Assignment #5 The Hero's Journey

A Rankian Analysis of the Hero of Hogwarts by M. KATHERINE GRIMES

WHAT TO EXPECT . . . Harry Potter is both a figure in popular culture and an extremely well known contemporary literary character. As a result, he can provide us with a range of insights into how heroes operate in our society and what they show us about ourselves. This chapter investigates the young wizard and the series of books in which he appears from the perspective of psychologist Otto Rank. As you read, look for a greater understanding of trends in psychology and how they apply to mythology. The question Rank wanted to answer in his studies was, “Where does mythology come from?” His investigations showed that it was part of human nature to tell mythological stories, and that this aspect of our humanity emerges from the way we interact with the members of our families. Thus, the fundamental concept you will encounter here is Rank's family romance, which explains how hero myths result from basic family conflicts that transcend culture and history,

In this chapter, M. Katherine Grimes applies Rank's theories to the Harry Potter series and updates them to reflect the social conditions of our time. As a result, she presents new perspectives on the books and films about Harry Potter and the mission of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Her discussion leads us to reexamine the role of female characters as heroes and to think about the importance of the mother figure in mythological stories, as well as to ponder the significance of the themes of birth and rebirth.

Before you read this essay, you might want to review the discussion of heroes earlier in this section as well as the other archetypes as presented by Jung in the previous section. As you read this chapter, compare Harry Potter with other ancient and classical heroes like Gilgamesh and Hercules, as well as contemporary uses of the hero archetype like Luke Skywalker (Star Wars) or Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games).

The psychological theories of Sigmund Freud and Otto Rank have used the images found in myth to explain conflicts in the human unconscious (As seen in previous sections of this course). By the same token, these theories can enrich our understanding of the meaning of myth. We began this book by suggesting that myths are not just false stories. Rather, they express important truths about the experiences of human beings. Interestingly, the psychological view is yet another perspective from which the traditions preserved as mythology represents such truths,

Rank identified a process called the family romance and argued that it has produced a wide range of stories about the birth and adventures of heroes. Rank himself collected stories from all over the world to show how the family romance worked, but his theories apply as well to other stories as yet unknown and even untold. In this essay, M. Katherine Grimes shows the relevance of Rank's ideas to the beloved popular series of Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling, When Grimes wrote this article, only the first four books had been published: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1997; hereafter Stone), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1998; hereafter Chamber), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999; hereafter Prisoner), and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000; hereafter Goblet). As you will see later, however, she was able to forecast the outcome of the series on the basis of her analysis. In the marginalia, we have supplemented her views with additional detail from the last three books, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003; hereafter Phoenix), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005; hereafter Prince), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007; hereafter Hallows),

If Freud, Jung, and Rank are correct, myths come from the human unconscious, and the forces that create them are innate in every human being. "Innate" means "born in" and refers to the complex

of features that makes human beings what they are. For example, language-learning ability is innate: every normal human child is born with the ability to develop language. The child is not born speaking Japanese or Hindi or English but rather has the structures in her brain that allow her to develop language through interaction with her environment. It is not a particular language that is innate in the child, but the ability to develop language.

Grimes' analysis shows that the Harry Potter books are a wonderful illustration of the way stories with mythological meaning continue to enthrall people in contemporary society, providing them with images expressing their fears, hopes, and dreams.

OTO RANK AND THE FAMILY ROMANCE Like Freud, Rank was a clinical practitioner. As part of this profession, he studied the behavior of his patients who were neurotic. However, Freud used the behavior of neurotic patients to explain human nature in general, while Rank preferred to consider the behavior of normal subjects and derive from it an understanding of neurotics. His theories about family relationships developed from actual clinical experiences with both parents and children.

Freud believed that the Oedipus complex, a stage in which a boy desires his mother, and is jealous of his father, was the primary mechanism of sexual and psychic development. In a different vein, Melanie Klein, a contemporary of Freud's who viewed herself as following his lead, actually focused on the so-called pre-Oedipal period in which children of both sexes interacted primarily with the mother. Rank generally agreed with Freud that a complex kind of possessive anger underlies the dynamic of the family. However, he insisted that daughters as well as sons exhibit such behavior, This complex of feelings, he maintained, motivates the creation of the hero myth. Therefore, we might say that Rank sees myth as arising out of basic human conflicts. He understands the child's wanting the mother for itself as one of the most basic conflicts in life: first the (male) child idealizes its parents, but ultimately he is disenchanted with them. He sees that his parents are not perfect and comes to believe they are not of the high social stature he would like. The child Substitutes more exalted figures for his parents in his imaginings, because he wants to return to what he sees as the "vanished happy time" of early childhood.

In the child's view, the parents are first seen as ideals. As he meets other grown-ups and Compares his parents' actions and abilities with them, the child becomes dissatisfied and often feels rejected. Sexual rivalry is often involved in these feelings of rejection. As the child notices the existence of sexual relationships, he begins to imagine his role as part of the sexual relationship of his parents. The child then resents the role his father enjoys and wishes such a relationship with his mother.

Because his parents do not live up to his expectations, the child fantasizes about getting rid of them. This feeling arises as the child is trying to establish his independence. However, despite any negative feelings, the child still harbors his original affection for his parents. Rank emphasizes that the child does not really want to do away with his parents, but that he enjoys imaginary Scenarios in which things work out to his perceived advantage. These fantasies and daydreams express important emotions that children may not be aware of. The child's complex of feelings of longing and rejection, love, and anger together make up the phenomenon that Rank calls the family romance.

THE MYTH OF THE BIRTH OF THE HERO For the child, one of the mechanisms for coping with the feelings he experiences in the family romance is to transform them into a myth. In this story, the child sees himself as an exceptional person who is unjustly treated by a tyrannical older relative (usually a father), but who accomplishes great deeds and is recognized far and wide for these actions.

In his book The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, Rank showed the same common pattern in stories about heroes from many parts of the world dating from the twenty-fourth century B.C.E. as shown in the table. He believed that people create these heroes as a way of expressing the sense of powerlessness a child feels in the family. If, like the hero, the child can fulfill the unlikely task of defeating the powerful oppressor, then he can succeed in satisfying his individual psychic needs. For the child, who resents the power wielded by his parents, the hero's task is always to overpower them. This process is called projection, the reversal of relationship roles. In the myth, the son's real-life rebellion against the father is reversed, so that it is the father who is hostile to the son, not vice versa. And Rank points out that the great myths through the ages emphasize such defeats of oppressive power by the hero. Note, though, that a great number of the heroes Rank describes are in the final analysis the builders of nations, cultures, and religions. Though their stories express the rebellion of the Son against the father, these heroes at the same time channel the creative energies of the son into the Creation of a new way of life.

A Selection of Heroes Studied by Otto Rank in The Myth of the Birth of the Hero Sargon 24th C. B.C.E Mesopotamia Founded Babylon and destroyed the walls

of Uruk, whose Construction is celebrated in the Epic of Gilgamesh

Moses 15OO (1200) B.C.E. Israel Led the Hebrew people out of Egypt to the Promise Land

Paris Nonhistorical: 8th c. B.C.E.

Troy Son of the king; brought about the Trojan War, which caused the downfall of the city

Romulus Nonhistorical: 8th c. B.C.E.

Rome Founder of Rome, first a city, then an empire

Cyrus 6th c. B.C.E. Persia Founded the Persian Empire

Hercules Nonhistorical; throughout classical antiquity

Greece/Rome Hero who performed 12 labors, extending across and beyond the Greek world; was later made a god

Oedipus Nonhistorical: 5th c. B.C.E.

Greece King of Thebes who killed his father and married his mother, which brought about the downfall of his regime, although he was considered a hero in Athens

Jesus 1st c. C.E. Christian Founder of Christianity

Tristan Norihistorical: 12th c. C.E. Celtic, European

Folklore figure in courtly romances who became a knight of King Arthur's Round Table

Although children themselves do not create great myths, as adults they contribute to the existing lore of their culture, adding to or modifying stories in ways that reflect their own experience and feelings, including their memories from childhood. In this way, the myths of a group become the illustrations of psychological situations and the embodiment of human fears and anxieties.

Rank's theory includes us all, for he says that all humans share the psychological experiences he has described. He says that human beings, by their basic nature, tell stories about heroes. We Create hero myths because we unconsciously represent Our infantile struggles in the adventures Of the hero. We idealize ourselves through our conception of the hero, the ego. In the excerpt that follows, through applying Rank's observations, Grimes gives us a new perspective on the books and films about Harry Potter.

UPDATING RANK TO INVESTIGATE HARRY POTTER The influence is not all in ore direction, however. In one respect in particular, Grimes updates Rank's observations to the Social conditions of our time. When Freud and Rank wrote, the family was dominated by the father, but in our day we have a rather different idea of how its dynamic should work. Today, the influence of women and mothers is more important to our understanding of the family, and the strategic role of women is increasingly accepted.

The traditional Freudian update of the story of the hero would be to describe a woman hero whose identity is defined by her competition with her mother for the affections of the opposite sex parent, her father. This is the dynamic of Freud's Electra complex. However, modern feminist Freudians like Nancy Chodorow (The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender) are more inclined to consider the roles of both parents in the development of the child, and thus the hero. And in fact, the change in the status of women in our society has not occurred in such a way as to make credible stories that plug women into the same roles as men. There are of course exceptions to this limitation, but the norm has been to craft stories reflecting the continued importance of men in our society, but with an increased role for women. ► In this scene from Harry

Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the villain, Lord Voldemort (left), separates Harry Potter (background, right) from his parents (foreground, right). The scene shows the hero and his family forming Rank's ideal "family romance," which is shattered by the evil father substitute who inhabits the body of a teacher at Hogwarts.

Some Scholars have, in fact, criticized the Harry Potter stories as not featuring powerful enough

women. Noted folklorist Jack Zipes says, "girls are always left to gawk and gaze at Harry's stunning prowess.” He cites scholar Christine Schoefer as saying, "’Harry's fictional realm of magic and wizardry perfectly mirrors the Conventional assumption that men do and should run the world’" (179). However, we might note the activities and influence of Hermione Granger and other Hogwarts women as evidence in the other direction.

Whatever view we have of this issue, we can agree that women play much more vital roles in the Harry Potter stories than they do in the myths collected by Otto Rank. Thus, to make sense of these

stories, Grimes considers first the role of the father, as a traditional Rankian analyst would, and then develops the role of the mother in the formation of the young wizard, expanding the traditional analysis to represent more closely the view of our society.

Since humans have existed, adults have attempted to make sense of our world through myth. Otto Rank applied his teacher Sigmund Freud's theories of dreams and mythology to many of the world's mythical and legendary heroes, both well and little known. According to Robert A. Segal in his introduction to In Quest of the Hero, both Freud and Rank believed that myths are “the disguised, symbolic fulfillment of repressed, overwhelmingly Oedipal wishes lingering in the adult mythmaker or reader.” In The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, originally published in 1909, Rank wrote what Segal calls "the classic Freudian analysis of hero myths.”

According to Rank, hero myths, such as the stories of Oedipus, Moses, and Jesus, contain ten basic elements, eight of which have been fulfilled by Harry Potter:

1. The boy is the son of royal or even immortal parents-Harry Potter's parents are a wizard and a witch.

2. Difficulties precede the conception, and in some cases the mother is a virgin – As of book four, we do not yet know the details of Harry's conception.

3. The child's life is threatened when dream or oracle warns the father or another royal personage that the boy will be a danger – Voldemort, a sort of prince of evil, has reason to fear Harry and tries to kill him.

4. The boy is separated from his parents – Harry's parents are dead.

5. The boy is exposed, often in a basket or other receptacle – Harry is laid on the doorstep of his aunt and uncle in a bundle of blankets.

6. The boy is put into water, either to kill him or to save him- Harry and the other first-years are ferried to Hogwarts across a lake, and before Harry can be free from the Dursleys, Hagrid must fetch him from across a large body of water.

7. The child is rescued by animals or underlings, often shepherds – Harry is rescued by Hagrid, a gamekeeper, and is later aided by his godfather in the form of a dog and his father in the form of a stag.

8. The baby is suckled or reared by animals or lowly persons- Harry's aunt and uncle, the Dursleys, are lowly persons, as is Hagrid, but in a very different way.

9. The hero is eventually recognized as such, often because of a mark or a wound Harry's attack by Voldemort has left him with a scar on his forehead, a sign that other wizards recognize.

10. The hero is reconciled with his father (or his representative), OR he exacts revenge upon his father-Like the condition about conception, this characteristic has not yet been met in Rowling’s novels,

This excerpt comes from: M. Katherine Grimes, “Harry Potter: Fairy Tale Prince, Real Boy, and Archetypal Hero”

"Oedipal wishes" – Rank believed that the characteristics of the family romance were a result of the child's anger at his father for interfering with the child's desire for exclusive access to the mother. Interestingly, because the child projected his anger on the father figure, in the stories it is the father who is angry with the son. Rank explained that children store away these feelings and later express them by telling and appreciating stories that exhibit them. See the introduction (pp. 759–760) for more detail on this process.

"dream or oracle" – In Phoenix, we learn that the basis of Voldermort's fear is a prophecy (839).

"basket or other receptacle" – Moses is rescued from the Pharaoh by being placed in a basket: Jesus is born in a stable and placed into a manger, a receptacle for feeding animals.

"Hagrid, a gamekeeper" – ln Harry’s third year, Hagrid becomes Hogwarts' teacher of the "Care of Magical Creatures," and throughout the series he delights in breeding, raising, and taming all sorts of animals.

The universality of these characteristics in the world's myths and legends has caused much specula- tion as to both why they are ubiquitous and why they are popular.

FATHER FIGURES In the upcoming Section, Grimes discusses the father figure, the most important personage of a traditional Rankian analysis. An examination of the elements of the family romance listed earlier will show that it is the father who receives the warning not to bear a son, and that reconciliation or revenge for his banishment from his original family involves the father. Almost all Rankian heroes are threatened by their fathers or by some other man, of ten a royal figure, who has power over them. Oedipus's father, Laius, ordered the boy exposed, as did Paris's father, Priam. Telephus, son of Hercules; Perseus, son of Zeus; and Gilgamesh are all victims of their maternal grandfathers, and Moses is threatened by the Pharaoh, the father of his adoptive mother. Jesus is threatened by Herod, the Roman ruler of Judea; Romulus and Remus were also condemned to death by a king. Harry Potter is threatened not by his father but by the evil Voldemort, the dark lord, who has numerous ties with the boy. First, he and Voldemort have wands with feathers from the same bird, the Phoenix named Fawkes that belongs to headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Second, Voldemort has tried to kill Harry, and when he fails, he disappears for a decade. In fact, that defeat almost kills Voldemort. Third, by the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Voldemort has been revived by the boy's blood (642-43).

Because it is the father or father figure who has attempted to destroy the child, there must come a time of reckoning between the hero and his attacker. Otto Rank points out that the hero has two choices: to try to reconcile with the father, or to avenge himself against his enemy. Sometimes the tale ends with a combination of these climaxes; the son's assumption of his father's throne is a kind of reconciliation, in the sense that the boy has become the man his father was, but the usurpation is also a sort of revenge or overthrow.

Moses overcomes the man who tried to destroy him, the Pharaoh of Egypt, who ordered all male Hebrew children put to death during Moses' infancy and later sentenced the grown Moses to death for killing an Egyptian. Because the Pharaoh is Moses' adoptive grandfather, as the child had been found and adopted by the ruler's daughter, when Moses' God sends him to save the Hebrews from their captors, Moses settles a personal score as well as a national one,

Oedipus avenges his father's attempt to have him killed, as well, but he does so unawares; he does not know that the traveler he kills in anger is his father, King Laius of Thebes. Paris of Troy is reconciled with his father, Priam, even though the king had sent a slave to leave the infant Paris to be exposed. The story of Romulus and Remus combines the themes of vengeance and reconciliation. Romulus kills his great-uncle, the king who had tried to kill him and his brother, and is reconciled with his grandfather, from whom he had been long separated.

J. K. Rowling's first four books about Harry Potter give the boy six fathers or father surrogates, each of whom is suggested by a father or father figure in myth and legend, but none of whom is completely

Origin of Threats to the Hero (Rankian View) Oedipus Paris Telephus Perseus Gilgamesh Moses Jesus Romulus and Remus

Father Father Grandfather Grandfather Grandfather Father Figure Father Figure Father Figure

“threatened not by his father but by the evil Voldemort" – In much of the series, the main father figure is the ambiguous Professor Snape, the Potions Master at Hogwarts. Though Harry's mentor Professor Dumbledore urges the boy to believe Snape is on the right side, the Potions Master ridicules and punishes Harry throughout the series, He is also responsible for the death of Dumbledore in Prince, but the event is revealed in the next book as more of collaboration than a murder. Snape's actual allegiance is not revealed until the last book, Hallows, where he is shown to have had a complex relationship with both Voldemort and Dumbledore. Despite his menacing behavior toward Harry, Snape is seen finally as his protector, and in the Epilogue, which occurs nineteen years after Hallows, Harry has a Son named Albus Severus, and refers to Snape as "probably the bravest man l ever knew" (758). In Hallows, Harry defeats and kills Voldemort.

exposed – This term refers to leaving a child in the wilderness, as was done with Oedipus. It was a common form of population control in societies that did not consider a child fully human until later in life.

satisfactory. Among them, they represent adults' needs to see fathers as both earthly and immortal. First, of course, is Harry's real father, James Potter, whom Voldemort kills when Harry is only a year old. The boy has great longing to know his father, as we see very clearly in four episodes. The first occurs in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in chapter 12, "The Mirror of Erised.” The mirror shows those who look into it their greatest desire; for Harry, this desire is to see his parents. In fact, as he looks into the mirror, Harry sees himself, his parents, and his other ancestors. He sees himself in his father, for they both are tall and thin with messy dark hair and glasses. Seeing his family for the first time in his memory, Harry is mesmerized. Rowling writes, "The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them” (Sorcerer's Stone, 208-9). It is also in the first book that Harry is given something of his father's: an invisibility cloak, which allows him to move through Hogwarts and beyond without being seen.

Again in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry encounters his father. With his Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, he is learning to fight his fears by summoning a Patronus, the word, of course, derived from the Latin word for “father.” The boggart whom he must learn to defeat takes the shape of an evil dementor, a deathlike creature who can suck the soul from a person; when it appears, it causes Harry to hear his parents' voices as he relives the attack on his family by Voldemort. Consequently, the boy is torn between wanting to defeat the boggart/dementor and wanting to hear his parents again.

He learns in chapter 18, "Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs,” about his father's experiences as a schoolboy. Young James Potter and three of his friends broke the rules of the magical world by becoming Animagi, wizards who turned themselves into animals, without permission. James Potter's alternate self was a stag. Later, in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry's father's manifestation as a stag becomes directly relevant. Real dementors are chasing the boy and his godfather, Sirius Black, and Harry summons a patronus. It appears in the form of a stag, and across the lake Harry thinks he sees his own father. As he views the scene from the present looking back on the past, he waits for his father to appear. But he later learns that he and his friend Hermione Granger have turned back time using a Time- Turner, and "he hadn't seen his father – he had seen himself.” Subsequently he shouts the spell "EXPECTO PATRONUM" and sees his Patronus, the stag, Prongs, the animal incarnation of his father (Prisoner of Azkaban, 4.11-12).

Although James Potter's death separates him from his son, Harry's feelings about his father are not ambivalent. He identifies with his father and sees him as his protector. Later he tells his headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, of what he thought he saw and says that he realizes his thinking he saw his father was foolish because James Potter is dead. Dumbledore reassures him, telling him how much he looks like his father. He tells the boy, “Your father is alive in you, Harry.... In a way, you did see your father last night.... You found him inside yourself” (Prisoner of Azkaban, 427—28).

boggart – In British folklore, this is a hairy, malevolent household spirit that dresses in ragged clothes and brings bad luck; it makes milk go sour and candles blow out. In Harry Potter's world, this is a spirit that likes to live in a cupboard and takes on the shape of whatever a person fears most.

"his father's experiences as a schoolboy" – According to Rank, the hero is a king's son whose father has been warned by a prophecy to avoid siring a child. Harry's father is no king, but he is an outstanding wizard, who develops additional abilities as an ArirTagus to protect his childhood friend Remus Lupin (Prisoner, 259). In Phoenix, James becomes the kind of Complex figure typical of Rowling's characterization. Harry learns that When a student at Hogwarts, his father tormented his fellow student Severus Snape (Phoenix, 540-50). "For nearly five years the thought of his father had been a source of comfort, of inspiration. Whenever someone had told him he was like James he had glowed with pride inside. And now... now he felt cold and miserable at the thought of him" (Phoenix. 853– 54). In Hallows, however, James stands beside Harry in his final struggle with death, and Harry's attitude toward his father seems to be healed (700).

Time-Turner – Mythology often alludes to a time outside of time, as noted by historian of religion Mircea Eliade (35-36). In Youth Without Youth, Francis Ford Coppola films a novel by Eliade to capture this concept. Manohla Dargis notes Coppola “blurs dreams and everyday life and suggests that, through visual and narrative experimentation he has begun the search for new ways of making meaning, new holy places" (New York Times, 16 December 2007).

Thus, Harry's father has three manifestations: the animal Prongs, the spirit, and Harry's identification with him. He represents the animal part of our nature, the spirit or soul, and immortality through future generations. He is both the father who deserts the child and the one who protects him, the god who puts us in this dangerous world filled with death, including the knowledge of our own at an unknown time, and the god who sustains us and gives us renewed life. Finally, he is the creator who lives on in us. Vernon Dursley is the first father figure Harry remembers. The epitome of the bad father, Dursley shows strong favoritism to his own son, Dudley, and treats Harry as a pariah, failing to acknowledge his nephew's birthdays, making him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, forcing him to stay out of sight when guests visit, and forbidding him to speak of his magical gifts. He tries to keep Harry from learning his parents' true identities and hides him when he begins receiving letters telling him to report to Hogwarts. He shouts at Harry during one of the boy's miserable summers on Privet Drive, "I WILL NOT TOLERATE MENTION OF YOUR ABNORMALITY UNDER THIS ROOF!” (Chamber of Secrets, 2) In short, Uncle Vernon tries to stifle Harry and keep him from being his true self. Harry's only consolation is that his uncle fears his magical powers. Rowling writes that Pursley treats Harry "like a bomb that might go off at any moment, because Harry Potter wasn't a normal boy” (Chamber of Secrets, 3). Vernon Dursley represents one aspect of the lowly figure in the archetypal heroic myth. His ordinariness stands in stark contrast to the wizards in Harry's new World at Hogwarts.

Rubeus Hagrid represents the other aspect of this figure. Associated with animals, both as a hunter and a keeper of magical creatures, Hagrid reminds one of the shepherds and cattle herds who take in abandoned children throughout mythology – the shepherds who save Oedipus, find Paris, and visit Jesus at the time of his birth; the cattle herder who saves Cyrus the Great; the Swineherd who rears Romulus and Remus; the Ox herders who rear Hercules; and the overseer who rears Gilgamesh. Hagrid is also Keeper of the Keys, a status symbolizing Dumbledore's trust. A wild-looking half-giant, Hagrid is not a brilliant man, but a kind one who delivers the infant Harry to his aunt and uncle and the boy Harry to Hogwarts. He continues to befriend Harry and his friends as well.

Sirius Black is Harry’s godfather, his father's best friend. Sirius is in hiding because he has been framed for murder, so he befriends Harry primarily through correspondence. However, when Harry is in real trouble, Sirius appears, often in the shape of a dog. Thus, Sirius represents the animals throughout mythology who appear to protect abandoned children: the bear who nurses Paris, the wolf who nurses Romulus and Remus and the woodpecker who guards them, the eagle who saves Gilgamesh, the doe who nurses Siegfried, and the swan who feeds Lohengrin. While it is true that most of the animals who save children are female, the animal who comes to Harry's rescue is male, a father figure. Many children in Rankian hero myths have earthly fathers who serve as surrogates for immortal patriarchs. Joseph, the father of Jesus, epitomizes this father archetype. It is Joseph who saves Jesus

"the father who deserts the child' – James' desertion is involuntary. He is actually betrayed to Voldemort by someone he trusts as a friend, Peter Pettigrew, who, like him, is an Animagus, And, like Oedipus' father Laius, James is in a way killed by his son. He dies because of a prophecy involving his son), a prophecy that the one who can destroy Voldemore will be born at the end of July, in the year of Harry's birth (Phoenix, 841). As a result, Voldermort attacks the family, but he does not succeed at killing Harry, only his parents,

"epitome of the bad father" – The Dursleys embody the lowly parents who receive the child after he is abandoned by his royal parents. They are not wizards like Harry's parents. In addition, they represent the parody of parenting. Folklorist Jack Zipes criticizes the Harry Potter stories, saying that Harry behaves like a Boy Scout (180). However, despite his hero status, Harry misbehaves regularly. At Hogwarts Harry's "misbehavior” is in sorne ways principled, as when he defies Headmistress Dolores Umbridge (Phoenix). However, the Scenes with the Dursley's verge on slapstick and provide a range of lighthearted misbehavior in Stone, Chamber, Prisoner, and Phoenix. Rank notes that the hero fray need to "play the fool" as a way of expressing his rebellion against the father (p. 759). Trickster tales explain this motif differently; the hero may appear as the buffoon, not because of weakness, but as a way of performing actions that blur the boundaries between the several worlds he inhabits.

by taking him to Egypt when Herod orders male children of the Hebrews killed. Sirius serves in a similar fashion as the earthly protector of Harry Potter, whose father's death deprives the boy of his rightful protector.

Voldemort represents the evil king in the Rankian heroic tale. Like the Pharaoh, Herod, and Romulus and Remus's uncle King Amulius, Voldemort is neither the boy's father nor his grandfather, but an evil person with power who fears losing that power to another and thus attempts to kill the usurper in childhood. However, as noted earlier, Voldemort and Harry share a number of bonds: their similar wands and their shared blood are the strongest. Voldemort's failed attempt to kill the boy also binds then. The symbolic connection of their wands in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is particularly fascinating, if the two are not related. Voldemort plans to kill Harry, but wants to play with him first, so he commands him to duel. Reminding Harry of the death of his father, he says, “And now you face me, like a man... the way your father died” (Goblet of Fire, 660). Then Voldemort attacks Harry with the Cruciatus Curse. When Voldemort halts the curse long enough to taunt Harry, the boy Crouches behind Voldemort's father's gravestone, then matches Voldemort curse for curse. As the two foes point their wands at each other, jets of light emerge from each wand and connect, forming one light. This beam lifts both Voldemort and Harry into the air. Harry and Voldemort struggle, and Harry hears the song of a phoenix, noteworthy because his and Voldemort's wands both contain feathers from Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes. After a time, ghostly figures are emitted from Voldemort’s wand: Harry’s friend Cedric Diggory, whom Voldemort has just killed; a man; a woman; and, as noted above, Harry’s father and mother. The three Potters, with the help of Voldemort's other victims, are able to overcome Voldemort, and Harry escapes back to Hogwarts (Goblet of Fire, 663-68).

At least two points are relevant here. First, those who have been attacked by Voldemort join with his latest victim to foil his attempt. Second, the phallic imagery of the two wands is inescapable. Harry is emasculated when his wand is taken from him, and Voldemort can draw blood. But once Harry's wand is returned, he can block the power of Voldemort. The two beams from the wands of Voldemort and Harry Potter combine to both repel each other and bind the enemies in a golden web that can transport them and even raise the dead, if only temporarily. Good and evil both attract and repulse one another, and good wins, again if only temporarily. Voldemort's wand is rendered useless; he is symbolically castrated, rendered impotent, during this encounter.

Albus Dumbledore is the antithesis of Voldemort. He uses power purely for good, and he, too, assumes a paternal role in the orphaned Harry's life. It is significant that the most admirable and respected character in the Harry Potter series is not a government official but the head of a school, as Rowling clearly suggests that the one who can help shape the minds and character of the next generation of leaders is the most important person in a society. Dumbledore serves that role, mentoring Harry and his friends, serving as a role model, and, most important of all, taking on the task of rallying all good to fight all evil. We

"Voldernort is neither the boy's father nor his grandfather" – As we saw earlier, in the stories Rank studies, the child reverses his hostility toward the father through projection; the resulting story represents the father as wanting to harm the son, it may also attempt to reduce the hostility of the hero toward his father, Rank calls this attenuation. This word means "lightening," as in making a punishment lighter, The realization that your father wants to harm you is a heavy burden to bear. Thus, this heavy condition is in many stories attenuated or made lighter, by making the threat come from a grandfather or even an unrelated figure in authority. Thus, Rowling attenuates the story by making Voldemort Harry's greatest adversary,

"the phallic imagery of the wands.” – Like his teacher Freud, Rank believed that the physical differences between men and women represented their roles in society. Thus, the phallus symbolized the power of a man. Later psychologists have adapted these theories to the different sexual roles found in our own society. Zipes describes Harry as the "ultimate detective" with "a phallic wand" (179–80).

see this at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Dumbledore sends emissaries to the giants and to the other schools to form alliances to fight Voldemort. Dumbledore is the idealized father, the dream of every child-the father who is godlike: omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent, always on the side of good. Dumbledore is to Harry what God is to Jesus, what Zeus is to Hercules, what Mars is to Romulus and Remus, perhaps not literally, but figuratively. Harry, the fatherless boy, has a plethora of father-figures, both positive and negative. He looks to some for comfort and rescue, fears the attack of others, and tries to please most of them. MOTHER FIGURES The focus on mother figures is not part of Otto Rank's analysis in The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, but it is clearly needed to provide a Convincing explanation of the Harry Potter stories. In this sense, the next section represents A. Katherine Grimes' updating of Rank, or even a critique of his views. Rank based his analysis on the dynamics of the family as it appeared to him in 1909. He suggested that the family romance by itself was adequate to explain the stories he collected. In fact, those stories themselves were a product of their age, arising in Societies with a more limited view of Women than our Own. Although the stories Rank described have not changed, Our view of then has, and certainly stories written more recently place more importance on the role, as well as on the Importance, of women, Joseph Campbell is another scholar who developed views that would correct the views of Freud and Rank by placing more emphasis on the role of women. Sometimes it is the biological mother who saves her child, as Sargon's mother bore him in hiding and floated him down the river in a vessel that protected him; Moses' mother hid him for three months, then floated him on the river in a basket; and Siegfried's mother put him in a glass vessel to protect him. Often a surrogate mother saves the child, as the Pharaoh's daughter saved Moses, Polybius's wife Periboa saved Oedipus, and the wife of the swineherd saved Romulus and Remus.

"Dumbledore is the idealized father" – The headmaster's high status serves as a reminder of Harry's “divine" parentage, At the same, in the earlier stories, Harry operates at some distance from Dumbledore, and thus their relationship echoes the Rankian hero's rejection by his father. Dumbledore does not seem to protect Harry in his battles with Voldemort or rescue him from the escaped Death Eater, who seems determined to destroy him. The Headmaster is unable to prevent the entry of a terrified Harry into the Triwizard tournament, and his absence from Hogwarts leaves Harry victim to the terrifying reign of Dolores Umbridge, Dumbledore at last undertakes to guide Harry in Phoenix and Prince, but even there, he does not share with Harry the secrets that lead to his death and to Harry's final struggle with Voldermort in Hallows, The Headmaster of Hogwarts emerges as a complex figure, as evidenced by Rowling's recent revelation that She conceives of him as a gay man who suffered a great tragedy the one time he was in love (Finn): this personal "tragedy" very well have influenced his response to Harry.

t Snow White by Roland Risse (1835-1887) – In the fairy tale, the Seven Dwarves become Snow White's "lowly parents."

Harry Potter has three mothers or mother figures. The first is his biological mother, Lily Potter, who like many Rankian mothers of heroes is born of relatively ordinary parents: Lily, though herself a witch, is the daughter of Muggles, the sister of the very ordinary Petunia Dursley. Her child, however, is not ordinary at all, for he is a wizard like his father. This pattern is found in the births of Jesus, Hercules, Paris, and other heroes who have mortal mothers but immortal fathers. The mothers, too, are extraordinary, resulting in their being chosen to have these special children. Lily is her son's savior. When Voldemort attacks the Potter family, Lily says to him, as Harry hears years later when dementors attack him, “Not Harry, please no. . . kill me instead” (Prisoner of Azkaban, 179). Her love for Harry, combined with his own innate greatness, is enough to save the boy from death, just as a few drops of Hera's milk are enough to render Hercules immortal. As Albus Dumbledore tells Harry in the first book, “Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.... To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever” (Sorcerer's Stone, 299).

Lily Potter returns to Harry when he is threatened by dementors; he hears her voice from the past. He also sees her when he looks into the Mirror of Erised. And when Voldemort tries to kill him again at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the spirit of his mother comes from her killer's wand. It is she who gives him the instructions that save his life. Harry follows her directions, and Voldemort's victims, including Lily Potter, shield the boy as he runs from the evil wizard (Goblet of Fire, 667-68). The hero's mother has helped save him again. It is significant that J.K. Rowling's own answer to the question "What would you see in the Mirror of Erised?" was, "I would probably see my mother, who died in 1990. So, the same as Harry.” Lily Potter has a parallel in Demeter, for whom the world stopped when she lost her daughter, Persephone, to the god of the underworld and began again only when her daughter was returned to her, though for only part of each year. Like Achilles’ mother, who tried to protect her son by dipping him in the Styx, these are women whose lives center around motherhood and who

t The spirit of Harry's mother at the end of the film version of Goblet of Fire, appearing to him in his struggle with Voldemort.

"Harry Potter has three mothers” – Here, Grimes describes the influence of the mother, an aspect of mythology not investigated by Rank but vital to modern understanding of the hero. The psychologist who does consider the importance of the mother as such is Carl Jung. In his view, these mother figures would represent different forms of the hero's anima.

"a few drops of Hera's milk..." – There are various explanations for the immortality of Hercules: this one comes from Rank, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (38).

"Persephone” The influence of this ancient Greek myth allows us to see the importance of the mother-daughter bond and the significance of relationships between women,

love and try to protect their offspring, Petunia Dursley, Lily Potter's sister, is Harry's first surrogate mother. Like her husband, she favors her own child over Harry and appears to have very little interest in her nephew. Mrs. Dursley is more reminiscent of the evil stepmother in folk and fairy tales-Cinderella's stepmother is probably the greatest example-than she is of mythical surrogates; however, her type is common in such literature as Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the title character of which has a monstrous aunt who far prefers her own children and locks Jane in a room. In mythology, there are women who conspire with their husbands against children, often in variations on the Oedipus myth, or even themselves send the children to be exposed.

Molly Weasley finds love and room for Harry even with all seven of her own brood to care for. In fact, at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Harry has won the Triwizard Tournament and survived the attack by Voldemort, Mrs. Weasley is at Hogwarts in lieu of his own family. She is the poor woman whose husband serves the leader, in this case the Minister of Magic, who takes in the foundling, the generous woman who is a foil to the insufferable Petunia Dursley and shows Harry what a mother's love should be. She is like the cattle- herder's wife who saves Cyrus the Great, and the swineherd's wife who rears Romulus and Remus.

THEMES OF BIRTH AND REBIRTH In the next section, A. Katherine Grimes discusses a theme that is very important to the thinking of Otto Rank: birth. In addition to The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, Rank wrote a book titled The Trauma of Birth, in which he argued that the hero's adventures are part of an effort to overcome the difficult experience of having to leave his mother's womb, and his search for glory is the seeking for an effort to recover his unconsciously remembered earlier blissful state. While parents and their surrogates figure greatly in myths, it is the hero or heroine who matters most to us, the person with whom we identify, whose happiness and well-being are our concern. Everyone else in the story matters to us primarily as he or she matters to our hero. We want our hero to live happily ever after, even to be resurrected after death. We care about this person to the extent that the destruction of others, even children, has little effect on us. Consider the ease with which Greek playwrights get us past the killing of Hercules' family, focusing instead on his suffering. Biblical writers move right past all the dead Hebrew children, all the dead Egyptian children, and all the dead people of the world in the story of Noah and his ark. Our hero represents us, and as long as we survive, we can get past the deaths of hundreds of innocents.

"appears to have very little interest in her nephew" – All the same, it is Petunia Dursley whose blood-tie to her sister Lily keeps Harry safe from Voldermort as he is growing up, as explained in Phoenix (836).

t The Finding of Moses, William Hatherell, (ca. 1910).

However, this does not mean that we want our hero to have an easy time of it, First, ease is not exciting. Second, ease does not aid maturity. One must be tested and withstand the test. We do not want even our gods to be perfect, but we do want them to be triumphant. Our myths and legends make that clear. Hera tries to kill Hercules. Laius tries to have Oedipus left to die. The Pharaoh and Herod try to exterminate all little Hebrew boys in their attempts to prevent Moses and Jesus from taking their thrones. But our little heroes are survivors, and we rejoice in their triumph.

Harry Potter, too, experiences the trials of the world's mythological heroes, Attacked as a child by the evil Voldemort, he loses his parents and barely escapes with his life. He endures years of persecution and loneliness in the household of his aunt, uncle, and cousin. Like Hercules, he has his own labors: he must fight a troll, a basilisk, and Voldemort again and again, sometimes in one form and sometimes in another. Like other Rankian heroes, he sometimes asks to be relieved of his tasks, often denying the warning of his aching scar, hoping, like Oedipus, that if he ignores the warning, he can avoid the risk. But the risk always comes, and Harry faces it directly. He defeats Voldemort time after time and wins battles against Tom Riddle, the basilisk, the dragon who guards her egg, and Peter Pettigrew, He wins Quidditch matches and the Triwizard Tournament. Like children reading fairy tales and adolescents reading more realistic books, adults, too, identify with mythological heroes and believe that we can stand up against life's slings and arrows.

Rank points out what should be obvious but what might get lost in this discussion: "The myths are certainly not constructed by the hero, Feast of all by the child hero”; instead, they are “created by adults, by means of retrograde childhood fantasies.” Rank explains, “The ego of the child behaves,” then, "like the hero of the myth, and ... the hero should always be interpreted merely as a collective ego” (70-71, 62).

In short, Rank's theories explain myths the way Bettelheim explains fairytales: they provide us with allegories to understand our own worst and best impulses, to help us understand birth, death, sex, identity, and good and evil,

Mythology almost always explains birth as a mystical, magical event, one ordained by the gods. Thus, despite Laius's fear inculcated in him by the oracle at Delphi that his son would kill him, he gets drunk and impregnates Jocasta, resulting in the birth of Oedipus. . . .

The idea of rebirth, too, appears in myth. When Moses delivers the Israelites from Egypt, he parts the Red Sea and walks his newly freed people through it in a remarkable birth image-the rebirth of a people into their Promised Land,

Otto Rank cites as one of the characteristics of the hero that he is often put into water, either to send him to his death or to save him (57). The story of Moses' mother's placing him in a basket and placing him in the Nile, from which he is drawn by the Pharaoh's daughter, has numerous parallels, including Romulus and Remus's being placed in a tub on the Tiber, then washing ashore, and the Hindu hero Karna's

"this does not mean we want our hero to have an easy time of it" – in the Mwindo Epic, Mwindo's father tries to prevent his birth, In Oedipus the King, Oedipus' father tries to have him killed right after his birth.

"the risk always comes" – In Hallows, Harry leaves the comparative safety of Hogwarts and roams the countryside like Rama or Gilgamesh in the wilderness . He is aided by Prongs, the Patronus derived from his appreciation of his father.

"the way Bettelheim explains fairy tales – In the Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettelheim suggests that fairytales are useful to children because, at different stages of their lives, they identify with different characters in them, using this identification to achieve a symbolic resolution of crises in their real lives.

being placed in a basket and floated down a river into the Ganges, from which a charioteer and his wife save him (Rank 16).

The themes of birth and rebirth are part of understanding ourselves and our identities, as well as the concept of sex. They also make us believe, both as adults and as children, that we have second chances, that we do not have to remain the way we were born. Oddly, these themes combine the ideas of destiny and freedom. If we are destined to greatness, a lowly birth will not prevent us from achieving distinction. On the other hand, even if we are born as though destined for nothing, we can be reborn as persons of eminence and great deeds. In short, we are not doomed by our birth, as Dumbledore tells Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic: "It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!” (Goblet of Fire, 708).... After four books, the circumstances surrounding Harry Potter's conception and birth are still unknown to us. However, birth imagery is quite common in the works. While baby Harry is not placed in a basket in the water, his delivery to Hogwarts contains strong elements of rebirth symbolism, and he later has life-changing experiences with water. When he receives letters announcing that he is to begin school at Hogwarts, his aunt and uncle take him to an island to hide him from whoever is sending the mail. He is carried from the island across the water by Hagrid, just as numerous other heroes are delivered from the water by shepherds, gamekeepers, and other folk who work with animals (Sorcerer's Stone, 44-65). In fact, all first-year students – and, significantly, only the first-years – are ferried across water to Hogwarts, a sort of rebirth completed when the Sorting Hat puts them into their new houses. Again in Goblet of Fire, Harry has a significant experience with water, this time the lake around Hogwarts School. As part of the Triwizard Tournament, he has the task of rescuing his friend Ron Weasley from the merpeople at the bottom of the lake. He learns of his task by opening a dragon egg under water in a bath (Gobiet of Fire, 458-66). Then by eating a substance called gillyweed, he becomes capable of breathing through gills, like a fish. He finds his friend, as well as three other captives, and then, after other contestants rescue two of the captives, carries Ron and a child back to the surface, just as he loses the ability to breathe under water (Gobiet of Fire, 493-504). Again, the birth imagery is unmistakable: like a fetus, he does not need oxygen, but as he is reborn as a hero, a savior of his friends, he must again breathe air.

Birth and rebirth imagery function in two ways for readers. First, they help us establish identity, for it is upon our births that most cultures mark us as individuals distinct from our parents, as unique persons. Second, they reflect our attitude of wonderment toward the idea of sex, especially sex between our parents, a taboo subject for most children and many adults....

Death, the obverse of birth, is even more of a mystery. We have both a fear of death and an obsession with it, partly because no one can really explain it. The threat of death appears at the very beginning of almost every hero myth: Oedipus's father tries to have him killed; the Pharaoh tries to have Moses killed – in fact, the Hebrew God slaughters

"rescuing his friend Ron Weasley" – The role of Harry's companions is not a major part of Grimes analysis, though it is an important part of the books, Psychological analysis like that of Rank and Jung tends to focus on the individual, but part of the delight of the Harry Potter stories is to see Harry's interactions with his classmates, Much of what Grimes says about Harry could be applied to Ron as well, and in some respects, as here, Ron is a projection of Harry, who, despite his different background, expresses Harry's fears and hopes. Here, rescuing Ron is, for Harry, identical to saving himself. The differences between Harry and his companions are clearer when we consider Hermione, however. She demonstrates some kinds of competence that come harder to Harry, like the sensitivity to the plight of the oppressed house elves. This theme is much more prominent in the books than the films.

the first-born sons of the Egyptians, making Exodus full of infanticide; and Herod tries to have Jesus killed. Harry Potter, too, is almost the victim of Voldemort's plots to kill him.

To our delight, our hero archetypes always escape the attempted murder. Of course this is comforting: we believe that we, too, can escape early death. However, in The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama, myth ritualist Lord Raglan lists twenty-two similarities among heroic tales, five of which relate to the hero's death. Otto Rank brings us to the hero's triumph, not to his demise. However, most myths and legends do take us to the end of the lives of the heroes.... Lord Raglan: The Pattern of Hero Stories ("Hero," 212-13)

1. His mother is a royal virgin. 2. His father is a king, and 3. Often a near relative of the mother, but 4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and 5. He is also reputed to be the son of a god. 6. At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or maternal

grandfather, to kill him, but 7. He is spirited away, and 8. Reared by foster parents in a far country. 9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but 10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom. 11. After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast, 12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor,

and 13. Becomes king. 14. For a time he reigns uneventfully, and 15. Prescribes laws, but 16. Later loses favor with the gods and/or his people, and 17. Is driven from the throne and the city, after which 18. He meets with a mysterious death, 19. Often at the top of a hill. 20. His children, if any, do not succeed him. 21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless, 22. He has one or more holy sepulchers.

Mythology is our earliest form of literature, Fairytales are probably our

second. More realistic narratives came much later, just as more representational painting followed long after the symbolic paintings found in caves. We have much reason to believe that fairy tales grew from mythology and that more realistic literature grew from these tales. Perhaps the early development of mythology stems from adults desire to explain the world to ourselves. Only later did we feel it necessary to explain it to children. Finally, when we had made our way through the greatest mysteries, such as where the sun goes at night, we turned toward those more mundane ones of everyday reality, such as prejudice....

"threat of death." – In Hallows, Harry views Snape's memories and he “understood at at last that he was not supposed to survive. His job was to walk calmly into Death's welcoming arms" (691). And he does so in is final confrontation with Voldemort. Afterward, Harry finds himself face to face With Dumbledore, who explains, "You had accepted, even embraced, the possibility of death, something Voldemort has never been able to do. Your courage won ...” (712).

"Lord Raglan” – See the table for the pattern described by this twentieth-century folklorist (1885- 1964), who believed that mythological stories were based on ritual dramas. The basis for the pattern was Sophocles' Oedipus the King. Grimes' analogy here is an appropriate one for Harry Potter, however, as this hero must undergo his own death in order to triumph over his adversary.

Harry Potter is Everyboy and Everyman, the Everyman or Everywoman we all know is inside us, whether we are six, sixteen, or sixty, the Everyman who knows he is special, that great things lie in store for him which others do not yet recognize. We are that boy in the cupboard under the stairs just waiting for our letter from Hogwarts, just waiting for Hagrid to come and take us from the humdrum and unjust Dursleys to an exciting, magical world in which our unique heroism allows us to catch the Golden Snitch, look evil full in the face, and win.

"Everyboy and Everyman"-This phrasing is a play on the title of the medieval play named Everyman after its main character, who symbolizes all human beings. When Death calls Everyman, none of his friends, the allegorically named Beauty, Kindred, and Worldly Goods, are willing to go with him; only Good Deeds is.