Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (warning spoilers)

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince is my second favorite book in the series. I realized that just as I wrote it. I have always liked Snape and the mystery of him in this book was heightened. He had made an unbreakable vow with Narcissa Malfoy and it was also revealed that Severus was having doubts about commitments to Dumbledore. Again and again though Dumbledore expresses his faith in Snape.

By the way, Narcissa is another example of J.K. Rowlings' exceptional wordplay. Narcissa is clearly a reference to Narcissus and Narcissism the story from Roman/Greek mythology of the character who falls in love with his own reflection and drowns trying to get close to himself.
The other bit of wordplay that is significant in this book was the pensieve. It has shown up before, but it played a big role in this book. Depending on where you put the emphasis you could either pronounce the word (pensiv) or (penseev) but either way it is a variation on the word pensive meaning to ponder, muse or dream. The Pensieve also connotes a sieve or a sifter which makes the device a place to ponder and sift out meaning from your memories. Beautiful wordplay again.

My favorite bit of foreshadowing though was the Chapter entitled Horcruxes. I wish I could be certain though was Dumbledore's references to the Horcruxes and the time he spent telling Harry how certain he was that Voldemort intended to make his final Horcrux after Harry. It was no great leap for me to see that somehow Voldemort had unintentionally created a Horcrux in Harry. It's really easy to post this so far after the fact, but I really did know. The discussion of Horcruxes was the crucial point. Horcrux is also another play on words. Crux comes from the Latin for cross. My best guess for hor is that it either a reference to hoar or hoary or possibly horror. Whichever you choose or all three, the crux of the matter (yes, I think she is using this connotation too) is that the center or soul of Voldemort is a frosty, hairy ancient, horror. This makes particular sense when you consider her new book Tales of Beedle the Bard. And the tale of the Hairy Heart. The message there and in the Half Blood Prince seems to be don't destroy what is most precious. Be sure you keep you soul, your heart in tact....because it is your ability to love that makes you human. Which is what we all are Muggle and Magician alike.

Harry Potter Foreshadowing: Book 2 (Warning spoilers)

Book 2 starts off with Harry lonesome at home. Harry is instructed to stay upstairs make no sound and pretend that he isn't there. A task made much more difficult by the arrival of Dobby. Dobby gives us the first bit of foreshadowing by telling Harry that the danger he faces this year doesn't have anything to do with Voldemort. Later we find that in fact the it didn't have anything to do with Voldemort but rather with Tom Marvolo Riddle.

The more significant foreshadowing happens all through the book as we find again and again that Harry has lots in common with the Heir of Slytherin and with Slytherin himself. He speaks Parseltongue being one of the most notable. Another part of the foreshadowing occurs when Harry takes possesion of Tom's Diary. When he does the attacks stop. When he loses it the attacks start back up. This was the clue that the diary was influencing the monster. Dobby earlier had given another clue related to the diary. One of the premier examples of how well Rowling had planned these books. When Dobby warned Harry he mentioned that Voldemort had powers that no decent wizard would use. Was this a reference to Voldemort turning the diary into a Horcrux? It sures seems to be. And if Dobby knew what it was it was an impressive feat for the little elf because Dumbldore suspects that not even Malfoy knew what it was (check book 6)

Speaking of Dumbledore the most impressive foreshadowing was right here in the end of book 2. Dumbledore spends a significant amount of time talking to Harry about the similarities between Harry and Tom. The most amazing reference being Dumbledore's revelation that he suspects that Voldemort transferred some of his power to Harry explaining how Harry has the ability to speak to snakes. Significantly it is Harry's decisions that mark him as different, but nonetheless this is the first clue that Harry is in fact a horcrux and has a portion of Voldemort's spirit sharing his body.

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Hogwart's Year One: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This book was also published under the title Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for the U.K. audience. Apparently the U.S. audience was simply not sophisticated enough to wrap their heads around the idea of a Philosopher's Stone.

The elements of foreshadowing in this were the frequent and obvious references to Harry's scar. From the moment we meet Harry his scar is his distinguishing mark. This scar was the first indication that there was a connection between Harry and Voldemort the evil sorcerer who must not be named. When Hagrid describes to him that he has been marked there is foreshadowing. Hagrid tells him: That was no ordinary cut. It wasn't even ordinary for a curse. Harry was the first and only to survive Voldemort's killing curse. The scar on Harry's forehead becomes the first foreshadowing of what is to come.

More Harry Potter Literary Elements Announcement

I posted a while back about some of the literary elements in Harry Potter, I have noticed through my feedjit feed that I am getting most of my hits based on searches for Harry Potter Literary Elements, so I am going to go through each book and look at them one by one to describe the effective elements in each book. I will release one a week on Tuesday's for the next 7 weeks. I hope that fills a need for the few of you who are actually reading the blog.

Literary Elements in Harry Potter

Some more on literary elements in Harry Potter

First of all I had better warn you that there are several spoilers so if you are one of the 11 people in the world who hasn't heard the ending of the books and you are also one of the 4 people who have actually read my blog then beware.

Foreshadowing:

There are some exceptional elements of foreshadowing all throught the books. The most glaring and obvious of all these is the constant references to the similarities between Harry and Voldemort. Book 2 really plays these up with the particular mention of Harry's ability to speak Parseltongue.

Another element I found particularly fun was Sirius Black. Sirius is the dog star and Sirius turns into a black dog. Well, she had this planned out from Book 1, when Hagrid mentions he has borrowed the motorcycle from Sirius Black.

Word Play:
I don't know what else to call this, but Sirius Black is an example of a play on words. So is Dolores Umbridge which has a double word play. Umbrage is a sense of offense for bad behavior. Dolores has a latin (especially Spanish) cognate or possibly psuedo-cognate and means pains. So Dolores Umbridge is a painful offense. Professor Sprout is another fun play on words and Filius, Professor Flitwicks 1st name. is based on the latin for Faith or faithful. There are other fun examples of this in the books.

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the series as much as I did and my 2nd read through was even more fun than the first, just like visiting a favorite vacation spot but with more time to explore. Read it again for the first time.

Harry Potter- Effective Elements of Literature

I've been reading (rereading really, anyone who hasn't already read at least a dust jacket of Harry Potter has probably been in a coma for a about 10 years) Harry Potter and really noticing the effective use of foreshadowing. Or maybe they are just good clues in books that have won awards for being effective mysteries. I doubt I would be spoiling much but I just in case I will only refer to one good example. As I have been going through them, I have really wondered about the purpose of the apparently totally useless Divination Class that Ron and Harry are continually doing homework for without any real result. The class that J.K. Rowling spends the most time describing (aside from Defense against the Dark Arts)

The reason she spends so much time with Divination is that variously through the books Harry is the one gifted with visions of the future. The most prominent example of Divination prompting Harry's Visions is in book 4 when he falls asleep in Divination and He has visions of Voldemort which turn out to be true. Through the rest of the books you see divination and Professor Trelawney being used as counterpoint to Harry's true abilities to predict either future or far distant events. All during book 5 when Harry is plagued by awful (and true) dreams He has to make up dreams for Ron to interpret in Divination. More to come on other effective elements of literature in Harry Potter. I will also come back to FuturHype.