sh.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • harvard-anglia-ruskin-university
  • apa-old-doi-prefix.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-harvard.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-oxford.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
The Secret World of Harry Potter: The Literary Laws of Fantasy Applied to the Novels by J. K. Rowling
Södertörn University College, School of Gender, Culture and History.
2007 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 points / 15 hpStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

My intentions with this essay has been to examine the World in which the story of J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter takes place, the structure, narrative and restrictions, in order to place the suite of novels in the tradition of the Fantasy genre. Since the release of the first book Harry Potter has become a household name, possibly more than any other contemporary literature written for children. Various readings concerning gender, etymological, linguistic aspects and so forth have been done, and in most cases the books are placed in the genre of Fantasy without distinguishing what in fact makes the novels Fantasy. I wanted to see which specific sectors of the books that place them in the genre, and, assuming that it would in fact fit into the Fantasy genre, in which ways it diverges from the tradition of the genre in means of the structure of the world/s of the story. I also looked at the faults in the logic within the novels to see if the inconsistencies in the rules of the world have an impact on the agency of the story.

I found the novels to be a part of the fantasy tradition, not only by having many intertextual relations and similar features to other fantasy-novels but also in the fundament of the story, its basic conditions such as the supernatural elements and the hidden places in the world of the books. The minor inconstancies that I found where to small to disrupt the narrative, and the fact that some of the aspects of the books drift slightly away from the logic of the world within the story have reasonable explanations such as making the story easier to relate to.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Huddinge: Institutionen för genus, kultur och historia , 2007. , p. 34
Keywords [en]
Harry Potter, Rowling, Literary Laws, fantasy, fantasy tradition, narrative, Göte Klingberg, Maria Nikolajeva, secondary world, fantastic novel
National Category
General Literature Studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-1074OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-1074DiVA, id: diva2:15124
Uppsok
humaniora/teologi
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2007-02-15 Created: 2007-02-15

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(108 kB)7245 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 108 kBChecksum MD5
9c020b57b346b1c230b14ca544c2a94cbf86a25c8965c8859da64c03fa9b2f6774f2e773
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
School of Gender, Culture and History
General Literature Studies

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 7264 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 2778 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • harvard-anglia-ruskin-university
  • apa-old-doi-prefix.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-harvard.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-oxford.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf