Comparing Harry Potter to Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Essay Example

To J.K. Rowlings From Re Similarity and difference of the supernatural elements ofHarry Potter Novels to supernatural elements in Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight__________________________________________________________________________Dear Madam: First, I would like to congratulate you on the phenomenal success of your novel Harry Potter series which has been adopted into film and loved by millions of fans around the world. I am one of those fans who really like your characters and their stories in the Harry Potter series.

Perhaps you will agree with me that despite of the novelty of the story and presentation of Harry Potter, it still share the same theme with other stories and characters of the same genre such as the Arthurian Sir Gawain and its Green Knight as well as the legendary Beowulf. They are basically morality plays, whose stories typically depicts good will always triumph over evil that heralds bravery, chivalry and other ideal traits that mankind should possess. There may be no knights in the Harry Potter series but its setting, theme and the values it uphold speaks of chivalry.

As a story, Harry Potter shares similarity to Beowulf and I have a feeling that Beowulf may have been the framework of Harry Potter’s character in your novel. I arrived at this observation because of these similarities; there exists respected leaders in both stories which is the wizard Dumbledore in Harry Potter and Hrotgar in Beowulf. The elements of the structure of the house Hogwarts and although varies by name, are the same with Beowulfs four elements: Hufflepuff/Earth, Slytherin/Water, Ravenclaw/Air, Gryffindor/Fire.

Even the villains share the same trait. Beowulf’s Grendel is Harry Potter’s Voldemort both scheming evil characters although some subtleties have been applied to Voldemort as he does not kill wantonly unlike Grendel who “ killed more - blinded by sin, he felt no remorse". The treatment on how the protagonists name were stressed may be different, as Beowulf “would do anything to make name for himself” whereas recognition was already given to Harry Potter in lieu of his parents. Nevertheless, both stressed the importance of their names.

The story of Arthurian legend Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Harry Potter also shared the same chivalric values both adhering to a strict code of honor and are the same in their plot. This similarity between Harry Potter and Sir Gawain is very obvious in their plots where Sir Gawain has to face the supernatural Green Knight on New Year’s day and meet his end just to keep his word over their deadly agreement. He could have reneged the agreement or did not volunteer to take King Arthur’s place but still he did even it means a certain death.

This is the same with Harry Potter, where he was given the ultimatum to meet the seemingly invincible Voldemort in the forest alone. Otherwise he will come to Hogwarts and kill everybody there. Had he intended to save himself, he could have just walk away. Just like Sir Gawain, Harry Potter still went even if it could mean a certain death because Harry knows Valdemort cannot be killed by his wand (Book 4 of Harry Potter series). Both protagonist faced a seemingly invincible foe; Sir Gawain has to accept the blow of the supernatural Green Knight while Harry Potter has to confront Voldemort.

As typical in fantasy and magical genre, the protagonists always prevail although the manner in which they won differed. In Harry Potter, his victory was straightforward; he vanquished Voldemort while it was more complicated in Sir Gawain because his victory was not about defeating the Green Knight but by passing the test of characters. Although Sir Gawain was hard on himself with the third trial of keeping the green girdle that may save his life, he was nevertheless lauded to have passed the test of Bertilak de Hautdesert, posing as the Green Knight who was under the bidding of the sorceress Morgan le Fay.