Cracking the Harry Potter code.

Essay by Wazza_1990High School, 12th gradeA+, May 2008

download word file, 30 pages 0.0 1 reviews

Cracking
the Potter Code

�

Alice's Evidence 1

"Where shall I begin," he asked

"Begin at the beginning," the King said. 2

Entering the market-place of Harry Potter �

and so to the beginning

With more than 175 million copies of Rowling's books in print world wide in some forty languages, Pottermania has become a cultural phenomenon. The Harry Potter novels, the Harry Potter movie, the related media publicity, and an expanding assortment of heavily promoted paraphernalia, infuse a world wide popular culture and have significant societal ramifications for the whole education of the child:

"The proliferation of these items constitutes a blatant elucidation of the genuine excitement of children's literature that stems from children's true interest." 3

And then there is my younger brother's own statement (has read every single Harry Potter novel at least seven times), which could be taken as the representative voice for this phenomenon:

"It tells a good yarn, and it's believable because I can relate to Harry. It's never boring." 4

The Harry Potter phenomenon has taken the world by storm, and in many ways the series appears to be accountable for a renaissance in reading for children all over the world - and Harry has been rightfully rewarded a trunk full of awards, from the Smarties Prize to Publisher Weekly Best Book of 1998. Possibly one of the most brilliant things about the Harry Potter phenomenon is that it has occurred in an era of cable television, DVD, cinema and MTV as the technologies of a popular culture.A leading academic, G.L. Anatol, in his Reading Harry Potter - Critical Essays , states: "… no other book has ever sold as quickly." 5

Yet popularity does not guarantee quality - or does it? This is the Mock Turtle syndrome - is...