Eragon and Harry: The Responsibility of Fate - Essay Example

Client Eragon and Harry: The Responsibility of Fate The novels, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling, and Eragon by Christopher Paolini have main male characters that struggle with the issues of identity while confronting a fated encounter with evil. Both boys grow up as orphans, however with very different family dynamics. Each experiences the classic ‘hero’s journey’, as outlined by Joseph Campbell, and follows a path that changes them. As the boys struggle to understand their roles within their destinies, Eragon and Harry are part of the struggle between good and evil as they search for self awareness and identity. Harry Potter is a character created by J. K. Rowling as a child who will experience great sorrow in order to fulfill a destiny that will destroy a great evil. Harry’s claim to fame will begin as an infant when he is dubbed ‘the boy who lived’. His claim is based solely on his survival of an attack that kills his mother and father. During the attack, Lord Voldemort is given a crushing defeat when he tries to destroy Harry under circumstances that will require the reading of all seven books in the series in order to fully understand. Harry, before he is able to speak, has a label of identity that he will have to resolve. However, in order to protect him from this label, Dumbledore removes him from the wizarding world, protecting him from the burden of his fame. 1 Client Last Name The household in which Harry grows up has designated him as inferior. He doesn’t sleep in a room, but under the stairs in a cupboard. His Aunt and Uncle’s natural child, Dudley, is spoiled and greedy, while Harry lives in a state of humble means. When Harry’s eleventh birthday arrives and he learns that he is not inferior, but rather extraordinary, a journey begins for him that promises to transform his sad life into one of meaning and hope. Harry has grown up in an environment that did not value him. This is in contrast to the wizarding world that he enters where he has celebrity status and is admired for things he has no real knowledge. In comparison to Harry‘s mostly normal existence, Eragon is established as an accomplished young man from the beginning of the book. He has learned great skills within his community, and is established as accomplished above others. About him, it is written, “Eragon did not fear the Spine - he was the only hunter near Carvahall who dared track game deep into its craggy recesses.” (Paolini, pg. 6) The Spine is a mountainous place of which strange tales are told which discourages others from hunting the region. However, with this device, Eragon is established as special. Eragon is fifteen as the story is begun. Unlike Harry, his family life is not that unsatisfactory. He is raised by his Uncle, who appears to have a great regard for him. It will be the death of his Uncle Garrow, that will spur him toward his fate. Both Eragon and Harry will travel the rode of the classic ’hero’s journey’, as established by Joseph Campbell. In The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell identifies the twelve steps of the ‘hero’s journey‘. The first step of the journey, ’the call 2 Client Last Name to adventure’ is very clearly laid out in both novels discussed here. Harry’s call comes when he finds out that he is a born wizard and Eragon’s journey comes when the egg hatches and Saphira, the dragon, is born. Another aspect of the hero’s journey is the ’refusal of the call’. Both characters will experience moments when they don’t believe they are up to the challenge, however this is not as prevalent in Harry. He embraced this new adventure the way any child will embrace a new aspect of themselves. It will be in later books that this refusal becomes more relevant as he struggles with puberty. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone is a book of discovering an identity, not one yet of questioning that identity. The next step in the ’hero’s journey’ is the finding of ’supernatural aid’. This is when the hero meets an elder of some sort who will act as a guide through the adventure. For Harry, Dumbledore is the focal point, although he will meet many mentors along the way. Eragon, however, has a very clear mentor. A character named Brom will serve to fill in the informational gaps as Eragon must discover who a dragon rider must be in order to serve. The facilitator, or mentor who qualifies as providing ’supernatural aid’ is represented by Brom as he instructs Eragon from his own experience. Dumbledore will act in this capacity for Harry as he helps him discover the meaning of the Mirror of Erised. In discovering that the mirror reflects what he wishes he could see, he is given a tool that will help him defeat Voldemort for the first time. Much of Harry’s aid will come from unknown sources, which is part of the construction of his identity. Harry has not been raised in a nurturing atmosphere. His 3 Client Last Name parents are memories that he creates by looking in the Mirror of Erised. His magical heritage and fame are unknown to him until he is presented with them. The cloak of invisibility and his broom both come from unknown benefactors. Eragon’s aid comes from known sources that are identified and explained for him as he travels his journey. “Once having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials.” (Campbell, p. 81) The trials of Harry are many, but the most definitive set of trials are the traps that have been set by the professors in order to protect the stone. As each of these trials are met, the value of his companions is put to the test, over which they are successful and prove themselves worthy. As Harry is aligned with positive forces, he identifies with the side of ’right’ and decides for himself that he will do right. After the experiences he endured during his childhood it might have been expected that he would identify with wrong in order to take back some of his lost power. However, even during his sorting into the houses he sends a ’prayer’ to the sorting hat begging it that it be “not Slytherin”, but the hat responds “Not Slytherin, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head and Slytherin will help you on your way to greatness, no doubt about that - no? Well, if you’re sure - better be GRIFFINDOR!” (Rowling, pg. 121). At this moment he has made a conscious choice that he will align himself with right. The essential fight for Harry Potter is the fight to define evil. In The Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry is young and believes that good and bad are matters of a solid line that is 4 Client Last Name down the middle between them. He will learn as the books continue that he will be forced to confront an aspect of identity that is represented by his connection to Voldemort. The capacity for evil is within everyone. This is foreshadowed in The Sorcerer’s Stone by the character of Quirrell who is himself and an infusion of the shadow of Voldemort. This duality represents the duality of good and evil and the struggle between those two forces. Within Quirrell, evil is winning. For Harry, in the last book, he must face the same duality and this character of Quirrell acts as the representation of how his fate will ultimately end. The duality of identity for Eragon is in his connection to Saphira. As opposed to Harry, who must battle his connection to ultimate evil, Eragon is connected to a source of nurturing goodness in his dragon. This connection gives him advantages of strength and intelligence, a well as a magic. Eragon can be impatient and quick to anger when he feels that injustice has been met out. However, Saphira acts as a voice of maturity and a symbol of the contrary emotions that are experienced during adolescence. Eragon will face a tremendous battle. The forces of evil that will attack he and his compatriots is large and ominous in its veracity. Eragon will be able to stand against these foes, but he will have an army at his side as he works to achieve his victory. Harry will become victorious against his foe by himself. He will have to face evil in a final battle of will that will not include bloodshed. He will have to outwit his opponent in order to move forward in his journey to the next novel and to the next level of maturity. Eragon does have a counterpart who acts as his reflection into evil. Durza, the 5 Shade, is the representation of the flip side of Eragon. Eragon discovers that Durza is an orphan in the same way that he was orphaned. Durza was raised by a man of evil, which is the potential evil that could have been Eragon if his childhood had been created under the influence of evil. When Eragon faces Durza, he is facing a battle with himself. In his victory, he frees himself of the doubts of character that plague all people. He symbolically conquers his own demon by conquering his physical nemesis. The two characters of Harry and Eragon endure a journey in adolescence that will help to define their identities and resolve the conflicts that arise from a fated destiny. Both are raised in households that do not include the influence of their mother or father. Each is set on a course that, while a choice must be made, is designed by fate to force a choice. Harry is ‘the boy who lived’, and Eragon becomes a dragon rider by virtue of connecting with Saphira. However, both Eragon and Harry has a choice to accept or deny those destinies. Both will travel the life changing road as outlined by Joseph Campbell in his theoretical discussions of the hero myth. Harry and Eragon will struggle with the duality of good and evil, overcoming the power of that conflict and fulfilling their potential. As each character triumphs over evil, they find within themselves the capacity to triumph over their personal failings, accepting the responsibility of their circumstances, and lead those who have supported their efforts in the cause that will affect them all. Harry Potter and the dragon rider, Eragon, will prove as positive forces in worlds polarized by good and evil. 6 Clients Last Name Works Cited Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Novato: New World Library, 2008. Paolini, Christopher. Eragon. New York: Alfred A Knofp, 2003. Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 1997. 7 Read More