A critical analysis of criticisms of Harry Potter

The Harry Potter series of books are either imbued with misogyny, racism and is written to promote the hegemony. Or it is a book steeped with antisexism, antiracism and is designed to bring down the hegemony, or at least aim a strong light at it.

The book cannot be all of those things at the same time. And whilst people are entitled to their own opinions, they must be able to support those opinions with good, cogent arguments.

Why could the book engender such radically different critical viewpoints?

One possible answer for this apparent dichotomy of opinions is ‘conformation bias.’

What is confirmation bias? In an article in Psychology Today Shahram Heshmat Ph.D. employs a thought experiment, which we can also employ. He asked readers to imagine themselves in a situation where they have attempted to reach a friend (a friend who they have an ambivalent relationship with) by phone and email, plus leaving messages, but they have failed to even acknowledge any of the messages or calls. 

In this type of situation, points out Heshmat, it is easy to fall into the trap of jumping to conclusions, by incorrectly using powers of reasoning, deduction and intuition to conclude that your friend is deliberately avoiding you.

There is a risk, notes Heshmat, that under these types of circumstances, you might start to react to this perceived slight as if it were factual, which may not be true.

Heshmat expands on his point by positing that confirmation bias occurs from “the direct influence of desire on beliefs.” Or to put it another way, when a person wishes that a belief or a concept is truthful, then the result is that they believe it to be true. The motivation, he feels, is their own wishful thinking.

This is problematic as it can result in the individual ceasing to gather further information on a topic when the evidence they collected so far confirms their prejudices or viewpoints.

This can result in someone embracing evidence that confirms their standpoint whilst ignoring or rejecting any evidence to the contrary.

Once we have formed a view, we embrace information that confirms that view, while ignoring, or rejecting, information that casts doubt on it.

Or as Heshmsat succinctly puts it: “Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions.”

The first text I am analysing is J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Novels, A Reader’s Guide written by Philip Nel.

The book is short, under 100 pages, but is very informative and makes interesting observations about the novels, about J. K. Rowling and about the motivations of J. K. Rowling for writing the novels and why she included certain features within the books.

The book is speculative in parts because it was written before the end of the series of Harry Potter novels, being published in 2001, whilst the last Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was not published until 2007. However, it must be noted that the speculations of Nel with regards to the future novels in the series were, on the whole, quite accurate.

The book is broken down into five distinct sections. The Novelist, The Novels, Reviews of the Novels, The Performance of the Novels and Further Reading and Discussion Questions.

There are also a further two sections notes of the author and works cited within Nel’s work.

The first section covers the childhood of Rowling, how her parents love of reading had a deep and abiding influence on their daughter, and how Rowling’s love of telling stories was evident from a very early age, when at age six she was inventing stories and telling them to her younger sister Diane.

The book points out that even at the age of six after she wrote down one of these stories which was called Rabbit and featured characters like a friend of Rabbit’s who was a gigantic bee called Miss Bee, that Rowling wanted the book to be published.

The book also looks at how the friendship of Rowling and the neighbouring Potter family influenced her as she was growing up.

It is interesting to note that, according to Nel, the Rowling children (Jo and Di) used to play witches and wizard games with the Potter children Vickie and Ian. It is the belief of Vickie Potter that this had some influence on the fact that Rowling decided on the name Potter for the wizard hero of her series of books.

Nel explores the links between Rowling’s school days and that of Harry’s school, Hogwarts. One female teacher was used as the basis for Severus Snape, and another for Professor McGonagall, for example.

Nel explores the early literary influences on Rowling, citing authors such as Paul Gallico, Elizabeth Goudge, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Noel Streatfeild. Although later influence on Rowling also include Jane Austen.

Children who Rowling attended school with were included in her Harry Potter Novels, according to Nel. Including her best friend Sean Harris who was an inspiration for Ron Weasley.

Is there something of J.K. Rowling in Hermione Granger? Yes, though modestly Rowling claims she was nowhere near as clever as Hermione!

Nel indicates Rowling is a lover of witticisms and puns, play on word, satire and parody, which she employs in her novels with some skill.

For example, the familial residence of Sirius Black and his antecedents is Number 12 Grimmauld Place, a punning play on words.

Nel also shows Rowling’s use of humour and puzzles extends to mathematics and that the book is full of prime number references and jokes.

Nel also references the fact that Rowling’s magicians are 18^th or early 19^th century in the way  they communicate by letter (never email!) though his cousin Dudley does have what other boys of the 1990s had, TV, computer, PlayStation, etc.

Nel believes the books show the hallmarks of having been written by a social activist. It depicts contemporary British society viewed through the lens of magic, touching on the hegemony, corruption, class struggles, racism, slavery and exploitation. 

Rowling spent some time working for Amnesty International researching human rights abuses in Francophone Africa. Nel muses this might be the basis for the gentle parody in Hermione’s Society for the promotion of Elfish Welfare or SPEW.  Was this a satire on the youthful political activism of Rowling? Nel believes so.

Although not a hagiography, Nel’s book is a short, though complete look at the Harry Potter phenomena which opens the reader to exploring this subject in more depth by way of the Further Reading and Discussion Questions section, the authors’ notes and the Works Cited section.

The second book I am examining is Harry Potter’s World, Multidisciplinary Critical Perspectives edited by Elizabeth E. Heilman.

The book is as the title implies, a multidisciplinary examination of the Harry Potter novels.

Whilst the book’s approach is interesting, it must be pointed out that there appears to be problems with the critical analyses of several of the authors. Whilst some of the authors seem to grasp the Harry Potter phenomena, others do not.

Hollie Anderson author of the chapter: “Reading Harry Potter with Navajo Eyes” is a special example of this depth of understanding because of her membership of the Navajo race. Not only is this because the Navajo people understand and appreciate the use of magic, Navajo people, as Anderson indicates, understand the concept of being sent away to boarding school, something the vast majority of American readers of Harry Potter would have no concept of.

Anderson also indicates she has a sympathetic reading of the struggles of wizards from Muggle families such as Hermione, because wizards and witches from Muggle families are often looked down on by some Pureblood wizarding families.

Anderson also shows sympathy for trainee wizards like Neville Longbottom who, she indicates, is a member of a pureblood wizarding family yet who seems to have considerable difficulties in safely employing his wizarding abilities.

Unfortunately the weakest chapter in the book is that by Elizabeth E. Heilman herself, Blue Wizards and Pink Wizards.

Heilman takes issue with some of the character names that Rowling chose. Heilman states (page 234) that: “Neville sounds like snivel.”

One could presume that Neville Cardus, Neville Chamberlain and Neville "Noddy" Holder of Slade (amongst other famous Nevilles) might raise objections to this characterisation of a perfectly ordinary British name as “sounding like snivel!”

Neville Longbottom is, one might argue, a quintessentially British name and that this suits the character of Neville Longbottom because he is a quintessentially British character. Clumsy, prone to get things wrong but always there to back the right side when it came down to it.

It can be argued that the name Neville Longbottom was chosen also because it is one of those old British names that sounds slightly amusing (Longbottom, Winterbottom, etc) and not because it has an (imagined) similarity to snivel.

It might be significant that Neville is one of the least popular boys’ names with only 1,081 people bearing the name in the entire USA, with the percentage frequency being .4%.

There is a great deal of humour in the Harry Potter books, but it is mainly gentle sarcasm and parody. Perhaps the British humour of Rowling did not translate well to American academics?

The books seem to be a parody of the British novels for children read by children who grew up to be of the generation that Rowling is a part of.

The vast majority of children who read and enjoyed books about children at boarding school were not, generally, children who attended boarding school or, indeed, knew anyone who attended boarding school. These would include The Chalet School series of novels for girls and the Jennings series of books for boys.

Heilman is critical of the portrayal of girls and boys, taking issue with the depiction that girls giggle and gossip and tend to cry sometimes and that boys will, at least, make the attempt at appearing to be manly.

From my memory this was the reality of existence when I was a teenager growing up in a semi-rural English community much like Rowling had grown up in; the girls did tend to giggle and gossip, we boys did make the attempt to appear to be manly. Or as well as we could manage!

I can’t help but wonder if some of the ‘problems’ that American academics like Heilman have perceived within the Harry Potter novels might be that the books were written by a British woman for her pleasure and aimed at being read by other British people for their pleasure? All of whom share at least some parts of a common British heritage.

In pretty much the same way that Americans all have parts of a common American heritage. For example American children of all races, creeds and ages would understand a children’s book that featured the Superbowl or made copious references to the World Series.  But most British children wouldn’t have a clue what this was referencing.

There is a further problem with Heilman’s analysis. Rowling has imagined a world that is, like the world we live in, an imperfect society with injustice and evil with attempts to mitigate the effects of injustice and evil.

Rowling’s novels in the Harry Potter series reports on these imperfections and how the characters within them attempt to correct the injustices and to defeat evil.

Heilman in her analysis of the novels seems to form the view that Rowling actually believes that the injustices and imperfections she has depicted are acceptable, which is a logical leap that would be akin to a reviewer believing that because Agatha Christie wrote about murders that she somehow thought murder was acceptable.

One can’t help but wonder if some critics of Rowling and her Harry Potter novels have committed the error of viewing them through the lens of their own cultural hegemony?

References:-

Nel, P., 2001. J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels. 1st ed. New York: Continuum.

Heilman, E., 2003. Harry Potter's World. 1st ed. New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

Shahram Heshmat Ph.D.. 2015. Psychology Today. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias. [Accessed 14 May 2018].

https://names.mongabay.com/male_names9.htm. 2006. Uncommon guy names in the United States. [ONLINE] Available at: https://names.mongabay.com/male_names9.htm. [Accessed 11 May 2018].