Harry Potter: A Hero Who Reflects the Common through the Uncommon - Essay Example

My ideal hero Harry Potter: A Child Hero Who Reflects the Common through the Uncommon When Harry Potter was introduced to the world, he began as the boy who lived under the stairs, his bedroom a cupboard. He was a child who was displaced, one who is not a part of the extended family that he lives with, and under the oppression of the obvious favoritism that is shown to his cousin, the child of the aunt and uncle with whom he lives. Harry was a slight framed boy who wore glasses and whose life sped by without much in the way of acknowledgment. Most people can relate to this boy in one way or another. In the beginning of his story, Harry is the boy whose life is bland, mundane, and without a significant public set of experiences in which to form his identity. His oppression is his identity. With the turn of a special event, the turn of his eleventh birthday, he goes from a boy who has nothing special in his life, to one of the most renowned boys in a world he did not even know existed. He went from the boy who barely marked one world, to the hero of another - he became the boy who lived, defined by a mythology that was created about his life to support the cause of good in his world (Seger 357). Through the series of events that occur to Harry Potter, starting with the circumstances of his parents’ death, the course of his life is both determined and one of his own making, his destiny both made up of the choices he is offered and predetermined by the mythology of his life within the wizarding world. The very first aspect of heroism that is attributed to Harry is that he managed to not be killed - that he was hit by a spell as an infant and survived when no one else in the path of Voldemort could survive his power. Harry was a hero by virtue of the fact that he did not die, something that all who are still alive have accomplished. Thus, by being alive, just like anyone else is alive, Harry is a hero. Just as Seger reminds her readers, many stories are universal (356). In this story, the first act of heroism, the one that gains him fame and popularity throughout his family’s world, is the one where he managed to survive his story from infancy into adolescence, which is a decidedly universal story. The common feelings of isolation and alienation that are the initial mundane and common feelings that are attributed to Harry, despite the extremes of his life, create the first level of empathy with readers, but then it is turned so that his survival, his ability to live through his childhood and begin the journey of adolescence, makes him a hero. Seger states that hero stories “come from our own experiences of overcoming adversity, as well as our desire to do great and special acts” (357). The dynamic is a powerful way in which his life connects to the reader. However, just like the adolescence that everyone experiences, Harry must now choose to live up to the perceptions that have been created around him and fulfill the expectations with which others have framed his identity - or not. This dilemma is at the core of adolescence, the concept of now finding a path on which to wander in order to fulfill the balance between what is expected and what is desired for one’s own life (Kroger 3). Harry begins his journey in the same place that most pre-teens begin their journey - adhered to the expectations of the adults in their life. Harry represents two sides of a coin; each side in opposition to the other, thus his heroism has the best chance of connecting to the audience, just as most cinematic heroes tend to represent a duality. Heroes connect to the audience by having diametrical attributes that are in opposition (Ray 343). Harry begins his journey through opposing identities. The next step from that point is in trying to find a way to define one’s self through actions that either support or deny this expectation. The one difference between Harry and most pre-teenage children is that his preconceived identity through the adults in his new world is that he is a hero - that his simple existence represents the power of good to overcome evil. Just as Seger suggests, his mythology has been created to serve as a personification of overcoming the threat that faces all within his world (357). His persona has been defined by an event that happened before he developed cognitive memory, so his identity is one that he has yet to prove. As well, eventually Harry will discover that there is a prophecy that puts him at the center of the demise of Voldemort. As described by Joseph Campbell in his Hero's Journey, Harry is given the call to adventure, a choice to act or not act - and being the hero, he of course acts (Campbell and Cousineau 3). Therefore, not only has his identity been pre-determined by a framework of heroism that he has no memory of having lived, his future is defined by elements of that event, combined with assumed attributes of heroism that have been developed around him upon which he must choose to act. One of the advantages that age gives to Harry as he begins his journey is that he is a child when the story of his heroism begins. Ray suggests that a child has the advantage of innocence, allowing for his or her actions to be outside of the confining rules with which adults must conform (344). Harry and his compatriots, Hermione and Ron, become the core of a movement that acts to controvert the goals of Voldemort, thereby causing an eventual spread of their purpose to other students who support their cause, their entire movement an undercurrent to support the actions that the adults are taking to promote the security of their realm. It is through their perspective as children, however, that they are able to take on such terrible horrors and survive, their lack of preconceived ideas about the seriousness of the danger allowing them to look past their fears and succeed where adults cannot. This also allows them the luxury of the “disavowal of ideology”, the idea that what was generally believed was true just because it was said to be true (Ray 346). However, this also meant that the right people, such as Dumbledore, who was not believed by the general adult population, could be believed without the doubt because as children, Harry, Ron, and Hermione were not subject to the adult pressures that a culture can place upon its citizens to believe certain untruths. When the outlaw aesthetics become the core of their movement, they adhere to the concept that what is right supersedes what is law (Ray 346). Through the advantages of their innocence and age, that they have less to lose than most of the adults in the world, they can adapt to the outlaw fringes in order to accomplish their goals. Harry is able to use his youth to infiltrate the needs of his realm in a way that the adults who have similar goals are unable to accomplish. Harry Potter comes across as the average boy in terrible circumstances, who blossoms when the truth of his life is revealed to him. His adolescence is a mirror of the events in the average life of a teenager, his struggles metaphors for the struggles that most youths find themselves struggling to overcome. He reflects both the constructs of the youthful hero and the outlaw hero, his actions flexible to the situation, his youth affording him the freedom to go against the grain as needed. Harry, unlike many heroes, embraces his role within his community, fervently going after the villain because that villain took his family. His role and his motivation are in harmony, his desire to overcome the evil in this world a priority. However, Harry also has values that temper his goals, his love for his friends paralleling the love his mother had for him that saved him from the spell that should have taken his life. Harry is entrenched in a life full of death but kept hopeful through the love he has from and for his adopted family - his friends, teachers, and fellow compatriots in the war against Voldemort. Works Cited Campbell, Joseph, and Phil Cousineau. The Hero's Journey: Joseph Campbell on His Life and Work. Novato, Calif: New World Library, 2003. Print. Kroger, Jane. Identity in Adolescence: The balance between self and other. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print. Ray, Robert B. “The Thematic Paradigm”. Found in Sonia Maasik and J F. Solomon. Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print. Seger, Linda. “Creating the Myth”.Found in Sonia Maasik and J F. Solomon. Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martins, 2009. Print. Read More