3.1 Magic - The Mysterious "Other" The primary world narrative frequently provides a frame for the secondary world narrative. Although all those definitions are relevant, it is Hume's understanding of the fantastic as a creative impulse that involves a deliberate departure from consensus reality, yet at the same time does not exclude the mimetic, that will be underlying my use of the terms fantasy and the fantastic in this thesis. For Tolkien, fantasy grants "freedom from the domination of observed 'fact' " (Tolkien Fairy-Stories 139). The game of quidditch could come straight from any video arcade, with scores rattling up on the side as broomstick riders swoop in search of the elusive Golden Snitch, avoiding the assaults of aggressive bludgers on the way. But behind this enormous success, she went through the hell lot of pain and misery. 'Them!" Moreover, the laws of physics and nature as we have come to know them are suspended as soon as the fantastic enters a text. Rooms are lit by torches and candles, which accounts for the Gothic atmosphere of the school. [13] For all their obvious difference, they are both writers in whose work the fantastic impulse can be identified. - Publication as eBook and book 4.1 Harry Potter as Boarding School Fiction An influential study of modern fantasy that simply cannot remain unmentioned has been Todorov's The Fantastic : A Structural Approach To A Literary Genre. I will have a look at the concept of family that the novels promote, and questions of gender will be raised. It is not a reflection of what authors have become important to me personally in the course of my studies. The second chapter is an attempt to define and locate the two worlds in the Harry Potter novels and to find out how they relate to one another. Before exploring the two fictional worlds in Rowling's novels, I would like to give a short overview of some of the techniques that have been used in literature to evoke the fantastic. The two worlds that are juxtaposed in the Harry Potter novels are the Muggle world on the one hand and the wizarding world on the other hand. Simenon’s most notable works feature Jules Maigret, a detective that featured in over 75 of his novels. Admit it, being a wizard would probably be the coolest thing you could ever be. In fact, Harry had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Hagrid could see it." Here are a few general thoughts: When we suspend disbelief and enter such a world on its own terms, we meet characters who, although they might well seem familiar in one way or another, we will certainly not meet in the street on our way to work. Estimates put his book sales around 700 million. One example are Hermione's parents who are non-magical dentists. The Dursleys drive up to London to buy Dudley's school uniform (HPPS 40) and Aunt Marge sends a postcard from the Isle of Wight (HPPS 42).[10]. Although animals certainly talk, they never speak English as Toad and his friends do in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows. Never notice nuffink, they don'." What fictional world should you live in? ), is "mad about everything to do with Muggles" (ibid.). Even though the rest of humanity isn’t as affected by the aliens invading as England is, it’s still horrifying when you think about it. Hoffmann's use of Dresden in Der Goldene Topf is extremely effective because it makes the reader imagine the fascinating "possibility of there being a world of magic just around the corner from the familiar world of everyday" (Jones qtd. Just before the Student Anselmus has his first encounter with the fantastic, this is made explicit: "Am Himmelsfahrtstage, nachmittags um drei Uhr, rannte ein junger Mensch in Dresden durchs schwarze Tor (...)". [14] I am aware of the fact that the Harry Potter novels are Scottish, not English fantasy. A downpour of shooting stars is reported on the news to have been observed by "viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire and Dundee" (HPPS 12). They only appear on the margins of the story, which is a pity, because telling the reader some more about them would throw light on different aspects of the Muggle world. Like Hogwarts, our world should be a place where people can freely be who they are. This is even more astonishing as Mr Weasley, who works for the Ministry of Magic in the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office (ibid. The Wizarding World. in Wolfe 39). In the Harry Potter world, squibs are rarer than wizards and witches who are born to Muggle parents. in order to highlight certain features of interest. [12] This is not the first time in literature that Kingscross station has functioned as a setting for a portal to a different world. This relationship between the fantastic and supposed insanity is characteristic of primary world fantasy: E.T.A. Hume understands the fantastic as "an impulse" (xii) that is, like the mimetic, part of the creative process (xii). The fact that they "are a little outside the village" (HPCS 38) indicates that they are outsiders, a notion that is intensified when the reader is told that "the Muggle postman has never delivered to [their] house and [Mrs Weasley is] not sure he even knows where it is" (HPGF 32). People consider this book as the best ever work of fiction, consequently, the book has had a major influence on many classical literary works. tell your friends the problem. Our world seems pretty boring and there's nothing to do in it. "If Hagrid hadn't pointed it out, Harry wouldn't have noticed it was there. The protagonists often accidentally enter the secondary world and return to it at closure like Polly and Digory in C.S. People fight each other over fuel, the only thing that powers an inkling of hope for the future. Whereas Muggle locations such as the London Underground are to a certain extent finite and can be compressed into a reliable map like that formed by Dumbledore's scar, Hogwarts is ever-changing, fluid and un-predictable. I will give an idea of what constitutes a fantasy world and present several definitions of ""fantasy"" or ""the fantastic"". In the novels, the Muggle world is the world inhabited by the non-magical majority, with which the Wizarding world exists coextensively, albeit mostly remaining hidden from the non-magical humans. The name Leaky Cauldron is of course more than appropriate for a portal through which characters pass from one world to another. 4.4 Otherness and Nonconformity in the Wizarding World, 5 "Mrs Weasley alone in the kitchen" - The Concept of Family in the Novels, Deutsche Kurzzusammenfassung meiner Arbeit. Another thing that is reminiscent of virtual reality is Tom Riddle's mysterious diary in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. You could attend Hogwarts, work for the Ministry of Magic or even hang out with Harry, Ron and … Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created: Our Top 10 . Perhaps the most famous fictional world… In fact, these worlds may feel as real as the world you live in. A fictional universe, or fictional world, is a self-consistent setting with events, and often other elements, that differ from the real world. Geographically, both Muggles and wizards inhabit the same territory simultaneously, at least to a certain extent. The people hurrying by didn't glance at it. The novels were adapted into a number of blockbuster films. In Eva Ibbotson’s The Secret of Platform 13, a fantasy novel for children, it is an abandoned door at Kingscross that leads into a fantastic realm. Yet none of these maps insist upon their radical difference from other maps as maps, only upon the radical difference between the worlds they depict and the real world. portal and s.v. 1;Preface;6 2;Content;8 3;Characters in Fictional Worlds;14 4;Fictional Characters in Literary and Media Studies;78 5;The Ontology of Fictional Characters;122 6;Characters and Their Plots;145 7;Social Minds in Persuasion;168 8;Activity Types and Characterisation in Dramatic Discourse;187 9;On the Constitution of Characters in Poetry;219 10;Engaging Characters: Further … 70). As for its relation to the Muggle landscape, Hogwarts resembles the Isle of Avalon from Arthurian mythology: although it is not invisible in the strict sense of the word, only the initiated can ever experience its true nature. 1.3 Primary World and Secondary World, 2 A Cartographer's Work altogether - life at Hogwarts depends on the dynamics of relationships. Joanne Rowling, or known more with her pen name J.K. Rowling, received the OBE (Order of … In this … In my thesis, I will analyse the two contrasted fictional worlds that Rowling has created in the first four Harry Potter novels: the mundane Muggle world in which Harry first grows up and the fantasy world he enters once he has learned that he is a wizard. Manlove has concentrated in his analysis on characteristic features of English fantasy and explained how it differs from Scottish fantasy. Not really, but in the lull between books, such diversions can be fun. Eric S. Rabkin defines the fantastic as "a direct reversal of the ground rules [of a narrative world] in part determined by those ground rules" (14-15). But if you're trying to write a book or a TV show or a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, you're probably going to want to share your fictional world with other … I’m a happy person, by and large, with a family I adore and quite a few activities I enjoy. A world turned into a desert... A lone wolf trying to make his way through chaos and lawlessness...The movie portrays a society that has long ago given up on morality. Sidney Sheldon Tim Boyle/Getty Images This author started out as a … Looking for inspiration from some of the most-loved and most famous worlds can help. Best do it in a bit of a run if you're nervous." Although fiction generally implies a step away from reality, "plausible stories set in times past or present, which use invented characters in real or imagined situations, (...) for all that they describe something which did not actually happen" (Hume 22), are not fantasy. - Every paper finds readers. Life at Hogwarts even seems pre-industrial in many ways. This is certainly true of the Harry Potter books. - Completely free - with ISBN As Pumuckl is not visible to anybody else (and indeed becomes invisible on the screen as soon as another person enters the set), Meister Eder is always in danger of being thought mad if he should be caught talking to him. The portal to Diagon Alley is concealed in a "grubby-looking pub"(HPPS 78) in "an ordinary [London] street full of ordinary people" (HPPS 78) and can, like some kind of a sesame, only be opened by magic[11]. threshold, [5] It was torn down in 1812, yet Hoffmann referred to it in a letter dated in 1813 to explain where he lived in Dresden. 1.1 Definitions of Fantasy and the Fantastic How intricately and organically primary world and secondary world are interwoven is nicely illustrated by the fact that Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, has a scar above his left knee "which is a perfect map of the London Underground" (HPPS 22). Rowling’s novels thus follow a pattern that Manlove has previously discovered in English fantasy. Although they live in the Muggle world in a topographical sense, the Weasleys are cut off from its society, culture and discourse altogether. A common theme with a number of these best selling authors of all time is that they write detective fiction. The main feature that makes them out as different is that the wizarding world - we are dealing with a telling name here - is governed by the principle of magic whereas the Muggle world is characterized essentially by the absence of magic. Die zentrale Frage ist, wie mit Anderssein in der Zauberwelt umgegangen wird. 2.2 Common Ground This is why the fictional places frequently correspond to actual places outside the text. At first, I will establish a theoretical ba… It is helpful to set up those categories, yet I do not think that the terms are well chosen. (HPGF 148). 4.3 Racism, Oppression and Slavery Inspired by Rosemary Jackson's theory about the fantastic as subversion, I would like to find out whether the wizarding world has any subversive potential. While the Dursleys incessantly discriminate against Harry because of his association with the wizarding world, the Grangers obviously respect their daughter's "otherness" and are supportive of her (cp. Rowling thus effectively creates a contrast between the dullness and oppression of her primary world and the abundance of funny ideas and magical gimmicks with which she furnishes her wizarding world. Although those secondary worlds have no direct relationship to any primary world, they do not exist in a vacuum. They have no objection to her getting the Daily Prophet delivered to Southern France where they spend their summer holidays so she can "keep up with what's going on in the wizarding world" (HPPA 17). How do they do it? ie: if you know a lot about Harry Potter then you know what you know now of Harry Potter; A “world” can include the entire galaxy of that particular fiction. Thanks to her “Harry Potter” books, millions of young readers have been trained in … fight it. A lot of authors of secondary world fiction have drawn maps of their invented worlds. The moving pictures at Hogwarts have been compared by Schafer to java movement in internet images (185). The secondary world can be entered through portals and across thresholds that might be actual or metaphorical, or with the help of magical conveyors[3]. Fantasy can lead us one step further: to a world that functions so differently from the one we live in, that, as far as we can see, it could not ever have been ours. I will give an idea of what constitutes a fantasy world and present several definitions of fantasy or the fantastic. While I was studying for my exams last spring, people around me, from my youngest cousin to my granny, started reading and talking about Harry Potter. But mind you, you cannot simply enter the station and walk up to the platform! While I find this definition useful, I disagree with her when she speaks of the fantastic as a "departure from the limits of what is usually accepted as real and normal" (xii), as the terms "real" and "normal" must not, in my opinion, be equated. Jordan Reynolds. Compare also Tucker, The Rise 226. said Stan contemptously. 7. Sometimes, "the secondary world is simply a particular location within the primary world" (Zahorski and Boyer 71). Then there were doors that wouldn't open unless you asked politely or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren't really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. "". 4.3.3 Werewolves, Giants and House-elf Liberation By looking at things from a different angle of vision, an otherwise familiar picture might change considerably - a philosophical stance that can even be considered Emersonian. Learn more about her life and work. Created by Jacob Hubachek On Aug 24, 2014 How do you deal with the struggles of life? The four books are all structured in a way that those parts of the narrative that are set in the primary world operate as a framing for the main part of the story that is set in the secondary world, and thus follow a pattern that is common in fantasy literature: it has been used for instance by C.S. 1985 AOL 1. It seems that, although being entirely contemporary - we know that modern technology exists from Dudley's gameboys and playstations, and a lot of magical devices correspond to similar ones in our world that rely on electricity and information technology - the wizarding world also displays a strong sense of nostalgia for a vanished past. The 'Harry Potter' author has confessed that she spends most of her conscious life in fictional worlds. Anknüpfend an Rosemary Jackson's Theory vom Fantastischen als Subversion, untersuche ich, ob Rowlings Zauberwelt tatsächlich subversives Potential besitzt. Two different realities are, after all, just two sides of a coin. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Orlando, Florida. [14], "(...) English fantasy has a social bias. The Weasleys, an all-wizard family, with whom Harry frequently stays, live right outside the fictional Muggle village Ottery St Catchpole (HPCS 39). Mr Weasley collects plugs, yet he cannot handle Muggle money (HPGF 71). Sep 07, 2016 . (Rowling: 19.03.1999) [3] Heroes are peculiar actors in mythology. Go nuts. 1. The television series based on Kaut's books emphasises the sense of contrast between the mundane carpentry and Pumuckl by making the latter the only trick film element. Until recently, science fiction creators had to imagine alien planets, without knowing that much about real-life exoplanets. (Hoffmann, Nachwort 139), [6] The emphasis on "ordinariness" and "normality" in the Muggle world will be discussed in greater depth in a later chapter. It may also be called an imagined, constructed, or fictional realm (or world). What is interesting is that the ability to break through to that hidden world is tied up with "not being scared". It can also "[exist] simultaneously and in the same place but [occupy] different dimensions" (ibid. Even so, I thought it worthwile finding out more about the books that have become a cultural phenomenon and have, on such a large scale, entered the consciousness of the turn-of-the-century person in the Western hemisphere. In a subtractive world, "reality is greatly simplified" and "large portions of human experience [are left out]" (ibid.) The laws of cause and effect might be reversed. Zahorski and Boyer argue that although "the primary world does not exist - physically or geographically" (59), the two worlds are related, since the author "lives in the primary world [or, more accurately, in what would become represented in the text as the primary world - my ann.] The Muggle world is largely (pun intended! They read their own wizard newspaper - the Daily Prophet -, listen to their own radio station - the Wizarding Wireless Network -, have their own pop bands - like the Weird Sisters -, and Ron has covered the walls of his room with posters of the Chudley Cannons - his favourite Quidditch team - instead of Manchester United. Whatever newspaper or magazine I happened to pick up, some journalist was bound to be marvelling at the universal success of the fastest-selling books in history that seemed to appeal to readers from all age groups. Apart from the Dursleys, "[m]any Muggles remain anonymous and are identified only as a group rather than individually" (Schafer 41). 2.4 Their-story, Our-story ? Magisterarbeit aus dem Jahr 2001 im Fachbereich Anglistik - Literatur, Note: 1,1, Universität des Saarlandes, 52 Quellen im Literaturverzeichnis. London is an important cultural centre from the wizard point of view as well. Rowling’s other works included a mystery series featuring the detective Cormoran Strike. are created. 'Don' listen properly, do they? Questions like how to handle dragons or teachers, how to appease biting books and how to deal properly with complicated plants keep coming up throughout the novels. (193). This has worked to the series' benefit, as it is able to appeal to both fantasy fans and non-fans alike, widening its appeal and helping it become one of the most successful series in television history . At present, I would just like to draw attention to the tension between the wizarding world's geographical rootedness in the primary world on the one hand, and its separateness from it on the other hand. With the summer travel season in high-gear, we've put together a list of the 14 most spectacular fantasy worlds from literature, film and video games we'd most want to visit. At first, I will establish a theoretical background, dealing with fantasy literature in general. 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