Magic is might?: Uncovering abjection in Shakespeare's The Tempest and J.K Rowling's Harry Potter series

This thesis begins with an analysis of the two focal point statues in the Ministry of Magic from the Harry Potter series: The Fountain of Magical Brethren and the Magic is Might statue. This analysis prompts the questions that this thesis will answer: how does magic create might if it is contingent on never completing the acts that represent that might? Furthermore, how is this system created and how is this system upheld if it is not able to fully get rid of the challenges to its order? In answering these questions, this thesis will not only look at the canonical works of the Harry Potter series but will also look backwards to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The Tempest is one of the foundational texts for the representation of the wizard figure in the British literary canon, and it is a tradition Harry Potter, one of the most iconic representations of this wizard figure in recent years, inherits and works with. By placing these texts into conversation, we are able to see how Rowling has embraced and built upon the traditions that Shakespeare helped create through Prospero. Therefore, this thesis will also fill a gap in the scholarship of analysis of magical literature as to this date there have been no sustained accounts that place these two texts into conversation. To answer the questions posed by the statues, this thesis will examine how the powerful and privileged magic users of the two texts – Dumbledore, Voldemort, and Prospero – attempt to use magic as a tool of social control and political legitimacy. I argue that they use magic against others, as seen through Dumbledore’s quest for the Deathly Hallows, Voldemort’s Horcruxes, and Prospero’s isolation into his magical studies. Their uses of magic represent not means to create what they deem to be a pure society, but a response to the filth or contaminant each magician believes to be a corruption of their selfhood. This thesis employs the theory of abjection to uncover how a social structure is able to function when its existence is built on the inability to remove the threat to the order. The abject is defined as what we have cast out from ourselves in order to define the boundaries and understandings of ourselves. However, the abject is not erased when it is cast out. Instead, it exists in a perpetual state of paradox where it is both seen and unseen as well as known and unknown. This thesis will recognize two streams of abjection: personal abjection based on the work of Julia Kristeva (The Powers of Horror 1980) and social abjection based on the work of Imogen Tyler (Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain 2013). Even though they are separate theories, both operate together. In my first chapter I explore The Tempest, with particular attention to how power is formed and how it becomes legitimated. In this chapter I utilize Paul Brown’s “‘This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine’: The Tempest and the Discourse of Colonialism” as well as an exploration into the roots of postcolonial Tempest criticism to show how a nuanced reading of the structure of power in The Tempest includes an account of abjection. In the second chapter, I turn to the Harry Potter series and focus on the creation of the personal abjects of Dumbledore and Voldemort as both these magicians are examples of powerful and privileged individuals who, like Prospero, attempt to use their power to have the others “recognize themselves as subjects of [their] discourse” (Brown 281). The final chapter of my thesis brings together the Harry Potter series and The Tempest in order to expand the discussion of abjection to include Tyler’s work on social abjection to show the impact that the process of being made abject has on society at large.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor dc:publisher

Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Paulhus, Jocelyne Annette

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Johnston, Susan

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Purnis, Jan
• Riegel, Christian

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

https://doi.org/10.82465/4286

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uregina.scholaris.ca:10294/16066