorrect judgement.

 

I Must Not Tell Lies: Forgiveness

 

      Harry possesses a unique ability to forgive people who might not deserve forgiveness. However, Harry does not offer this forgiveness to everyone, a choice that makes him a more imperfect Messiah. Even though Harry knows that Snape informed Voldemort of the prophesy that ultimately began the hunt that killed his parents, Harry forgives the man of his crimes, even going so far as to name his youngest son after the professor, calling him “one of the bravest men he ever knew.” Harry also offers Voldemort a chance at forgiveness and redemption, asking him to “try for some remorse” in Deathly Hallows.

 

      In contrast, Harry holds a terrible, deep-burning grudge for Dolores Umbridge, a woman whose crime against Harry is relatively small. Umbridge insists that Harry is a liar, but so does Fudge and Harry never holds such a dramatic grudge against him. Umbridge forces Harry to write lines in his own blood, but Voldemort is the reason Harry has to spend his childhood with the Dursleys and the reason Harry has a scar on his forehead.  Harry cannot find the pity and forgiveness in him to forgive Umbridge, long before her true cruelties come to light. While what Umbridge did was truly terrible, Voldemort killed hundreds if not thousands of people between his two reigns of terror, and Harry still tries to offer him a chance at absolution.

 

      Biblically, forgiveness is one of the most important factors for the Christ-figure. Jesus forgives everyone, no matter their crimes. This is part of the appeal of a Christ figure; the unconditional forgiveness he offers. Harry, however, is mortal, human. He is folly to the same vices and virtues as any other human, and those include grudges. Harry’s changing opinions is what makes him human and relatable.

 

You Will Lose Everything: Good vs. Evil

 

      Harry’s many clashes with Voldemort mimic a number of traditional ideas of good versus evil as seen in Biblical theology.  Rowling firmly places Harry on the side of the righteous and the good, as seen from the first book. Voldemort tempts Harry with the one thing he seems to desire most, his parents, and yet Harry refuses and clings to his convictions. Rowling places Gryffindor and Slytherin as direct opposites, with the protagonists residing in Gryffindor and almost all of the evil coming from Slytherin. There are, however, a few notable exceptions to this rule, such as Peter Pettigrew of Gryffindor and Horace Slughorn of Slytherin.

 

      Another example is the eventual victory of good over evil. Rowling avoids this trope to a point, utilizing character deaths to make the eventual victory a bittersweet one, but Harry does eventually triumph over Voldemort. Rowling chooses to skip any time of healing or adjustment to all of these deaths or losses, instead skipping to the “Nineteen Years Later” epilogue where “all was well.”  Rowling tries to circumvent the trope of good beating evil through events such as Dumbledore’s death and the subsequent fight in Half Blood Prince and the deaths of characters like Fred or Colin in Deathly Hallows, but she eventually chooses to allow the “all was well” happy ending.

 

      Rowling writes Harry and Voldemort with an astonishing number of similarities, making their few differences that much more striking. A huge theme throughout the Harry Potter novels is choice, and Rowling highlights that theme through Harry and Voldemort. Rowling is making the point that good and evil are choices and that everybody has a choice to be good. Rowling takes the ideas of good and evil further by making her main protagonist and antagonist so very similar, showing that there is little to differentiate the two sides outside of their choices.

 

I Had Loads of Help: Humility

 

      Harry expresses a surprising amount of humility for a teenage boy. He often protests the spotlight offered to him by his peers, making a point of telling those around him that his skills are not skills at all, but rather dumb luck and the help of the people around him. He doesn’t like his friends to talk about his accomplishments to others, instead preferring to stay out of the spotlight. He dislikes allowing his trademark scar to show, often flattening his bangs to avoid letting others see. Harry’s actions speak to the humility of the Christ-figure, rather than the expected arrogance of a teenage boy. However, Harry is not immune to moments of ego, such as while he is getting the memory from Slughorn in Half-Blood Prince. He chooses to brag to the professor that he is the “Chosen One” and uses the title in order to convince Professor Slughorn to relinquish the memory he needs. The reader also sees this in Order of the Phoenix, where Harry begins listing all the things he’s done to defend the fact that he should know more about current events; in the same book, Harry avoiding listing these same accomplishments for his peers in the Hog’s Head.

 

      In tales of Jesus, the fact that Jesus was willing to lower himself to the form of a common man is seen as extreme humility. For the first four books, Harry does not attempt to raise himself above the level of his peers. Harry only wants to appear as one of them. He is not looking for undue admiration or benefits. This changes in Order of the Phoenix, where Harry desires to be treated as an equal based on his accomplishments rather than as a boy based on his age. This struggle is a reason why Harry is willing to list his accomplishments to adults in the Order, but not to his peers at Hogwarts.

 

      Harry takes the most pride in his abilities at Quidditch, a seemingly small skill compared with repeatedly standing up against Voldemort, the most feared man in the British magical community. When the false Moody tells Harry to “play to his strengths” in Goblet of Fire, Harry responds that he is good at flying. Harry, the boy who beat Hermione Granger in their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.Ls, the boy who can summon a fully corporeal Patronus at thirteen years old, considers his ability to fly to be his best skill. He often states that he thinks Hermione is better than he is. Harry’s determined humility sways from one extreme to the other, never really settling in the center.

 

Harry Is the Best Hope We Have: Faith

 

      Whether Harry wishes to admit it or not, he is the savior of the Wizarding World. His destiny, according to prophesy, is to face Voldemort and either win or lose. Therefore, many people are putting their trust in him by the seventh book.  However, the people around Harry do not always believe in him. In the fifth book, Harry deals with the vilification of the press and the lack of trust the greater Wizarding World has in him. Even when Umbridge forces Harry to carve words into his own skin, Harry is not willing to back down from the truth. He has become little more than a spectacle in the eyes of the greater wizarding world, a crazy child seeking attention any way he can get it, and yet he refuses to stop telling the truth. By book seven, Voldemort has control of the Ministry and labels Harry as “Undesirable Number One”, the most wanted wizard in Britain. Lack of faith does not stop Harry from moving forward, however. Despite an apparent majority of the wizarding world hunting him as a villain, Harry still fights.

 

      Biblically, a believer has to have faith in the Christ-figure to be saved from damnation. Harry, unlike Jesus, saves everybody regardless of their faith in him. When Harry stops Voldemort at the end of the series, he is saving everyone, regardless of their opinions in him. Harry does not want to save the entire Wizarding World when he is walking into the Forbidden Forest. He wants to save his friends and family. This move from the global to the personal puts Harry in a new light, moving him from the universal, unconditional love of the Christ-figure and into a position where a close few people become the reason Harry is willing to die. While Harry’s actions save the entire wizarding world, Harry is not choosing to die for the entire wizarding world. He is dying for the people he loves and considers family.

 

…At the Close: Conclusion

 

      J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter as a character to push the envelope of the Christ-figure of children’s literature. She pushes the boundaries of the trope past the impersonal and into the personal place where the reader can connect and sympathize with Harry. The human traits that Harry shows are what make him more than the holy, perfect Christ-figure shown in Biblical children’s literature. Rowling designed Harry to be more down to earth, more relatable for readers. By positioning Harry in such a way so that he is faced with exceptions to the rules the Christ of children’s literature faces, Rowling makes Harry into a hero a reader can see themselves in.

 

Works Cited           

 

Bridger, Francis. A Charmed Life: The Spirituality of Potterworld. Bath: Bath Press, 2001. Print.

 

Fairman, Marion A. Biblical Patterns in Modern Literature. Cleveland: Dillon/Liederback, Inc., 1972. Print.

 

Faktorovich, Anna. The Formulas of Popular Fiction Elements of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Religious,       and Mystery Novels. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2014. Print.

 

Herald, Diana Tixier. Genreflecting: A Guide to Reading Interests in Genre Fiction. Colorado: Libraries Unlimited,       Inc., 1995. Print.

 

Liptzin, Sol. Biblical Themes in World Literature. Hoboken: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1985. Print.

 

Maria, Gerarda and Middendorp Kooiman-Van. The Hero in the Feminine Novel. New York: Haskell House, 1966.       Print.

 

Matthews, Richard. Fantasy: The Liberation of Imagination. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1997. Print.

 

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 1998. Print.

      —. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007. Print.

      —. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2000. Print.

      —. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2005. Print.

      —. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2003. Print.

      —. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 1999. Print.

      —. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 1997. Print.

      —. The Tales of Beedle the Bard. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007. Print.

 

Saricks, Joyce G. The Readers' Advisory Guide to Genre Fiction. Chicago: American Library Association, 2009.       Print.

 

Tischler, Nancy M. Thematic Guide to Biblical Literature. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2007. Print.