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12016-09-20T01:26:46-07:00Julia Bain3448ac555c55fb75ef1ff0266231542a174c01e51142210A brief explanation of the aims and plans set out for the researchimage_header3243092016-12-04T01:38:20-08:00Julia Bain3448ac555c55fb75ef1ff0266231542a174c01e5In 1997, J. K. Rowling released her first novel; Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States). The books became the best-selling series in history, having been distributed worldwide and translated into 73 different languages. Soon after, the story of the young wizard boy discovering the world of magic took the world by storm, prompting 6 more bestselling novels, 8 feature films, a stage play in the West End, a studio tour, multiple theme parks globally based on reconstructions of Hogwarts School, a spin-off movie trilogy based in the wizarding world and countless clothing and merchandise items. Harry Potter became a cultural phenomenon unlike the world had ever seen before as the novels, geared towards children and young adults, are adored by readers of all ages. This phenomenon, analysed in Harry Potterisation: The global phenomenon explained, could have occurred not only through “marketing, literature, and psychological preferences of fans” but also due to the influence of Gladwell’s ‘Tipping Point’ theory. This theory states that “an idea, trend, or social behaviour crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire.” (Patel 2006:3)
The series itself has been the topic for analysis in many different areas of study; from child development to morality. J. K. Rowling has been quoted as saying “[her] books are largely about death.” This proves well for the topic of my research, as self-sacrifice and death often go hand in hand. Examples of self-sacrifice in both genders can be found spanning the entire series, with the first book beginning with the murder and self-sacrifice of Harry Potter’s parents, James and Lily. Lily Potter’s self-sacrifice to protect her infant son is the central crux and starting point of the series as an entirety.
Another topic of analysis central to the series at large is gender and female characters. Many scholars and critics have used “popular feminism” (Glitre 2011:17) to take the female characters from the book and film series and have assessed their portrayal and their influence to the story itself. One example of this being, Women on Screen (Waters 2011:1-7), a collection of essays in which a number of scholars look at how feminism and female characters in various forms of popular culture. However none of them have used self-sacrifice as a comparative tool to analyse the differences and similarities between genders. Popular feminism looks at feminist ideas shown in pop culture, how popular these representations are and what the popular understanding of feminism is (Glitre 2011:17)
Girard’s theory of sacrifice and violence discussed in his book Violence and the sacred (1972), with particular focus on his identification of self-sacrifice, will be used to analyse how chosen characters make sacrifices within the film series. As stated by René Girard the “mimetic attributes of violence are… sometime direct and positive [and] at other times indirect at negative”. (Girard 1972:32) The specific type of sacrifice focused on here will be self-sacrifice. In Girard’s later studies he created two distinct types of sacrifice; Pre-Christian or scapegoating, in which the victim is unwillingly turned into a martyr to restore balance to a community and self-sacrifice or self-offering, where the victim chooses to sacrifice themselves in order to protect others from harm, which the crucifixion of Jesus Christ being the prime example (Wandinger 2010:27).
Self-sacrifice is defined here as a sacrifice consciously made by the individuals and not inflicted upon them unwillingly (Wandinger 2010:27). The individual has made the conscious chose to make the sacrifice. A sacrifice in which the individual is forced into unwillingly is referred to here as “scapegoating” (Wandinger 2010:27), which is not the focused definition of sacrifice for this research. By use of this definition by both Girard and Wandinger, examples of self-sacrifice will be identified and assessed in comparison to one another.
Contents of this path:
12016-09-20T00:47:10-07:00Julia Bain3448ac555c55fb75ef1ff0266231542a174c01e5Gender vs. Sex3Looking at the differences between sex and genderplain3243102016-12-04T10:23:11-08:00Julia Bain3448ac555c55fb75ef1ff0266231542a174c01e5
12016-09-20T00:44:35-07:00Julia Bain3448ac555c55fb75ef1ff0266231542a174c01e5Mimetic Theory and Self-Sacrifice7Looking at Girard's idea of sacrifice and the differences between scapegaoting and self-offeringplain3243092016-12-04T02:15:54-08:00Julia Bain3448ac555c55fb75ef1ff0266231542a174c01e5