Harry Potter: A Heroic Myth

Paper Summary:

The paper explains that the Harry Potter series of books is so popular because it is a classic example of heroic myth and specifically, monomyth. The paper refers to C.S. Lewis' "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" as another example of the monomyth. The paper then explores the enduring, powerful hold that myths, and especially monomyths, exercise over the minds and imaginations of human beings in general.

From the Paper:

"It is necessary to first consider what we mean when we use the term "myth." In this essay, the term is used in much the same sense that Barthes intends, when he argues that any story can be a myth, and moreover that it "can be seen that to purport to discriminate among mythical objects according to their substance would be entirely illusory: since myth is a type of speech, everything can be a myth provided it is conveyed by a discourse" (Barthes 109). This then is the starting point - the discourse in the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is a discourse that we can describe as a myth. It is this kind of discourse that appears to resonate equally for all human beings, and this helps to explain the widespread appeal of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. New York: The Noonday Press, 1957.
• Lewis, C.S. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1983.
• Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997.
• Segal, Robert A. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Wikipedia. "Monomyth." Retrieved from web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth

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