Harry Potter is an unsurpassed literary work for people of all generations and ages, teaching kindness, friendship, love, and justice. As a character and network of literature pieces, Harry Potter found particular fame among teenagers. It was easy for teenagers to identify with the slightly clumsy and shy boy who had come a long way to being the wisest wizard. However, one of Joanne Rowling’s stylistic virtues in writing a great and inspiring story was the balance between humor and seriousness.
A virtuoso command of the English language and an understanding of how to portray teenagers plausibly from their psychology allowed the author to reach the hearts of millions of children worldwide. The balance between sarcastic remarks and philosophical sayings made Harry Potter not only another literary masterpiece but encrusted the story into the entire English-speaking culture (Yu et al. 179-180). Harry Potter became the subject of TV shows, lotteries, and sarcastic quotes dispersed into sayings that people still use to express ridicule or a joke.
Usually, the author puts sarcastic skirmishes and remarks into the mouths of children who comment on what is happening or make fun of each other. Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter imply a struggle of opposites, so the first does not hesitate to demonstrate contempt (Waysdorf and Reijnders 173-174). The line “Training for the ballet, Potter?” became a common joke that spread thanks to YouTube and other social networks and became part of the parodies (Rowling, Chamber of Secrets 98). This sarcastic and biting question will later be the foundation of fan art in drawings and fan fiction. The author initially intended Ron Weasley to be a comedic character, and he gets involved in many embarrassing situations.
The incomprehensible and ingenuous Ron Weasley comments on what is often happening without awareness and sometimes serves as a conductor of common sense. This common sense is ordinary thinking, far removed from magic spells. The author deliberately demonstrates that Ron Weasley sometimes falls out of the context of Hogwarts and the life of wizards. Ron Weasley says: “Hearing voices no one else can hear isn’t a good sign, even in the wizarding world” (Rowling, Chamber of Secrets 114). This phrase makes readers laugh and smile as it refers to the description of insanity. It leads to the fact that Ron Weasley voices the question frozen in readers’ minds: ‘Maybe they are crazy, not wizards?’. Such a question completely deprives what is happening in romance and makes one doubt the holiness of the events experienced by the main characters. One of the main characters is Ron and Harry’s friend, Hermione Granger. In her image, severe and strict, most of the comical moments are built, tied to the opposition with Ron Weasley (Groves 29). Joanne Rowling often uses contrasts in her first books as the basis for humorous situations.
Adult and elderly characters (usually male), as opposed to childish characters, appear as carriers of wisdom. In the first book, the prominent sage’s task is for Albus Dumbledore, whose death will be an essential point in the entire franchise. Like a classic magician, he says: “The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution” (Rowling, Sorcerer’s Stone 55). He is a teacher for children, and he plays the role of the wisest of mentors; therefore, the author puts the most severe sayings into his mouth.
Characters such as Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape talk about revenge, hostility, betrayal, and various abstract concepts close to ethics. Albus Dumbledore gives his students and other magicians ethical instructions about happiness. He states, “Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light” (Rowling, Prisoner of Azkaban 78). It is one of the essential motivational quotes from Albus Dumbledore throughout the entire book and film franchise. Such inspirational speech could have been put into childish characters, but Luna Lovegood could make an exception (Eberhardt 230-231). However, she is marginalized among other people, adults and children, so this exclusion only confirms her out-of-contextuality from the Harry Potter generation.
One of Joanne Rowling’s most significant accomplishments in writing the Harry Potter books was her consistent and balanced style. She made books interesting for children and teenagers by the right balance of comic episodes and comments with philosophical sayings. Thus, the narrative had a bright and remarkable catchy style that could appeal to both joke lovers and those who expected motivational speeches from the characters. The leading conductors of humorous dialogues were children whose conflicts were based on irreconcilable differences. Often these children were complete opposites of each other, as indicated by their origin and appearance. The conductors of philosophical and motivational sayings were teachers, in particular the figure of the Headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore. Such characters talked about abstract concepts close to ethics, teaching teenagers. By distributing stylistic speech norms across surfaces, Harry Potter became more than a literary masterpiece. Literary franchises fit securely into the cinema and English-language popular culture of the 21st century.
Works Cited
Eberhardt, Maeve. “Gendered Representations Through Speech: The Case of the Harry Potter Series.” Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics, vol. 26, no. 3, 2017, pp. 227–46.
Groves, Beatrice. Literary Allusion in Harry Potter. Routledge, 2017.
Rowling, Joanne. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Reprint, Scholastic Paperbacks, 2000.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Scholastic Paperbacks, 2001.
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Scholastic Paperbacks, 1998.
Yu, Helen H., et al. “Teaching leadership with popular culture: Practical lessons from Harry Potter.” Journal of Public Affairs Education, vol. 28, no. 2, 2022, pp. 156-81.
Waysdorf, Abby, and Stijn Reijnders. “Immersion, authenticity and the theme park as social space: Experiencing the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.” International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 21, no. 2, 2018, pp. 173-88.