Harry Potter-series are widely popular fantasy-novels that have influenced young readers all over the world on various issues, one being gender. Many arguments have been proposed to explain how the Harry Potter-series has a gender-biased attitude. Although previous research has covered a wide variety of claims, this essay will focus on examining the language and word choices made to describe the male and female characters of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The word choices consist of both traditionally masculine adjectives and verbs as well as adjectives and verbs with negative connotations. To obtain a comprehensive view of the gender-biased tone of the two novels, the essay will not only examine the language, but also investigate if there is a gender-biased way of portraying the characters based on how their behaviour is described. These observations will be combined with previous research which includes Sara Mills’ investigation of sexist language and indirect sexism, Heilman and Donaldson’s critical perspective on the Harry Potter-novels, and Turner-Bowker’s study of stereotyping in young readers’ literature. These studies support my arguments and show that that there is a gender-bias in the way the characters are described, both through language and in the way that the character’s act in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-138280 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Cripps, Rebecca |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Engelska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Stockholm English Studies, 2002-0163 |
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