FAILURE AND IMAGINATION
HOW JK ROWLING SUCCEEDED TO CREATE NEW INSIGHTS
BY
Cecile M. Reinkingh
[s2545217]
Special Topic 1d: The Power of Speech
Prof. J. Olthof
30 March, 2015
1.078 words
Still in 2014, Joanne K. Rowling her 2008 Harvard commencement speech is widely
recognized and hailed. “I have heard and read many commencement speeches, none more
moving and memorable than J.K. Rowling’s,” declared Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust
six years later to USA Today. It is quite remarkable that Rowling received such positive
feedback to her speech, while she actually did face an obstructive constraint when delivering
it. Rowling her speech “The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination” is
on subjects that may have been hard to associate with by the audience she addressed. Like she
mentions herself, it is a hard task to convince the graduates of the benefits of failure, because
they are “not very well-acquainted with failure.” (l.71). “[W]e live in a competitive society
that has big winners and big losers,” (Barber 2013) that does not provide much space for
imagination or failure. The majority of the audience will view failure and imagination in the
tragic and abhorrent way that they should never fail and keep their imagination under control,
especially the graduates from one of the most prominent educational institutions in the world,
who have received most of their knowledge from studying instead of failing or imagining.
Even though Rowling faced constraints concerning her subject of speech in combination with
the audience, Rowling tries to first impress the audience with the controversial idea that
failure allows one to fully discover and develop oneself, and continues to stress the power of
imagination in a successful attempt to bring across the importance of using their own benefits
to positively influence those in need of help.
The construction of her speech helps her overcome the obstacles she is facing. From
the very first beginning, Rowling raises pathos of the audience by telling she has been so
nervous to give this speech, she even lost weight (l. 3-4). Rowling jokes that she should
pretend she is at “the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.” (l.8). Using this
metaphor makes it easy for the audience to connect to the speaker since everyone is aware
who the writer of the Harry Potter book series is. Subsequently, Rowling raises ethos by
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mentioning her “own graduation.” (l.10). This means she has experience in the field of
commencement speeches and is highly educated herself, which increases her credibility. In
the narration she elaborates on this and raises interest and curiosity by saying she is trying to
“come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock,” (l.18) her own commencement speaker: she
must have something worth remembering to tell.
In the next paragraph, she summarizes what led to the choice of subjects she is
covering, and why she thinks these are important issues: “I have asked myself… and this.”
(l.21-23). Herewith she again raises ethos, or trust: because of her great success, it must be
interesting to know what she would have found helpful to know at that age. These subjects are
the “importance of imagination” (l.28) and the “benefits of failure” (l.26). Rowling then
finally explains why these subjects are so important to her through her personal experiences.
After her own graduation day, she “had failed on an epic scale.” (l.77). Her “short-lived
marriage had imploded,” (l.79) she was raising a child on her own, and she was jobless. This
period in her life “was a dark one.” (l.85). This emotional appeal on the audience by telling
this in detail creates pathos, since it enables the audience to a certain extent to experience.
Being a (Harvard) graduate is usually not considered to be connected to failure, and despite
the fact that Rowling her parents “came from impoverished backgrounds” (l.35-36) she is
well educated herself, she notes that this can happen to anyone. Elaborating on this, Rowling
concludes that failure helped her to become as successful as she now is: “Had I… truly
belonged.” (l.91-93). To emphasize more strongly the benefits failure have had for her,
Rowling uses the amplifying effect of the conduplication summing up all 0of these: “I was
set… rebuilt my life.” (l.93-96). Logos in her arguments is as follows:
Minor premise: to be successful and fully develop oneself, your self-knowledge must
be challenged (l.92-93).
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Major premise: knowledge about yourself is challenged by setbacks and failure (l.
107-109).
Conclusion: in order to succeed, failure is beneficial.
While the second part of her speech follows a less clear structure, Rowling
nevertheless makes a successful attempt to stress the importance of imagination. She creates
compassion in the second part of her speech, especially by mentioning her job at Amnesty
International (l.134). In order to create pathos in the next paragraph, Rowling uses examples
of cruel situations she has seen; “I saw more… or maintain power,” (l.169-170), she slowly
raises awareness for the importance of imagination for humans and to be able to “think
themselves into other people’s minds.” (l.185). Then, she uses constitutive rhetoric to fully
convince the audience of her point. Firstly she creates a collective identity by using words like
“your nationality,” (l. 214), and “your intelligence, your capacity for hard work.” (l.212-213).
This enforces the feeling that they are all the same. Secondly, she sets a collective goal.
Because the graduates live in “the world’s only remaining superpower,” (l.215-216) and they
are graduates of an Ivy League university, the “way of vote… on your government” (l.216217) has more impact on the world than they might think. Having heard the stories of the
people “who do not have your advantages” (l.224), Rowling tries to stress the importance of
imagination to imagine that those people need help. The collective goal thus is “to imagine
better” (l.228) and to “raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice.” (l.220-221).
Although J.K. Rowling may have lacked “the gravitas a Harvard commencement
speaker should have,” (NPR 2008), she did put down a convincing speech full of selfexperience and other rhetorical devices. Rowling made the audience believe that hitting “rock
bottom” (l.96) is possible for anyone, but that it is “impossible to live without failing at
something,” (l.99) and that this failing only benefits to developing oneself and eventually
become successful. Imagination enables one to understand or sympathize. Having stressed the
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importance of help for those in need through her personal experiences at Amnesty
International, Rowling convinced the Harvard graduates they are in a privileged position to
speak up “in behalf of those who have no voice.” (l.221). Through all this, Rowling has
succeeded to create an entirely new insight in failure and imagination.
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Work Cited
Barber, Nigel. “On the Benefits of Failure.” Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 14 Feb.
2013. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.
Puente, Maria. “J.K. Rowling to Publish New Book, on Harvard Speech.” USA Today. USA
today, 2 Dec. 2014. Web. 24 Mar. 2015.
“Rowling’s Harvard Speech Doesn’t Entrance All.” npr.org. NPR, 2008. Web. 23 March
2015.
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