Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone

The book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was chosen as the main source for this essay. I'll evaluate the book's themes and contrast it with those of two secondary works, The River Between and The Chronicles of Narnia. The goal is to complete the assignment's prerequisite to research themes across several novels with the goal of elaborating the themes and demonstrating how they connect the books, which have plots and literary devices that appear to be very different. This essay will be written in the style of a literary review but will focus more on the texts' thematic components. The secondary text is primarily meant to support and reinforce the primary text. A literature review is an account of what a scholar has written concerning a certain topic, theme, characters or even styles in a book. While writing the paper, the main focus is to convey a message to the reader concerning the subject matter, in this case, the themes in the books. In a nutshell, this paper shall analyze the primary text and the secondary text in terms of themes and how well they have been employed in each case (Taylor).

Thesis Statement

Young adult novels are often focused on similar themes that resonate across the various texts and endeavor to reflect the reality in society in a narrative manner and as such, can have a profound influence on the young reader. In my literature review, am going to tackle the themes in the Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling and interrelate them to the themes in the River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong’o and the chronicles of Narnia by C.S Lewis. The selection of texts and novels, in this case, is deliberate and to show the diverse cultures that the novels depict and the common themes across them. The river between is an African novel, The Chronicles of Narnia is a literary text of English origin while harry Potter is a literary text of American origin.

Themes

A theme is the main idea in a book or the topic matter. It can also be defined as the main idea that is repeated in a literary text or work. In a well written literary text, there is always one theme that has widely been discussed and brought out well. Themes are discovered as the reader reads a text (Petua Menulis).

In the book, Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling, the author has incorporated plenty of themes in her book so as to bring out various aspects of the plot thus helping develop the story line. Themes such as Family, friendship, loyalty, evil versus good, courage, supernatural, conflict and rivalry are elaborately described in the novel (Rowling and GrandPré). These same themes feature elaborately within the texts of The River Between (Thiong'o)and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Lewis and Baynes).

Family

A basic family comprises of a mother (or mother figure), father (or father figure) and their children. However, it is possible for the family to be a group of close people whom an individual forms a deep bond that goes beyond friendship. The family is a major theme in the primary text. Harry Potter misses his former family and detests his current family, the Dorsey’s. Despite the fact that Dorsey’s feed, clothe and shelter him, Harry does not feel the love he needs from them and mostly feels like he’s being treated like an outsider. Harry meets people from school who treat him better and love him. In the River Between, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the theme of family is manifested clearly when Joshua and his family go to church together and pray together while in the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia we see the theme of family exemplified when Caspian longs to return to his people and Edmund and his crew long to return home to their mother. The texts depict family as important to an individual’s life and often of great influence on an individual’s decisions.

Friendship

Every one of the selected literary texts has explored the theme of friendship widely. Friends are depicted as extremely important people in the protagonist’s lives. However, they have been consistently shown to come second, after the family. Harry potter has issues making friends while at home and finds solace in the friends at the wizard schools as they shared a lot with him. On the other hand, in the River between, Nyambura and Waiyaki started off as friends and ended up choosing their friendship over their families. Last but not least, in the Chronicles of Narnia, friendship is portrayed as a complement to the family as opposed to a rivalry to the family as with the other two texts. Prince Caspian and Price Edmund are great friends and their families do not get in the way but accept it and encourage it.

Home

Home is where someone lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the school was home for Harry." At Hogwarts, and in Gryffindor in particular, Harry finally feels a sense of belonging and acceptance.” Responsible students take care of him and he is provided for the basic needs. Though there are some few enemies, he finally feels at home. In the River between, when Waiyaki finally comes from the missionary school and back to his home, he really feels relieved and free to be back home away from the white man’s culture and norms. In the Chronicles of Narnia, Narnia itself is the home of the people of Narnia as they are seen defending it against every foe in order to preserve its tranquility and peace for themselves and future generations. The novels portray the home as a peaceful elements that every individual seeks in order to have solace and peace. Additionally, the home is portrayed as a place or notion worth fighting for across the primary and the secondary literary texts.

Loyalty

Loyalty is one of the key things in an individual’s life, whether as a giver or receiver of it. In the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, nearly everyone is loyal, as a matter of fact, even the villains exhibit loyalty to their masters. In the River Between, loyalty is demonstrated between Nyambura and Waiyaki. Despite Nyambura being warned to stop meeting Waiyaki, she went on meeting him secretly because she knew that he was the one meant for her. Similarly, Waiyaki went against his father’s warning not to meet Nyambura because he was uncircumcised according to the ways of their land. In Narnia, loyalty is demonstrated when we see the citizens of Narnia show their loyalty to Aslan by refusing to follow Tash, even when he disguises himself as Aslan and renames himself Tashlan. Loyalty has been demonstrated as an admirable quality across the three literary texts.

Courage

Courage is an attribute that makes an individual be able to face difficult scenarios boldly and often with no fear. In the book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and even Neville all reveal themselves as possessing outstanding bravery, and it's their courage that helps them get through the climactic ordeals at the end of the book. Due to their tremendous courage, Dumbledore praises them at the end year banquet. This shows that their school really values courage more than anything else. Ngugi wa Thiong’os portrayal of courage is demonstrated when Waiyaki and Nyambura were both courageous to fight for their love no matter the circumstances and even declare it publicly despite the bitter rivalry between their communities. Waiyaki, being a traditionist and Nyambura, being a Christian did not hinder them from loving each other and confessing it to their parents to an extent that they were chased away from their community. Lewis demonstrates courage when the Narnian people are willing to fend off their enemies without cowering. The three texts show that courage is an element that is critical for an individual in order to protect that which matters to him or her.

Contrast and Juxtaposition

In her book, Rowling describes a hidden secret magical world in the plain of England. The no- magic people go about their normal lives while the wizards hide in the plain. The no- magical England is described as boring and not interesting in the book as it is full of common things that keep repeating themselves. Magical England, on the other hand, is completely different from the non- magical one, it is full of life and all the fun. These two worlds are displayed alongside each other in a parallel fashion.

In the River Between, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, contrasting religion and traditionalists are discussed broadly. In the book, we have the Christians who follow their leader, Joshua’s and the traditionalist people who follow their leader Waiyaki. These contrasting aspects have led to chaos between Kameno and Makuyu. The Christians see the traditionalists as people who are old fashioned and illiterate due to their belief that a girl must be circumcised so that she can be called a woman and be ready for marriage. The traditionalists, on the other hand, see the Christians as being naïve and easily swayed by the whites, as a matter of fact, they refer to them as the rebels of their culture and norms. Lewis demonstrates conflict and parallelism when Tashlan conducts his activities to mimic Aslan.

Influences on Young Reader

These themes reflect the various aspects of society that often face the young readers. As a matter of fact, several young readers often seek to find out how the conflicts and the themes in these novels turn out so that they can learn a thing or two. For example, male young readers tend to embrace the bravery aspects of the novels while the female readers embrace the passionate ate sentimental aspects of the novels, each picking lessons on how to deal with issues of conflict, loyalty, and family. From this perspective, the young reader can easily identify with the novel and follow it. The readers learn the value of family, friendship, and loyalty as well as how to cherish them. However, there is the aspect of negative learning where the readers appreciate the villainous bravery and badness to the extent that they are inspired to as the villains do in order to be bad boys as they are which seems cool.

Works Cited

Friday April 2014. .

Lewis, C S and Pauline Baynes. Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia). Broadway: HarperCollins; Reissue edition, 2002. Book.

Rowling, J K and Mary GrandPré. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. New York: Scholastic, 1999. Book.

Taylor, Dena. "University of Toronto." n.d. http://advice.writing.utoronto.ca.

Thiong'o, Ngugi Wa. The River Between (African Writers Series). London: Heinemann; 1st edition, 2008. Book.