Harry Potter and the Quest for Values 37

Trials, Allies and Enemies
Harry's trials had begun when he was a baby and Voldemort tried to kill him.
However his conscious trials begin on the train to Hogwarts when he overcomes Malfoy’s
threats. Soon Malfoy and Snape are his perceived enemies. He also learns of Voldemort’s
attempts to kill him, which establishes Voldemort as a perceived enemy. In retrieving
Neville’s Rememberall, a trial, Harry’s abilities on a broomstick are discovered. He becomes
friends with Ron on the Hogwarts train and he soon welcomes Hermione as an ally after
helping to save her from the trial of the troublesome Mountain Troll. These two young
wizards offer their own talents to assist Harry in his trials. Hermione helps discover
information about the Philosopher’s Stone and inadvertently helps save Harry when Quirrell
tries to kill him during a Quidditch match. Harry shows his talents in Quidditch by recovering
the golden snitch. By this stage Harry has begun to work out how his new world operates
(PS, 101- 141).
Approach to the Inmost Cave
Harry learns more about himself through the Mirror of Erised, which he discovers in a
darkened room. The Mirror of Erised will later be a key part of Voldemort’s quest for
immortality. Through this object Harry is able to see his parents. As with many quest stories
there is rescue of loved ones because Harry has now achieved a link with his parents. There is
also the harbouring of a potential monster, which is another element common to many quest
stories, as Harry, through the desires he views in the mirror, could be driven to madness.
With the help of Dumbledore Harry is able to overcome the temptation of the mirror, a minor
ordeal. Dumbledore has now become Harry’s primary mentor. He has provided Harry with
sound advice and with the elixir of the invisibility cloak (PS, pp. 148-157).

Ordeal
As stated above, the Mirror of Erised is a minor ordeal while the main ordeal for
Harry, in the PS quest story, is located further than indicated in Vogler’s general hero journey
structure. Vogler places the main ordeal after the Approach to the Inmost Cave (1999, p. 12)
but in PS the main ordeal occurs after the structural point entitled The Road Back. Such
variations in the hero journey are not unusual.
Reward
Harry has received the gift of the invisibility cloak earlier so that he can access the
mirror. It is a gift from the grave as it was his father’s. It assists Harry in sneaking around
Hogwarts to gather information and in providing cover for Hermione, Harry and Ron in their
final adventure in PS. He has also received Dumbledore’s advice regarding the Mirror of
Erised, which will later assist him in his confrontation with Voldemort/Quirrell. This is where
Dumbledore properly shows his mentoring role. Harry learns that desire can be one’s worst
enemy as it can literally destroy your humanity. This notion is demonstrated in Voldemort’s
quest for immortality and power that derives him of his humanity (PS, pp. 148-157).
The Road Back
Through the detention he receives Harry gains information that will help him on his
quest. During the trip to the forbidden forest with Malfoy, they find a hooded creature
feeding off the blood of a slain unicorn. The centaur Frienze saves Harry and also provides
information that explains why the Philosopher’s Stone is at risk (PS, 181-189).

Ordeal
Harry’s main mentor, Dumbledore, is away so Harry must face the main ordeal alone.
However, Harry starts this ordeal with his friends Ron and Hermione. Initially Harry and his
friends must overcome those who would restrict them. Harry must risk expulsion from
Hogwarts as he needs to break school rules to stop the rebirth of Lord Voldemort. Then
Harry, Ron and Hermione suffer the ordeal of stopping their friend Neville from threatening
their quest. Using their respective talents the trio must overcome a number of minor ordeals
until Harry faces the ultimate one. They descend past the three-headed dog, Fluffy (a
reminder of Cerberus, the guardian dog of the Underworld in Greek mythology) and then the
Devil's Snare plant. They then retrieve a specific flying key, compete against a group of huge
animated chess pieces, solve a riddle to avoid poisoning and complete a task. Ron and Harry
will suffer physically from these ordeals (PS, pp. 195-208). Harry, now the lone hero, faces
his key test/ordeal. He meets Voldemort/Quirrell alone. He must then look past the desire to
use the Philosopher’s Stone for himself in order to stop Voldemort/Quirrell getting the Stone
to provide Voldemort with eternal life. Dumbledore’s advice is instrumental here because he
told Harry that in the mirror you are able to see what you most desire, which in this case is
the Philosopher’s Stone (PS, p. 157). By looking in the mirror Harry sees the Philosopher’s
Stone placed in his pocket, which is where it suddenly appears. Harry then overcomes
Voldemort through the death of Quirrel (PS, pp. 195-214).
Resurrection
After struggling with Quirrell/Voldemort, Harry falls into darkness. He returns to
consciousness with Dumbledore in the hospital wing. Order has been temporarily restored to
the wizarding world and Harry has shown himself to be a real hero in his own right. Some
people may read this episode as a literal ‘resurrection’ in that Harry may have died and Dumbledore brought him back to life. This type of resurrection is found commonly in heroic
myths (Vogler, 1999, p. 22). Ironically, Harry has temporarily hindered Voldemort’s chance
of being resurrected to full life (PS, p. 214).

Harry Potter and the Quest for Values 36

Harry Potter as a “Hero Journey”
If a hero journey is attractive to us, speaks to us and teaches us values, it is necessary
to ask if the Harry Potter series is a hero journey. As previously stated a number of critics
(Applebaum, 2003, Nikolajeva, 2003, Alton, 2003, Schafer, 2002, et al.) have referred to this
aspect of the series. Schafer (2002) feels that Harry fulfils many of the criteria required to be
called a mythical hero including that he acquires self-knowledge, matures during his ordeal
and that readers are able to “identify with Harry’s experiences and recognize parallels in their
own lives” (p. 130). Pharr (2002) sees Harry as a hero in progress, a potential representative
of Campbell’s monomyth (p. 54) while Nikolajeva (2003) writes that “the movement of
Campbellian monomyth, . . . corresponds exactly to the master plot of children’s fiction . . .
most tangible in all Harry Potter novels to date” (p. 127). If we accept Harry Potter as a hero
in the sense of the monomyth it is necessary to relate directly some incidents in the Harry
Potter series to Campbell’s monomyth pattern.

Harry Potter and the “Hero Journey” form
There is no great surprise that the Harry Potter series draws from the hero journey
form because a large number of popular stories, both in the written media and other media,
draw on this pattern; it speaks to us psychologically as we are connected to this pattern
through our collective unconscious (Segal, 1999, p. 135). Campbell felt that a new set of hero
journey narratives was needed that drew on the world as we knew it, that allowed us to enjoy
the great stories of mythology in a new setting. “. . . mythology shows itself to be as
amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the individual, the race, the age”
(Campbell, 1993 p. 382). Some critics see the Harry Potter series and other works, such as
Star Wars (1977), as examples of these new narratives (Milum, 2003).
Throughout the Harry Potter series it is easy to connect events in the stories with the
hero journey or monomyth pattern as described by Campbell and others. Written below is a
depiction of the hero journey in PS. The structural outline and terminology used is taken from
Vogler (1999, p. 12).
Ordinary World
Harry lives at the residence of Mr and Mrs Dursley, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging,
Surrey. The creation of this address by Rowling indicates her desire to portray the Dursley
family as comical and distasteful early in the series. Privet refers to a shrub, which is
frequently planted in some numbers to be turned into hedges that are trimmed into
uniformity. Vernon and Petunia Dursley wish to be seen as conventional, in uniformity with
the rest of their neighbours (PS, p. 7), not connected with anything strange or mysterious,
especially witchcraft. They tend to be boring people rather than excitement seekers. The term
“whinging” is commonly used in the English language to describe the action of constant complaining which is one of the characteristics of Dursley family especially in regard to
Harry (PS. pp. 19-27). Harry is an orphan, small and skinny, with wild hair and a lightning
bolt scar. He is given old clothes to wear, requires glasses and is forced to live in the
cupboard under the stairs. Mr and Mrs Dursley reluctantly look after him and he has to put up
with his spoiled cousin Dudley, who is a bully. Both Vernon and Petunia do not wish Harry
to know about his origins as they lie to him about how his parents died (PS, pp. 19-27).
Call to Adventure
Harry is called to his adventure, initially a life of wizardry, through strange
occurrences. His hair grows back almost instantly after it is cut, one of Dudley’s large
jumpers refuses to fit over his head and he strangely ends up on the school roof when he was
only seeking to jump behind some bins. He has a dream about a flying motorbike then, on the
visit to the Zoo for his cousin Dudley’s birthday, Harry gets physical responses from a snake
he is talking to, the glass on the snake’s enclosure vanishes and while the snake escapes
Harry swears he heard it talk to him (PS, pp. 23- 26).
Refusal of the Call
Harry then receives strange letters that he is not allowed to open. On behalf of Harry,
but without his consent, Uncle Vernon refuses the call to wizardry by trying to stop the letters
arriving even though they now number in the hundreds. The Dursleys try to avoid the call by
fleeing with Harry to an old house on an isolated rock in the sea but Hagrid arrives and the
call is taken up (PS, p. 30-51).

Meeting with the Mentor
Harry has met one of his mentors, Hagrid, but he is yet to formally meet his dominant
mentor, Dumbledore. However, Dumbledore has already been involved in mentoring Harry’s
life, as he was responsible for Harry’s placement in the Dursley household when his parents
were slain. This action was undertaken to protect Harry (PS, pp. 15-16).
Crossing the First Threshold
In PS Harry must pass a number of thresholds rather than just one, to enter his new
wizarding world. These thresholds are not the dramatic episodes that occur in many hero
journeys but they do show Harry’s commitment to a new life. In London Harry is assisted by
Hagrid to get into Diagon Alley, a witches shopping area, which is hidden away from the
muggle world. He is also assisted by Hagrid to get some of money left to him by his parents
from Gringotts, a bank run by goblins that is positioned in the Alley, which will help him
break the shackles of poverty and enter a world of economic independence. He purchases
items that will assist him to live effectively in the wizarding world. These include a wand and
an owl. At King's Cross he is taught how to get through the protective barrier at Platform 9
3/4, so that he can get the Hogwarts train, the formal means of entering his new world/life.
Here he meets Ron Weasley and many of the Weasley family. On the train Draco Malfoy
threatens him with the same fate as his parents. Draco may be seen here as a Threshold
Guardian (Vogler, 1999, p. 129). Harry then has to travel over water, a common symbolic
threshold, to arrive at his new home, Hogwarts. Finally Harry must pass the Sorting Hat
ceremony. This hat takes some time in deciding whether Harry will go in the Gryffindor or
the Slytherin house. With his acceptance into the Gryffindor House Harry has now crossed
from the Dursley family into a new surrogate family (PS, 55-97).

Harry Potter and the Quest for Values 35

The “Hero Journey” and its relevance to our youth
Research undertaken by Campbell, Vogler and others indicate that people relate to the
hero journey form in its varied forms. As Vogler (1992/1999) observes, people find this type
of story attractive. His book, The writer journey: Mythic structure for writers (1992), and
subsequent revised editions outline how the hero journey pattern, as disclosed by Campbell
(1949/1993), has been used in many successful films. Our young people also view films in
which the hero journey has been used and many of those films have been highly successful with the youth audience. Examples are The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, E.T. the Extra-
Terrestrial, The Wizard of Oz and the Star Wars films (Vogler, 1999). More contemporary
examples would be Finding Nemo and Shrek. Our youth have been exposed to the hero
journey through films as well as through other forms of narratives including traditional
myths.
The recent Angus and Robertson survey of Australian children between the ages of
five and seventeen, in which 60,000 children voted for their favourite book, chose
adaptations of the hero journey in all of their top ten choices (Angus & Robertson, 2006).
These included the Harry Potter series as equal first choice, the Narnia chronicles (Lewis),
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl, 1964) and Eragon (Paolini, 2003). Due to this
enculturation of the hero journey in our young people, particularly through our popular film
culture, it is reasonable to assume that they are comfortable with this form of narrative and
that they find it relevant because it continues to attract both young viewers and readers. This
connection with the hero journey is important because by using this concept in the education
of our youth we are providing a greater chance for the learning to be more effective as
students personally relate to the learning process (White, p. 130, p.168).
Modern Australian based research also supports the relevancy of the hero journey to
our youth. In a limited research project undertaken in the Wollongong area of Australia, with
a Grade Six class, the published results indicate that the hero journey does connect with our
youth. Kori Nemme and Phil Fitzsimmons (2004) based their study on Campbell’s views
about how a person’s interaction with a hero journey causes a natural response as they relate
that story to their own lives (pp. 5-7). In their research project they introduced students to the
concept and structure of the hero journey, and immersed students in the novel Rowan of Rin
by Emily Rodda (1993/2003). Importantly, the study undertaken showed how the hero
journey narrative could be used in a co-educational class with a varied range of abilities and culture backgrounds. The class contained seven children out of the class of twenty-eight who
were undertaking a reading-recovery programme and the class had a wide range of language
abilities with students mainly coming from Anglo-Saxon, Lebanese and Portuguese
backgrounds, including some with little use of English at home (Nemme & Fitzsimmons,
p. 9).
Through a shared book experience and set tasks, students were encouraged to apply
their understanding of the text to their own life journey. Without inducement from the
researchers students frequently responded with their personal experiences in relation to the
text (Nemme & Fitzsimmons, 2004, pp. 9-18). The results of the study indicate the suitability
of the hero journey narrative as an educational tool with contemporary students because
students connected with it.
The study found that there was a great deal of resonance with Campbell’s
(1991) notions of natural response when the ‘Hero’s Journey’ was introduced
into the classroom context through the shared book experience. The process of
resonance appeared lively and interactive and involved the interplay between
Campbell’s notions of natural response and the relationships and nature of
learning in the classroom. Students applied an archetypal resonance to the text;
undertook a personal resonance with the ‘Hero’s Journey’ to other narrative and
their own lives; and also developed a social resonance to other students and the
teacher (pp. 9-10).
The second relevance of the hero journey is in the way it relates to our mind,
whether consciously or subconsciously. While a hero journey describes a physical
journey to its reader, which often involves adventure and suspense, it is also an inward
journey that relates to its reader’s psyche. The reason this occurs, as Campbell perceives it, is because all hero journeys are actually about us. He speculated that
people related naturally with the narrative form, particularly the hero journey narrative,
because we are aware that our own lives are a narrative (1993). People also respond to
the archetypes present in hero journeys. The hero’s search connects with modern
readers because it is a reflection of their own search, through their unconscious, for
self-knowledge (Segal, 1999, p. 135):
Freud, Jung, and their followers have demonstrated irrefutably that the logic, the
heroes, and the deeds of myth survive into modern times. In the absence of an
effective general mythology, each of us has his private, unrecognised,
rudimentary, yet secretly potent pantheon of dream. The latest incarnation of
Oedipus, the continued romance of Beauty and the Beast, stand this afternoon on
the corner of Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue, waiting for the traffic light to
change (Campbell, 1993, p. 4).
The hero journey also connects with people on the conscious level of our emotions. As
Vogler (1999) states:
In any good story the hero grows and changes, making a journey from one way of
being to the next: from despair to hope, weakness to strength, folly to wisdom,
love to hate, and back again. It’s these emotional journeys that hook an audience
and make a story worth watching (p. 13).
If we accept Campbell’s view then all myths are relevant to us and speak to us because they
are about us:
In the end we are all of us in a sense experts on stories, because nothing is closer to us
than to see the world in the form of stories. Not only are our heads full of stories all
the time; we are each of us acting out our own story throughout our lives. Outwardly
male or female, we are each of us, like David Copperfield, cast as the hero of the story of our own life – just as we are equally its heroine. And the aim of our life, as we see
from stories, is that those two should become one, to ‘live happily ever after’ (Booker,
2004, p. 701).
Lastly, myths, including the hero journey, speak to us about our values. While various
critics interpret myths in different ways most recognise them as a valuable instrument in the
reinforcing of cultural values including renowned mythologist, Bronislaw Malinowski and
Jung (Segal, 1999, p. 79). Jung felt that myth had a social function because he saw the
archetypes as models of how man [sic] should behave (Segal, p. 79). Malinowski followed
the socio-functional or structural-functional approach to myths, which studied them “ in
terms of their functional ability to provide social solidarity, to transmit cultural values”
(Doty, p. 46). This corresponds with an earlier statement in this thesis that stories are seen as
an important means through which societal values are taught.
Myths, particularly hero journeys, are also stories (Hourihan, 1997, pp. 1-4) and
provide the same sort of function as stories including the enculturation of values. They do
this through people encountering hero journeys in different media and relating their own
inner struggles with the struggles undertaken by the hero and the choices he (and
occasionally she) makes in overcoming these challenges. These choices, as mentioned
previously, are based on the hero’s personal values. This, in reality, presents a problem, as
outlined previously in reference to Hourihan’s work. She states that the values hero stories
espouse usually involve the upholding the values of the dominant societal group and the
glorification of violence to achieve victory (pp. 1-4). This is because the meanings of the
traditional hero stories include “the inscription of white European dominance, the
marginalisation of women and the privileging of action and extroversion over imagination and feeling “ (p. 10). Vogler (1999) also recognises that the traditional hero journey is more
masculine than feminine (pp. xviii-xix).
The masculine need to go out and overcome obstacles, to achieve, conquer, and
possess, may be replaced in the woman’s journey by the drives to preserve the family
and the species, make a home, grapple with emotions, come to accord, or cultivate
beauty” (p. xix).