the comic Weasley twin brothers, turn out to be refreshed clichés of boarding school book stock players: “Frequently found among the hero’s friends in classic school stories is a pair of identical twins, often practical jokers whose activities provide both comic relief and confusion that gets sorted out at the end.” 9
A public school in fiction, too, is obliged, naturally, to come with the stock characters every public school is staffed with; we need a headmaster, teachers, and student leaders in the form of team captains or prefects acting as rule monitors. A sadist teacher is commonplace, hence Severus Snape; “every French mistress in the entire girl’s school story genre” is “risible,” 10 thus Sybil Trelawney; and a self-important prefect is a must (if only as a foil for resolutions when the hero or heroine assumes that post, also a near certainty), and Perfect Percy, the “Bighead Boy” fills that role.
Some characters in Harry Potter , though, are not only necessary representatives to satisfy a formula but pointers to famous characters in the genre U.K. readers will recognize immediately. Harry’s cousin Dudley Dursley, for instance, in his outrageous Smeltings school uniform, complete with sadist’s shillelagh, is a pointer to Billy Bunter, “the sly, overweight, idle, lying, cowardly, snobbish, conceited, and greedy boy antihero” of Frank Richards’s Greyfriars boarding school books. 11
The funeral of Albus Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince is as much a tribute to Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Tom Brown’s Rugby, and to the place of the headmaster as guide and guardian in every schoolboy book, as it is to Harry’s mentor and the “greatest wizard of his age.” Certainly Arnold and Dumbledore have much in common.
As David Steege writes in his wonderful essay comparing Harry Potter with Tom Brown and the typical English boarding school experience:
Both Hughes and Rowling . . . stress the important ties between the hero and headmaster, an adult mentor who helps the hero develop into a functioning, useful young man of good character. Tom, Harry, and their friends find themselves often working around their teachers . . . But both the doctor and Albus Dumbledore are adults our heroes come to trust and value, and who in turn support, protect, and guide the boys. 12
I’d go even further here. The link between Arnold and Dumbledore is more meaningful than just their both being thoughtful heads of school and mentors to Tom Brown and Harry Potter respectively. Both headmasters inspire a nearly religious devotion in their students. The last chapter of Tom Brown’s Schooldays , “Finis,” ends with Brown weeping at the grave of his “old master.” Hughes describes Brown feeling “love and reverence” for Arnold, that his soul was “fuller of the tomb and him who lies there, than of the altar of Him of whom it speaks.” As he grieves, Brown vows to “follow his [Arnold’s] steps in life and death.” 13 Thomas Hughes is hardly subtle here in making the late Rugby headmaster in his sacred tomb as stand-in for Christ in the heart of Tom Brown.
This scene is echoed in Half-Blood Prince . Not only does Harry weep at Dumbledore’s grave, he sees a smoke phoenix shape “fly joyfully into the blue” as the white marble tomb appears encasing the headmaster’s corpse. Dumbledore’s Patronus takes the shape of a phoenix, also known as “the resurrection bird,” which is a traditional symbol of Christ. The chapter closes with Harry testifying to the Minister of Magic that he is “Dumbledore’s man through and through” (chapter thirty); he is determined to dedicate the rest of his life to pursuing the Horcruxes and the Dark Lord in conformity with Dumbledore’s example and instruction.
Dumbledore’s sacrificial death in Half-Blood Prince , his being the person in whom Harry must “choose to believe in” over the course of Deathly Hallow , and his greeting Harry at the
A public school in fiction, too, is obliged, naturally, to come with the stock characters every public school is staffed with; we need a headmaster, teachers, and student leaders in the form of team captains or prefects acting as rule monitors. A sadist teacher is commonplace, hence Severus Snape; “every French mistress in the entire girl’s school story genre” is “risible,” 10 thus Sybil Trelawney; and a self-important prefect is a must (if only as a foil for resolutions when the hero or heroine assumes that post, also a near certainty), and Perfect Percy, the “Bighead Boy” fills that role.
Some characters in Harry Potter , though, are not only necessary representatives to satisfy a formula but pointers to famous characters in the genre U.K. readers will recognize immediately. Harry’s cousin Dudley Dursley, for instance, in his outrageous Smeltings school uniform, complete with sadist’s shillelagh, is a pointer to Billy Bunter, “the sly, overweight, idle, lying, cowardly, snobbish, conceited, and greedy boy antihero” of Frank Richards’s Greyfriars boarding school books. 11
The funeral of Albus Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince is as much a tribute to Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Tom Brown’s Rugby, and to the place of the headmaster as guide and guardian in every schoolboy book, as it is to Harry’s mentor and the “greatest wizard of his age.” Certainly Arnold and Dumbledore have much in common.
As David Steege writes in his wonderful essay comparing Harry Potter with Tom Brown and the typical English boarding school experience:
Both Hughes and Rowling . . . stress the important ties between the hero and headmaster, an adult mentor who helps the hero develop into a functioning, useful young man of good character. Tom, Harry, and their friends find themselves often working around their teachers . . . But both the doctor and Albus Dumbledore are adults our heroes come to trust and value, and who in turn support, protect, and guide the boys. 12
I’d go even further here. The link between Arnold and Dumbledore is more meaningful than just their both being thoughtful heads of school and mentors to Tom Brown and Harry Potter respectively. Both headmasters inspire a nearly religious devotion in their students. The last chapter of Tom Brown’s Schooldays , “Finis,” ends with Brown weeping at the grave of his “old master.” Hughes describes Brown feeling “love and reverence” for Arnold, that his soul was “fuller of the tomb and him who lies there, than of the altar of Him of whom it speaks.” As he grieves, Brown vows to “follow his [Arnold’s] steps in life and death.” 13 Thomas Hughes is hardly subtle here in making the late Rugby headmaster in his sacred tomb as stand-in for Christ in the heart of Tom Brown.
This scene is echoed in Half-Blood Prince . Not only does Harry weep at Dumbledore’s grave, he sees a smoke phoenix shape “fly joyfully into the blue” as the white marble tomb appears encasing the headmaster’s corpse. Dumbledore’s Patronus takes the shape of a phoenix, also known as “the resurrection bird,” which is a traditional symbol of Christ. The chapter closes with Harry testifying to the Minister of Magic that he is “Dumbledore’s man through and through” (chapter thirty); he is determined to dedicate the rest of his life to pursuing the Horcruxes and the Dark Lord in conformity with Dumbledore’s example and instruction.
Dumbledore’s sacrificial death in Half-Blood Prince , his being the person in whom Harry must “choose to believe in” over the course of Deathly Hallow , and his greeting Harry at the
Similar Books
