Coming of Age with Harry Potter

Coming of Age with Harry Potter

I am really getting tired of reading about the Witchcraft/Wizardry angle of the Harry Potter stories.  Witchcraft and Wizardry is certainly the setting in which the story is told, but the books are not at all about that.  Harry Potter is a coming of age story, and it is very cleverly done.

In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we get to know Harry first as a non-magical Muggle.  He is an orphan, bumping along through life and being bullied by relatives who resent having to take care of him.  Strange things sometimes happen to him, but he has no plans, no insights into who he is and the significance of his life.  No one expects a child to have such fully-formed insights, but Harry’s relatives are no help to him at all in this respect. 

Harry receives letters, delivered magically, that invite him to be a student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  This is symbolic of destiny, following him wherever he goes until he can receive it and begin to understand it.

With the arrival of Hagrid, Harry begins to understand who he is and where he belongs.  Hagrid gives him a choice.  To remain where he is with the Muggles and go to a warehouse school, and continue to bump along with low-level abuse at home, or to give up everything he has known and strike out for a new adventure in unknown territory.  This is what has happened to all of us as we came of age—And J. K. Rowling writes it into a story that is accessible to children who may not yet be able to understand it.   But stories like this go down into the consciousness of a child and stay there until they are needed.  They are a framework which each child will fill in as their own story unfolds. 

Much more can be said about the entire series along these lines.  Harry’s perception of Government goes from respect to disillusionment.  He becomes aware of corruption and partisanship in government, university, banking and among his peers.  The adults he looked up to at the beginning all develop feet of clay.  And adults, if we think about it, realize that this has been true for all of us. 

The plot continues on through the series, but without giving away the end of the story it is possible to say that Harry has learned to live with the paradoxes of adult life.  At the end of the story, all problems have not been resolved and all questions have not been answered.  Harry realizes that all he can do is to do the best that he can.  He will never reconcile with Malfoy, but at the same time they share so much common history that Malfoy cannot really be his enemy—more like a family member that you don’t get along with, but would help whenever needed. 

When he is finally an adult, we see that Harry has lost everything, and at the same time he has gained everything.  He has found a way to live with a deep appreciation of his friends and forbearance for his enemies.   He has the strength to carry on.  May we all be fortunate enough to arrive at the same place.

 

All these things are embedded in this epic tale of seven volumes, accessible to children and adults, and enjoyable to read.  In my opinion it is great literature.