Name: Vishva Gajjar
Roll no.: 31
Paper: The New
Literature
Submit to: English Department (MKBU)
Harry Potter and Magic Realism
· About
Writer:
Joanne Rowling was born on 31st July 1965
at Yate General Hospital near Bristol, and grew up in Gloucestershire in
England and in Chepstow, Gwent, in south-east Wales.
Jo wanted to be a writer from an early age.
She wrote her first book at the age of six – a story about a rabbit, called
‘Rabbit’. At just eleven, she wrote her first novel – about seven cursed
diamonds and the people who owned them.
Jo conceived the idea
of Harry Potter in 1990 while sitting on a delayed train
from Manchester to London King’s Cross. Over the next five years, she began to
map out all seven books of the series. She wrote mostly in longhand and
gradually built up a mass of notes, many of which were scribbled on odd scraps
of paper.
Taking her notes with
her, she moved to northern Portugal to teach English as a foreign language,
married Jorge Arantes in 1992 and had a daughter, Jessica, in 1993. When the
marriage ended later that year, she returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh, with
Jessica and a suitcase containing the first three chapters of Harry
Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
·
Harry Potter:
This book have gained worldwide
attention, and also won lots of awards, and sold more than 400 million copies.
And her series have become the bestselling book series in history and this
series is adapted in movie.
These series
have 7 books like
1) Harry
Potter and the Philosophers’ stone
2) Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secret
3) Harry Potter and Prison of Azkaban
4) Harry
Potter and the Goblet of fire
5) Harry
Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
6) Harry
Potter and the Half- Blood Prince
7) Harry
potter and the Deathly Hallows
This series is
now a global brand and last 4 books have consecutively set records as the
fastest selling books in history. The series totaling like 4,195 pages and has
been translated in whole or in part into 65 languages.
·
Magic Realism:
Magical realism,
or magic realism, is an approach to literature that weaves fantasy and myth
into everyday life. What’s real? What’s imaginary? In the world of magical
realism, the ordinary becomes extraordinary and the magical becomes
commonplace.
Also known as
“marvelous realism,” or “fantastic realism,” magical realism is not a
style or a genre so much as a way of questioning the nature of reality. In
books, stories, poetry, plays, and film, factual narrative and far-flung
fantasies combine to reveal insights about society and human nature. The term
"magic realism" is also associated with realistic and figurative
artworks — paintings, drawings, and sculpture — that
suggest hidden meanings. Lifelike images, such as the Frida Kahlo portrait
shown above, take on an air of mystery and enchantment.
·
Characteristics of Magic Realism:
·Elements of the magical and the mundane
are interwoven seamlessly, making it impossible to determine where reality ends
and the extraordinary begins.
·The story is set in an otherwise
ordinary world, with familiar historical and/or cultural realities. Story
events are not always explained by universal laws or familiar logic.
·The ordinary aspects of the story are
what produce the greatest magic.
·Objects and settings within the story
may take on lives of their own in a way that is ordinary to the characters in
the story.
·Constructs of time do not follow
typical Western conventions. For instance, stories may be told in spiraling
shapes rather than in straight lines.
·The story, as it unfolds, gives the
reader a sense of being inside a puzzle or maze.
·Contradictions, inconsistencies and
ambiguities color the point of view, making you question what you understand
about the world at large, as well as what happens inside the story.
·A metamorphosis takes place in the
story. It's treated not as a miracle, but as an everyday event.
·The story bears the influences of oral
tradition: fables, myths, tall tales, urban legends, and a charmed storytelling
narrator (who may or may not be reliable).
·The magical elements in the story may
enhance a subversive message or personalized point of view. Often the point of view
is revealed through voices, ideas, and places which exist outside the
mainstream or majority perspective.
·Magic occurs without using devices
typical to the fantasy genre unless the devices (i.e. ghosts, angels) are
employed in a context that makes them ordinary. Ghosts or angels may exist in a
magical realist story, for instance, but not in a way that is surprising or
unusual to the characters in the book.
·
Elements of Magic Realism in Harry Potter Novels:
One of the
foremost revenant themes within the “Harry Potter” series is the sacrificial
love of Harry’s mother lily, who died to guard her kid son. On a less complex
level, love also repeatedly motivates acts of self-sacrifice on the parts of
the main characters. Primary characters are willing to (and do) suffer
unbelievable loss for one another, even giving up their lives in order to do
the right thing. The love between family members is celebrated as beautiful and
noble, never something to be mocked and sneered at. The “Harry Potter” series
is, in many ways, a parable about the danger of desiring immortality. Voldemort
is obsessed with the concept of living forever, no matter what the cost. This
dark desire leads him down the path of villainy, transforming him from a
disturbed orphan boy into the living incarnation of evil.
Is it not
because the fairy-tale conventions collapse themselves, when the boy-wizard,
who has lived in the ordinary world until became eleven years old, and in the
day of birth, despite the obstacles of Muggles-guardians, received an
invitation to school of wizards, and at the same time suddenly learnt, as he is
world famous and nice on the way to the magic shops for school accessories
comes with his guide, a magician and a drunkard, naive, sensitive, and a
giant-the supply manager of a, in some cafe, where the tables drink or smoke
older single women; and know who they are? Maybe they are enchantress. The
wizards have their own government (the Ministry of Magic), schools (English
school of Hogwarts etc.), newspapers and magazines, “radio”, money, banks, etc.
They have their own hospitals and its magical medicine. Wizards have their
penitentiary system (referred to prison Azkaban). They have railway station.
There is even own the game, spit-stones, magical chess and others. Wizards use
their own shops, restaurants; they have their own interests, their own fashion.
The wizards live, as a rule, in the same locations, as not wizards. They form
small communities of the magicians, supporting each other. It is thus
underlined, that there are some villages, inhabited only by wizards, in the
other settlements wizards have to live next to the wizards. Ron’s father works
in the department on struggle against illegal use of the inventions of muggles
that already says a lot. Or wizards carefully preserve their way of life, or
simply can’t cope with the rapidly becoming complicated technique. Mention of
the locomotive, leading the Hogwarts express and three-story bus “Night knight”
– this is perhaps, and all the technical things from the world of muggles,
which are used magic world. For travel around London you can use the
ministerial cars, although the wizards prefer to travel through fireplaces,
using the volatile powder. Instead of ball pens or pens and ink, the letters
are not written on paper, and on the parchment, instead of mail, telephone and
telegraph messages deliver an owl, although it is possible to communicate and
with the help of the fireplaces. In addition, a message can be communicated,
asking about this ghost. Another way is through the portraits of one man, which
are located in different places. It is possible to speak about a kind of
“conservatism” in the world of magicians.
Magic is an
essential part of the narration. This series is set in the world of wizards and
witches where magic functions as everyday reality. Usually, the magicians and
wizards are secondary characters or maybe villains and also the main ones are
normal mortals who are either being victimized or helped by wizards. However,
in The Harry Potter Series not only villains but also the hero Harry and most
all of his friends are all witches and wizards. In Rowling’s magical world,
wizards are not all evil. In fact, the series tells the reader many times that
it is the choice one makes that defines them, not who or what they are; Harry
and all other wizards are magic users, having the choice between the good and
the bad. It shows that magic itself is not at all evil, the purpose only
matters so that it can direct people to both sides which side they desire to
be; that is in the hands of the individuals. Apart from the characters and the
setting, Rowling uses magic as the significant element of the plot. It is
considered as one of the characters because it is an essential part of
Rowling’s reality. Nonetheless, Harry Potter Series is not stories about magic.
Magic is what makes the story unreal though not untrue. However, it gives the
realistic representation about life.
So we can say
that Harry Potter series have the elements of Magic Realism and we can feel it
as a readers or audience when we read or saw the movie and we can feel it as
well and when we read or saw the movie at some extent we can’t believe also
that some kind of world can be there and we sometimes also can’t we think about
this kind of world like Hogwarts and some magical things like time machine and
all other things.
Works Cited
Biswas, Pritha. "Exploration of Magic Realism:
Harry Potter Novels." International Journal of English Language,
Literature and Humanities 02.06 (2014): 15. Web. 7 3 2020.
<https://ijellh.com/papers/2014/October/28-291-305-october-2014.pdf?x72302>.
Craven,
Jackie. "Introduction to Magical Realism." 10 8 2019. thoughtco.com.
Web. 7 3 2020.
<https://www.thoughtco.com/magical-realism-definition-and-examples-4153362>.
Deefholts, Tamara K.
Sellman and Susan. "Magical Realism." 20 1 2004. ophra.com.
Web. 8 3 2020.
<https://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/magical-realism-distinguishing-features/all>.
Santhosh, Smitha.
"Locating Magical Realism in Harry Potter Series." Sparkling
International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research Studies 02.02 (2019):
06. Web. 7 3 2020.
<https://www.johnfoundation.com/journals/sparkling/sijmrsv2i2-2019/s-14/>.
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