Old Spells Made New

Since its publication in 1997, the Harry Potter series by author J. K. Rowling has won the hearts of children around the world. The first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, forms Part One of a planned seven-book set, in which an ordinary ten year-old boy discovers that he has magic powers, and studies the art of magic at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. However, the wild popularity of Rowling’s new series is not due strictly to her mysterious plots, or the humorous tone of her narrative. The secret to the success of the Harry Potter series lies, rather, in its incorporation of key elements drawn from earlier children’s literature. Specifically, using strategies which have secured a faithful readership in the genres of school story and fairy story, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone merges realism and fantasy in an ingenious and endearing narrative. These traditional strategies can be seen in two earlier sources: the fantasy world of fairy tales, and Thomas Hughes’ school story classic, Tom Brown’s Schooldays.

On the surface, it is clear that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has much in common with its fairy tale predecessors; the story is filled with dragons, trolls, wizards, witches, and all sorts of magical powers and agents. Although the presence of magic in some form is elemental in the fairy tale, this feature alone did not draw its devoted following, and is similarly not fully responsible for Harry Potter’s current success. Fairy stories were not originally intended to be suitable for children, and yet certain motifs in the stories endeared them to children throughout the ages; these motifs both attracted and held the sympathies of the reader, and largely contributed to the success of the fairy tale with a younger audience. These same attractive fairy tale motifs are instrumental to the popularity of the Harry Potter story.

One motif, successfully employed in both fairy story and Harry Potter, is that of the abused or neglected child who is suddenly and incredibly raised above their former status. This highly popular fairy tale plot can be seen in the classic story of Cinderella. After the death of her father, Cinderella’s haughty step-mother puts the girl relentlessly to “the meanest work of the house” (Perrault, p.64) and gives her a “sorry garret …[and a] wretched straw bed” (Perrault, p.64) in which to sleep, while her own daughters live in undeserved luxury; it is only after the intervention of the child’s fairy godmother that the local Prince falls in love with Cinderella, and she is a happily married princess at the end of the story. The same structure is used in Toads and Diamonds, where a neglected daughter, forced to do the work of a maidservant in the house, is rewarded for her charity with the gift “’that, at every word you speak, there shall come out of your mouth either a flower or a jewel’” (Perrault, p.274); she is subsequently married to a prince. It is understandable that children should be attracted to this plot motif; trapped in an inferior relationship to their parents and yet conscious of their own self-worth, they may dream of the day when they are taken away from their perceived drudgery and rewarded with a new and exciting position in life, independent of their family. It should not, therefore, surprise us to meet Harry Potter while he is living in a small, spider-infested cupboard at his uncle’s house, neglected, ignored, and abused. In the same way that Cinderella is visited by her fairy godmother, Harry is solicited by the giant Hagrid, who introduces him to the world of magic and helps him escape from the world of the Muggles. Although Harry’s story is set in the present day, the extreme nature of his neglect and abuse combined with the absence of pathos in the narrative make his situation unrealistic. We therefore must recognize the situation as a fairy tale motif, and a plot tool in the novel meant to attract a young audience.

A further delight is added in Harry’s fame, of which he is at first unconscious. Harry Potter is extremely surprised to hear Hagrid inform him that, “’[your mom and dad], they’re famous. You’re famous ... Harry, yer a wizard’” (Rowling, p.42). This secret identity motif, too, is one with fairy tale origins: in Felicia and the Pot of Pinks, a peasant girl is informed that she is really a princess, while The Goose-girl tells of a princess who is not recognized for who she really is. The idea that the main character may, unwittingly, be a part of something important has proven extremely attractive to children; the child delights in imagining that, although young and not respected by his family, he too may be “involved in anything strange and mysterious” (Rowling, p.7), and that, should the adults in his world find this out, they would look up to him in spite of his young age. This may account for the popularity of this motif in fairy tale literature, as well as its role as an endearing characteristic of the Harry Potter series.

Fairy tales also demonstrate an extremely simplistic depiction of good and evil. In addition to clear-cut character distinctions, good characters in fairy stories are generally virtuous and beautiful, while bad characters are full of vice and often ugly. Thus Cinderella is “of unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper”(Perrault, p.64), and “a hundred times handsomer than her sisters” (Perrault, p.64), while her step mother is “the proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen” (Perrault, p.64), and her sisters are so vain that they require “looking-glasses so large that they might see themselves at their full length from head to foot” (Perrault, p.64); the wonderful Sheep is horrified at the ugliness of his enchantress (d’Aulnoy, p.223), while Prince Darling’s Celia is “as good as she was beautiful” (d’Aulnoy, p.281); the goose-girl is both “beautiful” (Grimm, p.266) and “meek” (Grimm, p.267), while her waiting maid is haughty (Grimm, p.268) and “false” (Grimm, p.273). These fairy tale associations between moral qualities, physical attributes, and good and evil are continued in the Harry Potter series. Harry’s step-brother, Dudley, is a repugnant character: so selfish as to be dissatisfied with a mere 37 birthday presents, and looking like “a pig in a wig” (Rowling, p.21); the school bully, Draco Malfoy, has “a pale, pointed face”, is both proud and arrogant with his “bored, drawling voice”, and bullies other children out of cowardice; Mr. and Mrs. Dursley spoil their son rotten, are unjust in their treatment of Harry, and are “perfectly normal, thank you very much” (Rowling, p.7) – which, in a novel full of imagination and excitement, is a terrible insult. In addition, transhuman antagonists in the fairy tale may be monstrous in appearance to demonstrate their evil natures; for example, the Yellow Dwarf has an “ugly little face” (d’Aulnoy, p.33), and is described as a “little monster” (d’Aulnoy, p.35). In the same tradition, Voldemort, the evil wizard in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, has “ the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk-white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake” (Rowling, p.212). This method of identifying good and evil with moral and physical qualities not only helps the child to distinguish the protagonists and antagonists in the story, but also makes the virtuous path physically more attractive than that of vice. As a character device, this technique works extremely well in fairy stories – and equally well in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

It is clear that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone owes more to fairy tales than just the simple provision of wizards, witches, and magic tricks. The use of certain plot motifs as well as a simplified portrayal of the forces of good and evil are both strategies that contributed to the success of the fairy tale with their audience, and add to the attraction of the Harry Potter books today. However, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is not simply a modern day fairy tale. In spite of the ever-presence of magic, readers see a reality in the Harry Potter books that is more tangible than the fairy tale can offer; paradoxically, in spite of being a highly fantastical novel, it is also a highly realistic one. It is through the boarding school setting that Rowling manages to familiarize what would otherwise be unrealistic, appropriating the techniques of the ‘school story’ to create a story which is true to the reader’s experience. So, although Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry teaches Spells and Potions instead of Arithmetic and French, the familiar detail of the everyday life in a boarding school system brings Harry Potter’s magic world into our world, a world with situations and characters with which children can identify.

In its capacity as a ‘school story’, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone owes much to its predecessor, Thomas Hughes’ 1857 novel, Tom Brown’s Schooldays. However, whereas Hughes’ novel gives a clear and exciting picture of Public School life while instructing and uplifting its young readers, Rowling employs many of the same plot motifs to a different end: to enable her readers to identify strongly with her characters. For example, the issues that children face daily are presented with considerable sympathy by both authors; both sets of students struggle with their homework: Tom, Martin, and Arthur pour over their Vulgus assignments for Latin class (Hughes, p.256-260), while Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Neville must change mice into snuff-boxes (Rowling, p.191) and learn about “the 1637 Werewolf Code of Conduct”(Rowling, p.192). The familiarity of the routines, situations, and sentiments such as these strikes a chord in the young reader, whose ability to identify with the issues in the narrative strengthens their connection with the novel.

Even in the characters and their situations, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone continues to borrow the strategies that made Tom Brown’s Schooldays so successful with children. Isolated at their boarding school, the students are forced to rely on each other not only for help, but also for guidance. They do not turn to their adult teachers for this instruction: Tom Brown and Harry East characterize their masters as “natural enemies in school” (Hughes, p. 324), while Harry Potter and his friends are terrified of Professors Snape, Quirrell, and McGonagall. Therefore, in a world with only indirect and limited guidance from adults, it is this tight-knit circle of friends that provides the main support for the two main characters as Tom Brown “finds himself for the first time consciously at grips with self and the devil” (Hughes, p.252), and Harry Potter represents the forces of good in a battle against evil. Not surprisingly, the result is an intense focus on the protagonists’ friends in both stories. These friends form a motley crew, usually composed of children who may not be appreciated elsewhere, but who prove most useful within the friendship unit: for example, Hermione’s precocious knowledge of witchcraft, jeered at by jealous peers, helps Harry Potter’s gang out of many difficult situations, while Martin, rejected by most as a mad keeper of animals, provides instruction and delight to Tom Brown’s group of friends; similarly, Ron and Neville, teased for their poverty and weakness, are strong in spirit at Harry’s side, while Arthur, who deemed fragile and weak at first, provides the religious inertia in Tom’s circle. Aside from the moral instruction apparent in the value of such ‘outsiders’, the differing qualities of each child in the group provides the reader with auxiliary characters with which to identify, thus attracting a larger audience. In addition, the isolation and importance of the child protagonist’s friendship group shifts the action in both stories to the student’s level; the tone in both novels is therefore highly attractive to its student readers. Essentially, the isolation of the boarding school provides an effective and attractive literary device in both works, as both stories build up a child’s utopia: a school-world of self-sufficient children, each with very different yet realistic character traits, living and solving their own problems without much adult intervention.

The high profile of athletics, team sports, and Houses within the school is given ample discussion in both texts; it is not without considerable passion that Harry East explains the many rules of Rugby’s favourite game, football, to Tom Brown (Tom Brown’s Schooldays, p.100-101), while Harry Potter listens intently to the explanation of Quidditch (Rowling, p.124-125). In addition, major matches between school houses are also described in almost play-by-play detail in both books (Hughes p.103-111, p.343-353; Rowling, p.136-141, 162-164). Both novels also place the characters in a ‘house’, a unit to which they owe allegiance, and in which they work together towards a goal; the characters in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone are divided almost immediately into one of four houses, and work frantically to provide points for the team through their good behaviour. In Tom Brown’s Schooldays, too, old Brooke emphasizes the unity and strength of their house, claiming their winning are due to “more reliance on one another, more of a house feeling, more fellowship than the school can have” (Hughes, p.124). The underlying message in these sporting events is one of unity and teamwork, and the prominence and excitement of such activities rings a bell with any school child familiar with the dramas involved in house competition. Further, the reader, following the hero’s story, cannot help but be swept up in the excitement of these intramural competitions, and may soon find himself cheering for the hero’s team. Thus the reader himself ‘joins’ a house, an action which further allies him with the protagonist and secures his allegiance to that character.

Finally, both Tom Brown and Harry Potter must deal with the school bully, the coward who makes a point of picking on them and their innocent associates. This aspect that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone shares with Tom Brown’s Schooldays is an issue with which all school children are familiar and a situation with which all students can identify. At Rugby, Flashman bullies the younger kids to no end, being well schooled “in the power of saying cutting and cruel things … [which would] often bring tears to the eyes of boys in this way, which all the thrashings in the world wouldn’t have wrung from them”(Hughes, p.175). Over at Hogwarts, Draco Malfoy mercilessly makes biting comments about Harry Potter’s family, (Rowling, p.143, 163), Neville Longbottom’s intelligence (Rowling, p.163), and Ron Weasley’s poverty (Rowling, p.163, 164). The bully attacks finally cease when Flashman, in a separate incident, “disappear[s] from the School world” (Hughes, p.191) because of his expulsion for drunkenness, or when Harry and Ron wound Malfoy’s pride as their courageous acts cinch the House Cup victory for their house, Gryffindor, from Malfoy’s Slytherin companions. It is interesting to note, however, that neither boy reports these bullying incidents to a school master, but instead each decide to solve the issues alone, sometimes even through counter-attacks on the bully. The situation is finally resolved by events external to the boys’ control. This indicates that the incidents are not meant to demonstrate the morally correct way to deal with bullies, but rather to detail another realistic fact of life with which children are so familiar, bringing the novel ever closer to the child’s realm of common experience.

In a novel of such intense imagination and fantasy as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, it should not be surprising to witness the author borrow elements from fairy tales in the telling of her story. Trolls, witches and wizards, however, are not the full extent of the fairy tale legacy in the new series; the appealing plot structures of Cinderella, the oppressed turned princess, and Felicia, the unwitting princess, continue to work their captivating magic in Harry’s story, while the fairy tale division of good and evil attaches corresponding moral and physical characteristics to Harry’s enemies. However, in spite of the incredible fantasy element apparent in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the novel still manages to maintain its real-world credibility for its child audience. This is thanks to the techniques borrowed from Hughes’ Tom Brown’s Schooldays; the accounts of the homework assignments, exciting team competitions, and encounters with bullies keep the scope of each novel within the context of the child’s social world, familiarizing Harry Potter’s otherwise too-magical landscape for its young readers. In this way, incorporating successful elements from her predecessors in the field of children’s literature, J. K. Rowling manages to combine all the delight of the surreal fairy tale with the true-to-experience realism of the ‘school story’ to create a unique and timeless work: one that will surely continue to delight readers for generations to come.

WORKS CITED

Brothers Grimm . “The Goose-girl”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 266-273.

Hughes, Thomas. Tom Brown’s Schooldays. Clays Ltd.: Puffin Books, 1994.

Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy. “Felicia and the Pot of Pinks”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 148-156.

Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy. “Prince Darling”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 278-289.

Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy. “The Wonderful Sheep”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 214-230.

Madame la Comtesse d’Aulnoy. “The Yellow Dwarf”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 30-50.

Perrault, Charles. “Cinderella; or, the Little Glass Slipper”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 64-71.

Perrault, Charles. “Toads and Diamonds”. The Blue Fairy Book. Ed. Andrew Lang. New York: Dover Publications, Inc, 1965. 274-277.

Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1997.