Analysis: Book One Ch. 1-8
In this analysis, I’ll try to focus only on things you might have missed instead of regurgitating the plot, etc. I’m writing, remember, with an eye to how Book 7 will resolve the series.
However, I want to start by saying that after having the memory of the movies Obliviated from my mind, returning to these books which I first read a decade ago and last read back when HBP came out, is an immensely enjoyable experience.
imho there are two ways to approach Harry Potter - as a literary journey to be enjoyed and as a mystery to be analyzed - and I like both. But if no one enjoyed Harry Potter, no one would bother to analyze it
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My
overall point in this series will be that Harry is an UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. Unreliable narrators say things (and even
see and do things) that bias the reader towards an incomplete understanding of the full picture. The most obvious example of this throughout the books is how Harry’s relationship with Snape predisposes him (and us) to tag him as a villain and horrible person. Because other aspects of Snape’s character (such as what caused him to come to Dumbledore to offer himself as a double agent… not to mention his relationship with Lily Potter) are hidden from us by the structure of the narrative until Harry discovers them, we have a de facto incomplete view of Snape.
So in general, when reading from the mystery perspective, a good idea is to take NOTHING at face value, especially anything that seems as though it has passed through what we’ll call the “Harry filter.”
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Now: ON TO THE MYSTERIES!
First mystery: the missing day. Did you catch this, reading chapter 1? Rowling tries to slip it by us, but there is nearly a 24 hour gap in the story she’s telling. Here’s what happened, in order:
Night of October 31: Murders at Godric’s Hollow occur near midnight. Voldemort flees.
November 1: Hagrid arrives and takes Harry from the ruins very early in the morning. Sirius arrives, gives Hagrid his motorbike. McGonagall meets Hagrid right before he leaves, and is at Privet Drive by morning. Sometime in the afternoon, Sirius catches up to Pettigrew and they duel. Dumbledore arrives at Privet Drive at nightfall. Hagrid arrives at midnight, delivers Harry, and leaves - notice that he has not heard anything about Sirius.
We know that Hagrid went from Hogwarts (somewhere in northeast Scotland) to wherever Godric’s Hollow is; then he flew to 4 Privet Drive (in Surrey). He notes that he flew over Bristol, suggesting that GH is in Wales (where JKR was born!). But if so, it surely doesn’t take 18-24 hours to fly from Wales to London. In fact it’s probably 1/2 that time by car.
This leads to one of what will be many
Unanswered Questions.
UAQ #1: Where were Hagrid and Harry all day November 1? Why was Hagrid sent and how did he get there so fast? How did Dumbledore know so quickly?
Naturally, there are an assortment of other minor questions about the house and the aftermath.
UAQ #2: Did the rebounding AK curse really destroy the house? If not, who did? What happened to Lily & James’s bodies and their wands? We know Pettigrew eventually claimed V’s wand: was he on the scene immediately? Who else was there?
We’ll have more questions about the account Rowling has given us of the night Harry nearly died, but I’ll wait to present them until we reach the parts in future books that contradict what we’ve been told here. Suffice it to say that Rowling does NOT want you to take this initial account at face value.
The rest of our reading was just as fun, but without any great mysteries - although, since it’s setting the backdrop for the series, we’ll later be called to question a lot of the exposition here (such as Hagrid‘s excuse for why V wanted to kill Harry).
Since we encounter the first of oh so many times that people mention Lily’s eyes, we’ll stick that here:
UAQ #3: Why is it so important that Harry “Looks like his father, but has his mother’s eyes?”
For tomorrow, please finish Book One. After that we’ll discuss some interesting stylistic elements Rowling uses in the task sequence, and we’ll have cause for our first of many Unwarranted Speculations (UWS). We’ll also discuss the Invisibility Cloak, which Rowling has hinted very strongly is connected to the mystery of what exactly happened that Halloween nearly 20 years ago. So: pay attention when Dumbledore brings that up.
Reading Assignment for July 2: Chapters 9-17 of Book One.
