<p>The literature on J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter is prolific. People have written on various topics dealing with issues such as translation, etymology and diverse areas concerning the language. In this essay, I examine whether linguistic features such as reporting verbs, adverbs of manner and adjectives contribute to the depiction of heroic and villainous characters. Before conducting this research, my assumptions were that there would be a great difference in the value of the words depending on the character they were associated with. I wanted to see if the heroic characters used verbs and adverbs with positive connotations, and the villainous characters verbs and adverbs with negative connotations. I also wanted to know if the adjectives describing the characters could, in themselves, clearly indicate whether a character was a hero or a villain.</p><p>The results of my research suggested that the choice of particular verbs and adverbs contributed only indirectly to the depiction of the characters. Without context, it was not possible to know if the character was a hero or a villain simply by identifying the verbs and adverbs used to describe their speech. By contrast, the choice of particular adjectives did appear to indicate more clearly whether a character was hero or villain. Finally, the results of my research indicated that context, rather than the use of particular linguistic features was often the most important factor in contributing to the portrayal of characters in the novel.</p>

In the field of research within film studies which consider how aspects such as gender or race affect the portrayal of a character, the aspect of characters' body sizes are not always taken into account. By analysing the fat characters in the popular children's and young adult film series about Harry Potter, I bring attention to the fact that the use of stereotypes is significant in these characterisations, and further contributes to the marginalisation of this particular group of people. I looked specifically at what the characters had in common with each other, and if they adhered to already established stereotypes concerning fat people, and found that the one thing they all share is a lack of academic or intellectual skill to varying degrees, which is in line with the common stereotypes of fat people as dumb. I further analysed the differences between the fat men and fat women in the series, and found that fat men were a far more common occurrence than fat women, and that fat girls did not even exist in these stories. This is not surprising, as the exclusion of fat women and girls is abundant in mainstream culture.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-14T13:38:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 429729.pdf: 821152 bytes, checksum: c52a3d49f79f31c9eb048fe2b15635c0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-01-10 / Esse estudo tem por objetivo discutir a relev?ncia da leitura da literatura na forma??o humana, bem como a import?ncia de se abordar textos liter?rios no ambiente escolar atrav?s de um trabalho diferenciado e significativo. Assim, busca uma proposta que, partindo dos interesses de leitura dos alunos, possa lev?-los a se desenvolverem intelectualmente e virem a ler textos mais complexos. Nesse sentido, analisa o caso da s?rie Harry Potter, considerando caracter?sticas, aspectos e motivos principais dessa obra, pass?veis de provocar identifica??o do p?blico pr?-adolescente e adolescente. Al?m disso, discute o benef?cio da leitura de textos can?nicos e a possibilidade de utilizar a s?rie como meio de introduzi-los. Na sequ?ncia, apresenta uma proposta de trabalho com sugest?es de atividades e discuss?es para cada um dos sete volumes da s?rie que possibilitem aos alunos lidarem com uma variada gama de temas e estrat?gias comunicativas, culminando com o desenvolvimento detalhado de duas das propostas.

<p>My intentions with this essay has been to examine the World in which the story of J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter takes place, the structure, narrative and restrictions, in order to place the suite of novels in the tradition of the Fantasy genre. Since the release of the first book Harry Potter has become a household name, possibly more than any other contemporary literature written for children. Various readings concerning gender, etymological, linguistic aspects and so forth have been done, and in most cases the books are placed in the genre of Fantasy without distinguishing what in fact makes the novels Fantasy. I wanted to see which specific sectors of the books that place them in the genre, and, assuming that it would in fact fit into the Fantasy genre, in which ways it diverges from the tradition of the genre in means of the structure of the world/s of the story. I also looked at the faults in the logic within the novels to see if the inconsistencies in the rules of the world have an impact on the agency of the story.</p><p>I found the novels to be a part of the fantasy tradition, not only by having many intertextual relations and similar features to other fantasy-novels but also in the fundament of the story, its basic conditions such as the supernatural elements and the hidden places in the world of the books. The minor inconstancies that I found where to small to disrupt the narrative, and the fact that some of the aspects of the books drift slightly away from the logic of the world within the story have reasonable explanations such as making the story easier to relate to.</p>

My intentions with this essay has been to examine the World in which the story of J. K. Rowlings Harry Potter takes place, the structure, narrative and restrictions, in order to place the suite of novels in the tradition of the Fantasy genre. Since the release of the first book Harry Potter has become a household name, possibly more than any other contemporary literature written for children. Various readings concerning gender, etymological, linguistic aspects and so forth have been done, and in most cases the books are placed in the genre of Fantasy without distinguishing what in fact makes the novels Fantasy. I wanted to see which specific sectors of the books that place them in the genre, and, assuming that it would in fact fit into the Fantasy genre, in which ways it diverges from the tradition of the genre in means of the structure of the world/s of the story. I also looked at the faults in the logic within the novels to see if the inconsistencies in the rules of the world have an impact on the agency of the story. I found the novels to be a part of the fantasy tradition, not only by having many intertextual relations and similar features to other fantasy-novels but also in the fundament of the story, its basic conditions such as the supernatural elements and the hidden places in the world of the books. The minor inconstancies that I found where to small to disrupt the narrative, and the fact that some of the aspects of the books drift slightly away from the logic of the world within the story have reasonable explanations such as making the story easier to relate to.

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Syftet med denna studie är att belysa och diskutera värdegrundsarbete med skönlitteratur som grund inom svenskämnet. För att visa exempel på hur intressanta ämnen ur ett värdegrundsperspektiv kan lyftas fram till diskussion i klassrummet har vi valt en kvalitativ och innehållsanalytisk metod med hermeneutisk inriktning där vi studerar intriger och händelseförlopp ur J. K Rowlings Harry Potter och De vises sten (2010) samt John Ajvide Lindqvists Låt den rätte komma in (2005). Därefter relateras de utvalda avsnitten ur dessa skönlitterära böcker till värdegrundsformuleringarna i Lpf 94, författare inom skoletik samt genremässiga konventioner inom litteraturfältet. Vi konkretiserar, preciserar och problematiserar också värdegrundsformuleringarna i vår forskningsbakgrund. I vår diskussion presenterar och problematiserar vi sedan olika arbetsmetoder för värdegrundsarbete med skönlitteratur som bas. Vi lyfter bland annat fram demokratiska samtal om konflikter, rollspel och brevskrivning som konkreta undervisningsmetoder för att behandla ämnen och episoder i skönlitteraturen som är särskilt intressanta ur ett värdegrundsperspektiv. Studien visar att skönlitteraturen med sin förmåga att väcka empati och synliggöra konflikter är en givande utgångspunkt för värdegrundsarbetet då skönlitteraturen lämpar sig för diskussioner av mobbning, främlingsfientlighet och ojämlika situationer. Dessa fenomen är väsentliga att diskutera då de är företeelser som eleverna i egenskap av samhällsmedborgare oundvikligen kommer att ställas inför.

The author of this thesis Representation of the hero and the antihero in the British fantasy literature deals with the typology of characters within the genre. She focuses on the distinction between a hero and an antihero and discribes the characteristic features of their representation in the pieces written by British authors, including particularly the work of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, J. K. Rowling, P. Pullman, N. Gaiman and T. Pratchett. The theoretical background is provided by the publication The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell and a book titled The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Gained pieces of information are confronted with the texts named above.

This thesis analyzes the mother-child relationship in the Harry Potter novels by using Melanie Klein’s object-relation based theory. I argue the mothers and their relationship with their offspring represent fragments of a whole complicated psyche. The characters are not analyzed as individuals, but instead as pieces, sometimes multiple pieces, of a whole psyche. When these characters and novels are taken together, a whole, multi-faceted person comes into view. Rowling depicts both good and bad mothers, and children who characterize different positions according to Klein. These positions are the paranoid-schizoid position with Harry Potter and the depressive position with Sirius Black and Rubeus Hagrid. Although the series suggests a developmental arc or a coming of age story within fantasy literature, there is no linear progression; instead, there are disruptive positions without development.

The aim of this essay is to investigate whether fanfiction allows for liberation by disrupting traditional gender roles and if it can transcend the binary categorization of sex. This will be done by looking at the transformation of a heteronormative relationship into a homosexual one.