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How does reading Harry Potter make us confront the reality of our everyday existence?
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Blurring the line between reality and fantasy
Mirror of Erised, Pensive see and Time-turner may Symbolise how we view our own realities.
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Blurring the line between reality and fantasy
If we put aside the layer of magic and fantastical elements presented in novels and movies then this Harry Potter Series can unfold as a story Real World representation of the story. And the dialogues presented in the movie itself shows that besides the magical world there is also a prevailing world of Reality. So, we are able to confront realities by reading the Harry Potter series.
"Is this all real? Or is it just happening inside my head?
Of Course it is happening inside your head. Harry . Why should that mean that it's not real."
So, Here Harry asks questions to Dumbledore during his near death experience where he meets Dumbledore at King's Cross Station. So, Dumbledore says It is happening inside your head but it can also be Reality at some extent. So, This statement blurs the very line between reality and fantasy.
Confronting real life situations and learning to handle real life problems by fantasy literature
“The stories(Harry Potter) are chock-full of the right ingredients: quirky and courageous characters, magic, humor, whimsical and bizarre settings, and a convincing blend of fantasy and reality” (Silvey,
So, the Harry Potter Series is a perfect blend of fantasy and Reality. where Reality meets fantasy and creates soothing effects. So, It is a full package with Morality and life lessons. Which not only confronts life problems but also gives a kind of solution which we can apply to our real life situations also. Silvey further adds that...
"More can be learned from them about the inner problems of human beings, and of the right solutions to their predicaments in any society than from any other type of story within a child's comprehension."
Question of Reality and Identity
Harry Potter within this fantasy also gives glimpses of how people's identity are changing with time. The same happens with individuals also. The last task in the Triwizard Tournament is to find the Winning Cup in Triwizard Maze. But the maze itself is magical. In between you meet so many challenges and the major challenge is changing behaviour of people. So, Maze can be seen as a journey of life, where roads are not straight but are always in a zigzag pattern and you meet a lot of people and you don't even know when people can change their attitude and behaviour and can create something big for you. So, you need to be very careful throughout your journey otherwise you lose it. Bruno Bettelheim Child Psychologist also says that...
“In the maze, you’ll find no dragons or creatures of the deep. Instead, you’ll face
something even more challenging. You see, people change in the maze. Oh, find the
cup if you can, but be very wary, you could just lose ourselves along the way.”
(Newell, 2005)
Mirror of Erised, Pensieve and Time-turner may Symbolise how we view our own realities.
Mirror of Erised, Pensieve and Time Turner These are some of objects which are used in this novel to go back into memory and revive it. So, These are some Symbols which become paths through which we can analyse how we store our memories at the time of it's happening and how we restore it when we see it through another direction or angle.
“Could it be that reality is not an illusion but our version of reality is an illusion? In other words, none of us are perceiving reality of what it is but rather for
what we wish to be.” (Dern, 2011)
This statement by Fern became central to understand that how we store our realities in our memories are just a illusions because "What you end remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed."(From The Sense of an Ending)
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Time turner
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