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Teresa Ferrante
16 December 2015
Digital Archives of Literary Narratives
How Harry Potter Changed My View on Literature
Growing up I always wanted to be an engineer. Numbers, math, and science were
fascinating to me, simply because it was a challenge. I was always curious about the make-up of
an atom and the mathematical formulas for energy, acceleration, and weight. I loved plugging in
number and finding hidden variables on my calculator. The problem was, however, I was never
the best at it. In fact, I oftentimes thought myself hopeless at it. I struggled particularly with my
upper-level science classes in high school, and I remember becoming extremely frustrated when
I would get back a test back that had a D on it after studying for 10 hours straight the night
before. Even so, I attempted to convince myself that I could overcome the difficulty. In fact, I
think my interest lied not in the actual concept but in the fact that it was something I had trouble
with as compared to actually enjoying it. I wanted to do everything in my power to succeed in
the subject since it was something I found particularly difficult.
However, one thing I had always been particularly good at was writing. Regardless of the
topic, I could spit out an A paper for my English classes easily. Sometimes it felt like I could
make an A on a paper without even trying, especially when it involved literary analysis. Finding
hidden meaning within literary texts came easy to me, unlike anything science related. I barely
even had to try. However, my success in literature and writing drew me away from wanting to
major in it. My teachers would often tell me I had a talent for it, but I would ignore them because
I wanted so badly to succeed in the science related topics. I think the fact that it came easy to me
caused me to deem it less important than the subjects that were causing me grief. However, after
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re-reading the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s, my interests changed. I
had read the Harry Potter Series before when I was much younger, and, of course, enjoyed them.
I remember Halloweens of dressing up as a wizard and waving a magic wand. However, the
summer before my junior year of high school, after having gained knowledge of symbolism,
foreshadowing, and themes, I was able to fully appreciate them. Suddenly, they were no longer
about the giants, elves, and spells, but the ideas within the author’s head and her way of
formatting the text that occupied my mind.
While I loved the magic aspect to the books, reading the books again when I was older
gave me a deep respect for J.K. Rowling. I couldn’t believe how cleaver she must have been to
be able to plan out aspects of the first book to make them relate to her future texts. It was as if
she knew exactly what she wanted to do before she even wrote anything on paper. Her plans for
Snape were foreshadowed all the way back to the beginning texts. What seemed surprising to the
readers, she would have had to know the whole time. For example, Harry speaks to a snake in
the very first book and this goes on to be symbolic of his relationship to Voldemort in the second
book and his connection to the horcruxes in the final book. I was amazed when I started thinking
about how much thought Rowling would have had to put into the different books when writing
them. I became so excited about it that, in my free time that summer, I spent time searching for
more hidden symbols within the books and found that, unlike Chemistry, this was actually
something I enjoyed. After finishing with the Harry Potter Series, I moved on to other fictional
books and began searching more and more.
Suddenly, literature became more challenging, as I started looking within every text I
read to find something hidden. Instead of focusing on figuring out hidden variables that made no
sense to me, I was able to discover hidden meaning within texts I enjoyed. In my literature
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classes, I participated more and helped provide new insight to my teachers’ opinions as well. I
realized that, in actually, science and English are really not that different from each other. In both
subjects, people attempt to discover new meaning to things. While in English, the new meaning
may lie a theme or symbol within a story, it can still be challenging when thinking out the
direction to go about analyzing the text. After looking at the Harry Potter Series in a new light
the summer before my junior year of high school, I was able to realize that discovering things in
literature can be just as interesting as in science. This discovery has helped me as a, now, English
major truly appreciate my medium and share its value with others.