Caitlyn Connolly

3 March 2010
Dr. Lawrence
Gothic Fiction

Harry Potter and Gothic Fiction

Gothic fiction is notorious for horrifying monsters, coffins, the living dead, and
bloodsuckers. It has survived throughout centuries although many have viewed its
contents as controversial. Critics argue that gothic readers are in danger of losing touch
with their own reality and being sucked into the exciting worlds depicted in the novels.
They claim that readers will replace their interest in being active members of the real
world for engrossing themselves in these fictional fantasy novels. Gothic novels also
display society in a way that could evoke change and threaten the social order.
In 1998, a new set of Gothic novels was brought onto the scene. J.K. Rowling
began to publish her series of seven books known as The Harry Potter Series. These
novels chronicle the life of a young boy wizard named Harry Potter who fights for the
humanity of the wizarding world as he attempts to destroy the evil Lord Voldemort. Lord
Voldemort discovers a prophecy, which proclaims that a boy has been born who has the
power to destroy him. As a reaction to fear, he seeks out to kill an infant Harry Potter
before he is old enough to defend himself. His attempt fails as he needlessly murders
Harrys parents instead. As the sixth book, Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince,
begins, a teenage Harry with the aide of his school headmaster, Dumbledore, is coming to
terms with being what the wizarding world calls The Chosen One in order to discover
how to vanquish the seemingly immortal superpower Voldemort.
In a classically gothic style, the Harry Potter Series has a way of placing [the
reader] in a state of thrilling suspense and uncertainty (Kilgour 6). The readers become
consumed in Rowlings world full of epic battles and magic. In particular, Harry Potter
and the Half Blood Prince shows many qualities of a classic gothic novel including
villains, doppelgangers and return of the repressed. J.K. Rowling also illustrates several
modern controversies of society including both racism and genocide, which are highly
relevant in the world today.
In the Harry Potter novels, Rowling depicts the ultimate gothic villain that would
frighten almost anyone. Voldemort, also known as The Dark Lord, is an all-powerful
wizard who is nearly immortal with an army of Death Eaters at his command. He is
also capable of reaching into an enemys mind to observe and even fabricate personal
memories and thoughts. He enjoys us[ing] people his enemies are close to and
watching them suffer before he finally murderers them (Rowling 646). In gothic terms, a
villain is frequently an example of the modern materialistic individual taken to an
extreme (Kilgour 12). Voldemort will go to any length, whether it is by torture or
murder, for his own personal material gain. He embodies the definition of villain by
becom[ing] an egotistical and willful threat to [the] social unity and order of the
wizarding world (Kilgour 12). People live in fear of his attacks and hope that they will
never do anything to experience his wrath.
Another component of Gothic literature is the doppelganger. The doppelganger is
known as [a] ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its fleshly
counterpart (Cuthbert). In other words, a doppelganger is like the twin of a person, but
with a distorted and evil agenda. There are several pairings of doppelgangers throughout
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. For example, Dumbledore is presented as a God
figure, while Voldemort is presented as a Satan figure. Both are considered to be great
wizards with an immense amount of influence and power in their hands, yet each chooses
to use their powers in different ways: one for good, and one for evil.
However, the most prevalent set of Doppelgangers in the sixth book are Harry
Potter and Draco Malfoy. The Malfoy family is proud of their pureblood wizarding
descent and often aids Voldemort with his malicious plans. Draco does not appear to be
innocent by any means in the series; he is a vicious bully and taunts those he feels
threatened by, including Harry Potter. In The Half-Blood Prince, Voldemort has chosen
Draco in revenge for a mistake that his father made the previous year, a mistake which
caused the failure of Voldemorts plans (Rowling 34). Essentially, he becomes The
Chosen One, as Harry is, but for the dark side, and is ordered to kill Voldemorts own
Doppelganger, Dumbledore. Harry is described as Dumbledores man through and
through and Draco is the same for Voldemort (Rowling 348). He has no choice but to
follow the Dark Lords orders, for his fate rests upon him succeeding. Draco is excited
by the idea of power and is glad of a chance to prove himself worthy of wizarding
respect (Rowling 33). But his true character comes through when the pressures of his task
sink in: hes sensitive, people bully him too, and he feels lonely and hasnt got anybody
to talk to, and hes not afraid to show his feelings and cry (Rowling 462).
Rowling also shows how easily the lines between good and evil can be blurred
through Harry and Dracos hair colors. Typically good is associated with white and evil
with black. However, in the series Draco is pale skinned with blond hair and Harry has
dark, almost black, hair. This contrast shows just how easily one decision can label
someone as benevolent or wicked. Even though Harry has had a privileged insight into
Voldemorts world [] [he] [has] never been seduced by the Dark Arts [] [or had] the
slightest desire to become one of Voldemorts followers (Rowling 511). Harry could
have easily developed into a dark wizard and Draco could just as easily have deviated
from his evil family.
Draco and Harry are not only replications of [the same] identity, but also [have]
transformations in identity (Cuthbert). They are essentially the same person, but their
decisions and personalities are reflected in the sides of good in Harrys case and evil in
Dracos case. The overwhelming responsibility to fulfill the Dark Lords request takes its
toll on Draco. After all, if he does not succeed, Voldemort will kill him and his family.
Similarly, Harry feels the same kind of pressure over his mission to kill Voldemort. He
does not believe that he has the uncommon skill and power [it will take] to kill a wizard
like Voldemort (Rowling 309). He and Draco both doubt that they have enough magical
power and inner strength to murder a human being.
Doppelgangers also help display the archetypal figure of the uncanny,
embodying the return of the repressed in classic Gothic literature (Cuthbert). The return
of the repressed is effectively the embodiment of the subconscious. Repression typically
reemerges and is infinitely worse than before. For years, Dumbledore has been collecting
and storing memories from those who crossed paths with Voldemort as a young boy and
teenager. In the quest for the secret to Voldemorts power and his weakness, Dumbledore
travels with Harry into these memories and analyzes Voldemorts past in the hopes they
will reveal his plans for the present. Sometimes though, they are faced with the challenge
of deciphering the repression of these recollections.
There is one memory in particular from Voldemorts favorite teacher, Professor
Slughorn, in which the key to his immortality lies. The only problem is that Slughorn
has meddled with his own recollections [] [and] has tried to rework the memory to
show himself in a better light, obliterating those parts which he does not wish [people] to
see (Rowling 371). The true memory though, recalls an evening when a young
Voldemort is speaking with Slughorn and asks about Horcruxes: a truly dark and
powerful magical object that holds a piece of ones soul so that even if ones body is
attacked or destroyed, one cannot die (Rowling 497). The only way to create Horcruxes
is through murder, which is an act of violation [] against nature (Rowling 498). It is
found out that Voldemort did not only create one Horcrux, he made seven, coincidentally
the most powerful magical number in the wizarding world. For Harry, this is the key to
finally knowing how to destroy the Dark Lord. In the original memory, Slughorn
represses and selectively trims the information in the recollection because he feels
conflict[ed] between [his] individual desire and social duty (Kilgour 26). Slughorn is
ashamed of what he remembers and therefore ignores his social duty to inform
Dumbledore about Voldemorts plan to create Horcruxes because his individual desire to
repress the memory is stronger (Rowling 371). The repression of this memory shows to
be a grave mistake as it returns in this book. If the information had been available to
Dumbledore all those years ago, Voldemort could have been stopped before he even
started.
Rowlings series, much like classic gothic fiction, compares the past to the present
to reveal a flawed society. The memories collected by Dumbledore recall to life an
idealized past (Kilgour 30). When young Voldemort was growing up, no one ever took
notice of his sadistic behaviors. Even if they had, he would have just been marked as
special, strange or different. Dumbledore even admits, I had no idea that he was to grow
up to be [] the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time (Rowling 276). These
memories are brought back to critique the present (Kilgour 30). They show just how
foolish those who were close to Voldemort were for underestimating the dangerous
personality and tendencies he had.
Gothic fiction not only deals with good vs. evil and the subconscious but also
critiques society and its fears. Gothic novels rebel against traditional ways of thought as
a reaction against political, social, scientific, industrial, and epistemological revolutions
(Kilgour 10). Rowlings series uses Voldemort as a vehicle to critique the modern social
order. It touches on a lot of contemporary social issues including racism and genocide.
Gothic novels depict a nightmare vision of a modern world made up a
dehumanized individuals (Kilgour 12). Voldemort is the epitome of a dehumanized
individual and even passes this quality onto his followers as well. As Dumbledore
explains to Harry, [w]ithout his Horcruxes, Voldemort will be a mortal man with a
maimed and diminished soul (Rowling 509). Along with the seven murders it took to
create the Horcruxes, he took pleasure in killing and torturing countless others. There is
not any bit of human compassion left inside of his shriveled soul.
Voldemort appears in the series as an exaggerated version of the historical figure,
Adolf Hitler. During World War II, Hitler rose to power as the dictator of Germany with
thousands of brainwashed Nazi soldiers at his command. He aimed to wipe out the
worlds population of all unworthy races, especially Jews. Voldemort has an army of
followers built up called Death Eaters who help him in his quest is to kill all witches and
wizards who come from anything other than pureblood wizarding families. Those who
are from non-wizarding descent, as known as Muggles, or are crusaders against
Voldemort are known as Mudbloods or Blood Traitors. This kind of racism and
genocide is equivalent to that of Hitlers time and even today.
Rowling pushes the political envelope by showing readers how harmful and cruel
it is to judge based on genetic background. Although the age of racism seems to be long
gone, it still exists heavily in society. With Rowlings use of blood status in the series,
she illustrates the effects of racism on society and how out of hand it can become. A book
set in a different world enables the readers to view these situations as outsiders and
therefore think independently of the prejudices they have. In turn, readers hopefully
recognize this and force some social change.
The Harry Potter books are a modernized series of Gothic novels that strive for
social change in society today just as the classics do. Critics have shown concern for the
young readers who are incapable of distinguishing reality from the fictitious magic in the
novels. However, these critics are not seeing past the fanaticized world in Harry Potter.
Rowling uses literary tools like villains, doppelgangers, and returned repression to show
readers that good will always triumph over evil. Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince
explains how evil is not sudden, instead it gradually surfaces. It is mostly likely to be
deeply rooted in the past and therefore, Rowling warns the readers to not let it be ignored.
Readers are given the responsibility of recognizing different evils in the world and
stopping them as Harry does to Voldemorts evil regime. Although this may seem like a
heavy burden, Rowling has confidence in her readers, as she does with Harry, to change
the world. She pushes readers to dig deeper and realize the mistaken ways of civilization
and to improve the world for the next generation. Gothic fiction has been striving to do
the very same thing for generations. It has been disregarded as a legitimate form of
literature for quite a long time and therefore not given enough credit for the revolutionary
ideas it presents deep within its text.

Works Cited
Cuthbert, Alan W. "The Doppelganger." Print.
Kilgour, Maggie. "The Rise of the Gothic Novel." London and New York, 1995. Print.
Rowling, J. K., and Mary GrandPr. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York:
Scholastic, 2006. Print.