Blog Post # 1: Expectations

There are definite expectations within the Harry Potter books that work in different ways than other series of books. I think that since there is a knowledge that there are more books to come, at this point in the series (just the first two books) certain things that may not be fulfilled are expected. We expect not necessarily all of the questions to be answered, but the most relevant ones to the most recent plot. Finding out who Tom Riddle is within the second book is so necessary, and there would have been such a confusion at the end as to why, when the whole of the story surrounds that mystery, we weren't to have gotten an answer. This is just one example, mind you. It's hard to go into the more mysterious elements of the plot and why they might be misunderstood at this point, because it's all very calculated. Stories like the Harry Potter ones require the guessing game, and when you think you've figured it out, there is an element of disappointment when it's revealed and you've gotten it wrong. This is only at the beginning, and I'm considering this as when I was a young reader. At some point within the series, you sort of let go of this and run with the story, let it take you where it's intended to go.

There are expectations from certain characters, as well. Right away, with The Sorcerer's Stone, we are given these opinions about certain characters: Dumbledore is a bit of a nut, but a genius and genuine. Hagrid isn't the smartest of half-giants, but he's so full of love and devotion to Harry and the students. McGonagall is a bit of a hard ass, but with a tender heart. Snape literally hates Harry, but seems to be always secretly looking out for Harry. There are so many other examples of this, and within the first two books, and for perpetually the entire series, this expectation is met. However, all of these opinions are proven right or wrong, and there is so much history connected to these opinions that is later revealed.

Blog Post #1 Response: Growing

Harry Potter, for me at least, is a huge part of my childhood. I started reading the books in 4th or 5th grade in my schools FOCUS class. There were about 20 of us and we had been in this class together since 2nd grade, so we were pretty good friends. At first my classmates did not seem particularly interested in the story, but about when Harry got to Hogwarts I stopped waiting to find out what happened next. I asked my mom to buy me my own copy of the book. I read it between classes, on the bus, on the playground, anywhere I could tuck myself away for a chapter or two. Hogwarts swam around in my head, and where ever I was became my common room. The FOCUS group got into it too, and together we urged the teachers to start the second book once the first had finished. I lent the book to my friends outside of FOCUS when I finished it, and they burned through it just as I had.

My friends and I eagerly awaited the release of each book. We would stand in a clump together in the middle of the store, dressed in black bathrobes with sticks in our hands, for hours before midnight. Our expectations soared when we found out they were turning Harry Potter And the Sorcerer's Stone into a movie. After all the movies we would emerge ranting about how "they" took our favorite parts out, or that vital information was missing. After the 6th book, one of my friends and I started writing, not about what we thought would happen in the 7th book, but about the next dark lord. What they would be like, how they would succeed where Voldemort failed.

Other books have not captured my imagination the same way Harry Potter has. Hogwarts has become a very real place inside my brain. I thought it would fade into the background of my mind once I went to college, but I was dead wrong. I want more. Not more Harry though. I want to know about the Grindelwald wars and how that wizarding war may have affected Muggle history of World War II. I want to follow James as he goes to school and meets Lily. I want to know more things that relate to things I can't post here yet because we can't give out spoilers.

I don't want it to be over. I'm not ready for it to be over.

Blog Post #1 Response: Filing in the gaps

Having never read the Harry Potter series my expectations for the books was rather low. Having enjoyed the movies, yet not finding they were anything special, I expected the books to be similar. However, I have been pleasantly surprised and am thoroughly enjoying them. Plotlines that were extremely confusing and poorly explained in the movies are not being fleshed out and added on to (characters or scenes that were left out of the movie).

Expectations that I did have going in to the first few books revolved around getting a better understanding of the overall conflict, rather than the minor conflicts that occur in individual scenes. Again, the movies did a poor job explaining what the nature of the conflict was. I frequently found myself thinking, “is all this fighting over who is allowed to go to Hogwarts?”

Well, no.

Thanks to be books I’m finding out more of the overall conflict of the series. I had expected to find that the first book would describe the conflict almost completely but have found that from Harry, Ron and Hermione’s perspective the conflict is narrated in a forward fashion and for the older characters in a backwards/past-repeating-itself fashion.

The failure of the first book to meet my expectation of describing the conflict and giving tantalizing clues and teasers towards the “whole story” serves as motivation to continue reading so that we all know what happened and how, as well as how it’s all going to end.

Blog Post #1 Response: Expectations

I believe that the quote “expectations are scarcely ever fulfilled in truly literary texts” is something that can be applied to the first two books of the Harry Potter series. J.K Rowling does a nice job of tricking the reader to expect things in her novel and when the novels end you find out that your original expectations are false. As some of my classmates have already mentioned, I expected that Professor Snape was the most obvious character that was causing all of the problems at Hogwarts. I wasn't really convinced though that Snape was helping Voldemort and messing with Harry because in mystery books the killer is rarely the character that everyone expects is the killer. So I had my doubts about Snape, but I thought the most convincing instance of red herring was during the quidditch when Harry's broomstick was bewitched and Hermione believed Snape was the culprit. It wasn't until the end of the novel that Harry found out Snape was trying to help Harry not hurt him. In the second novel I thought that Harry was the heir of Slytherin and that Malfoy opened the Chamber of Secrets, but then we find out Jenny opens the chamber. It's important for expectations to fail because it keeps the reader interested in the books especially when it comes to series. If the reader was able to figure out what was going on in the books it wouldn't be interesting to keep reading the books in the rest of the series because the books are predictable. This is my first time reading the entire series and I am excited to read them and so far I have really enjoyed them, but I went into reading the books expecting them to be exactly like the movies and I am glad that my expectations were false because the books are ten times better then the movies.

Blog Post #1 Response: Expectations

“Expectations are scarcely ever fulfilled in truly literary texts because the text continually modifies our expectations about what is to come.” I believe this can apply to the first two Harry Potter books in a number of ways. Before this course began I had never read any of the Harry Potter books. I have seen a couple of the movies over the years, but after attending the first few classes, I quickly realized how passionate some people are about the Harry Potter series. In terms of my expectations about reading the series, I figured that since the books and movies were so popular that I would thoroughly enjoy reading the series. After finishing the first two books, my expectations about liking the books were met and then some. I’ll admit that I am not the biggest fan of reading so I wasn’t as excited about reading all seven books in a ten week class. However, once I began reading the books, I was hooked. Rowling does an excellent job at portraying the realm of witchcraft and wizardry. I was slightly put off when at the end of the first and second book when Dumbledore only gives partial explanations to Harry but after thinking about it I believe this is a good strategy to lure the reading into continuing to read the rest of the series. After finishing the second book, I am even more excited to continue reading the series.

Blog post #1 Different view, different people

I have to admit that this is my first time reading any of the Harry Potter books. While the stories are interesting they don't drag me in as much as the rest of my class and house mates. It doesn't help that I was a junior in high school when the first book was released and therefore it missed my realm completely. This explains why my fellow classmates get sucked into the story and relate to 

the characters a little more than I do.

I can relate with being the outcast at times and being lost in a world where I have no clue, but I do not see myself in Harry or any of the other characters in a manner that would list them as one of my top 10 literary characters. If anything I seem to like the characters who are nothing like me such as Draco. 

I also seem to get more out of the ties to the past than the plot. I'm a history major and I find it interesting to think about the power struggles of the classes and how they relate to English and French history. These things intrigue me more than who/where is Voldemort.

I do agree with the others that J.K. was able to misdirect me a lot in the first two books. I thought Snape was the only possible answer in the first book and even when it was all said and done I still thought he might be working with Voldemort in a clandestine (yet to be revealed) manner. 

Blog Post #1: The Pleasures of Mysteries and Reader-Response Criticism

Failing to fill a reader’s expectations is what makes great literature. Rowling deceives her reader’s expectations especially in the first two books of the Harry Potter series. In The Sorcerer’s Stone, Snape seems to be the antagonist of the story; the evidence perfectly sets up the reader against Snape. Hermione sees him muttering words, believed to be a curse, while Harry struggles on his broomstick. Snape has wounds from trying to sneak past Fluffy, the guardian of the philosopher’s stone. In The Chamber of Secrets, the malevolence of Tom Riddle isn’t revealed until the end of the novel. Another character that deceives Harry and the reader is Gilderoy Lockhart, a fraud who brags of his false encounters with the dark arts. Both of the first two novels dupe the reader by character portrayals—people aren’t who they appear to be. By the end of the novel, the reader discovers the truth of a character’s background or actions. Rowling sets up expectations and fails to fill them. In this way, her novels contain elements of the mystery genre. It motivates the reader into exploring the past and the present of her wizard world.

When I read Harry Potter and other enjoyable novels, I do become ‘occupied by the thoughts of the author’ as Iser suggests in “The Reading Process.” While I’m relying on the thoughts of the narrator, a part of my personality drifts away as I become more and more involved with the story. However, I am still responsible for the imagination that produces the story in my head. It’s one thing to read some text, and it’s another thing to comprehend a text within the boundaries of my own imagination. I believe reading fiction like Harry Potter is two-fold. Rowling is responsible for producing text from her own imagination, while I’m responsible for restructuring it to fit my own imaginative preferences. That’s the joy of reading—it’s a relationship between two imaginations. This reader-response style of criticism describes this process of interpretation.

Blog Post #1 Confuse the Reader?

I am particularly fond of mysteries, from James Patterson to the Da Vinci Code, I can’t get enough of “who-done-it” scenarios. I guess for that reason, I read Harry Potter mostly as a mystery series, especially for the first two books. For each book, I would always try to piece together what I thought was happening and who was involved. I usually always fell for the red herring as well as coming to completely off the wall conclusions (I thought Crookshanks was an animagus and a bad guy for most of Prisoner of Azkaban, I am not sure why I thought so, but nonetheless I did). Maybe others read the series this way, but maybe not. Even though I read the book like a mystery, I still felt like I could be a student at Hogwarts. I felt like I was part of the story, not just witnessing it from the narrator's eyes.
I feel like we, as readers have entirely different experiences when reading these books. For example, some details stick out more to others. These differences lead to different conclusions. There are some conclusions that I feel like we can’t help but make. I think that is because of the narrator. As muggles, we know nothing about the wizarding world so we get to know it from the narrator’s voice (J.K. Rowling). The reader gets sucked into this world because it is completely different from our everyday occurrences, so it becomes an escape. We don't realize that we have been sucked into the world until we see that it is 5:00 in the morning and we have been reading for the past 12 hours (okay that might just be me as well). We have such trust in the narrator, even though the narrator might not know, or doesn’t reveal (usually the case) all of the information. I think the narrator sets us up to have certain expectations. Whether or not they are actually upheld is another story. With the "who-done-it" mindset, I wanted Dumbledore to explain everything at the end of both book 1 and book 2. He instead gave partial answers. This continues the rest of the series. I am still trying to figure out if the narrator is trying to let us come up with our own conclusions, or purposefully frustrate us.

Blog #1 Think Again!

J.K. Rowling caught me off guard in the first book. I came into the sorcerer's stone thinking that the series is marketed towards children so it will be an interesting read but nothing will slip by me. Professor Snape is always mean to Harry therefore he is the one after the sorcerer's stone. The challenges that the professors set up to prevent one from stealing the sorcerer's stone were clever, but everything was expected. Then BAM! Harry sees Qurriell instead of Snape. I was stunned! I had to do a double take, and read it again to make sure that I was reading things properly. Side note the ending on how one can achieve the stone through the mirror was brilliant.

After experiencing the sorcerer's stone, I was a little more prepared for a surprise. I expected Black to be the good guy. I also expected the broom would be from Black. I firmly believed that Black was good all the way through the book until he showed up inside the dorm room holding a knife above Ron. That's when I had to change my expectations. I also expected the map to be Lupin's doing. However, I did not predict that Ron's rat was animagi. That made the story have a very clever twist that i enjoyed. Also, I didn't expect that it was Harry who saved himself by going back in time.

The clever manipulations that Rowling creates are what keep me on the edge of my seat. Even if I was correct on the end result of my expectation, I hardly ever guess how she will portray it. How she explains is what makes her writing so captivating to read, for me, not necessarily the end result albeit on occasion predictable.

Imagination wild

In most well written stories, there is a sense of being sucked into the story, feeling present in the story line where there is no subject-object division. J.K. Rowling does an amazing job of persuading the reader to think like her and become involved in the story. For example, in the scene at the zoo when Harry removes the glass to the snakes exhibit I got scared thinking there was going to be a snake on my bed where I was reading. Mostly, the subject-object division is clearly present in the Harry Potter series because it is unknown to us, it is a magical world and we are new to it; the book draws in the reader filling their head with images and dreams of being able to go somewhere such as Hogwarts. The story leaves us wondering if there is such a place out there; a place so different than any of us know.

The thing I love about Harry Potter is the fact that it is a different place than we know so there is no expectations, anything can happen! It fulfills the reader’s expectations as well as their wildest dreams. There are many surprises in the series and things that happen that we would never expect or even imagine possible. This is especially potent in the first two books because the reader is just beginning to learn about Hogwarts and all of the different creatures so there is no real expectations, maybe little ones like expecting something bad to happen to Malfoy because of all his negativity, but no expectations of the next weird thing to happen at Hogwarts.

Blog # 1: A Division in Ourselves

"Reading removes the subject-object division that constitutes all perception, [and so] it follows that the reader will be ‘occupied’ by the thoughts of the author […] Text and reader no longer confront each other as object and subject, but instead the ‘division’ takes place within the reader himself."

I want to start by saying that this is a magical quote. My favorite thing is when you are presented with a story that envelopes your life and takes you away, putting you into something so real you never want to leave. I would absolutely say that the Harry Potter series is one of these stories. When I sit down with Sorcerer’s Stone, even though I’ve read it countless times, I know that I’m about to begin a journey that can only be described as epic. The first two Potter books are really what set the stage for the later books (I like the later books better). But with books 1 and 2, we are almost invited into an epic without realizing it. It starts with the lives of the Dursleys, and before you realize that you’ve been shadowing Vernon all day, you’re neck deep into the adventures of a hero. For me personally, I was only seven or so when Harry began his journey, but even then, I was raised feasting on a story that could remove me from myself and out my in a world where I was friends with the most famous wizard in the world. Chamber of Secrets took me to a new place, although darker, where my friends were facing newer, more dangerous things, and I was right there fighting the basilisk with Harry. As a small child, you can imagine how thrilling and inspiring it is to read a tale where an ordinary, young boy can be a hero.

The hard part is putting the book down, and separating my worlds into two. When I was reading, I was a witch and a student at Hogwarts. Away from the book, I was Michelle, a normal kid that attended a primary school. I’ve never lost a parent, and I’ve never faced the most powerful villain in the world, but I always felt like I could relate to Harry in some unexplainable way, like every other kid in my generation could say for different reasons. And THAT is the beauty of the story.

Blog Post #1 Response: Storyline Expectations

I agree with Iser that "expectations are scarcely ever fulfilled in truly literary texts" (53), and I believe that the Harry Potter books are an excellent example of this. As the series progresses, the readers expectations of what is to come is continually modified. J. K. Rowling does this by not only creating an intriguing storyline, but also by constructing a truly unique world in which she can insert all kinds of things from her own imagination. For example, one would not expect the sorcerer's stone to play an important role in the first book until nearly halfway through. This was something of Rowling's own imagining and the reader can not have any expectation of what the stone does, or how it fits into the overall storyline until Rowling states its purpose.

It has been quite a while since I first read the Harry Potter series, so I can not remember what expectations I had going in, or what I expected to develop from the plot. However, after going back and reading these books again there are countless details that I have forgotten. These forgotten details or characters allow me, even now, to build upon my previous expectations and come to new realizations regarding the plot. The plot in any truly literary text is continuously growing and allows the reader to build new expectations from the information given by the author. The Harry Potter series not only does this within each book, but amongst them all as well. As new magical objects or people are introduced into the storyline, Rowling raises many new expectations, some of which are fulfilled and some aren't, and I believe this helps keep the story moving and entertaining.

Blog Post #1: Experiences do Influence Reading

First and foremost, when I read a really good book or series I become all consumed. I eat, sleep and breathe that book. I will constantly be thinking about it when I’m not reading it and it is pointless to say that the entire Harry Potter Series had me in an almost obsessive behavior while reading it the first time. So I think there is a certain truth to Iser’s quote – at least for me, the book/text/etc was no longer an object for me, but an extension of my conscious self. I think that in the first two Harry Potter books specifically they are so consuming because you have just been introduced to an entirely new world where just about anything is possible.

I know that I personally always believed in magic as a little kid and in this series Rowling makes it seem real. I’ve always been extremely imaginative and open to new experiences and ideas so I let Rowling’s books sweep me up and captivate me. However, I grew up with a lot of friends who came from extremely conservative and religious backgrounds, most of them absolutely hated the series and some of them were even forbidden to read it in the first place. This of course was upsetting to me because as we progress through each book, the series is about so much more than just magic (which was popularly viewed as demonic and a sin rather than miraculous), but most of them couldn’t see that. That closed mindset definitely stems from the different life experiences they had versus my own.

 As I read these books I was able to identify with Harry, Ron and Hermione because I could see parts of myself in them. While I’ve never  been as courageous as Harry – I’m usually the one is trying to do the right thing and it backfires to get me into a sticky situation. Like Ron, I’ve always felt overshadowed by one person or another, I’ve never felt like the best at anything. And like Hermione I’ve always been pretty painfully intelligent, if I can use that analogy. There is definitely a connection formed between reader and character when they share similar thoughts, feelings or experiences.

My childhood also probably most greatly influenced my opinion of  Professor Snape throughout the entire series. I won’t say too entirely much in this post so as not to spoil anything, but even in the first two books I could not stand how Snape kept holding Harry accountable for his father’s actions when they were children.  He is constantly accusing Harry of being pompous even when he has zero reason to. He can’t grow-up and let go of his long-time grudge with James. As the series goes on and we find out more about Snape, I never really let him off the hook. Even at the end of the series I still have my own personal grudge against Snape whereas most people have different feelings. Honestly it probably just stems from the fact that due to things in my past, I don’t forgive easily and so I don’t ever forgive him for being so terrible to Harry.

Blog #1 Expectations

I believe Rowling did an excellent job in creating this series, mostly because of the cleverness and element of surprise the reader experiences after every book. She sets up the story in ways that reinforce our predications and expectations, but end chapters and books by clicking two things together that you would have never considered. Most prominently, the way the Rowling describes Professor Snape in the first book, making him out to be the bad. When I first read the book, I was utterly confused as to why innocent Professor Quirrell would be the one Harry meets in the end to battle for the stone. The other situation that stands out in my mind is in “The Chamber of Secrets”, when Ginny Weasley is revealed as the one who had been the attacker and perpetrator of the strange happenings during that year. I personally enjoy how Rowling creates these characters, so when you are reading, you think nothing of them.

The fact that Rowling raises these expectations and then fails to fulfill them is what makes the series fascinating and so popular. If you think about movies you watch, it seems you always know what is going to happen in the end: who will fall in love with whom, who will win, how it ends, etc. Movies create such an expectation and seem to never fail to fulfill, which people do like, but I think that is what made the Harry Potter movies so different and intriguing. Because they were from these books, you were always kept guessing, and you couldn’t rely on your initial prediction.

Blog #1 Expectations and Surprises

The first two Harry Potter books are full of expectations and even more so, surprises. I read them for the first time a couple years ago, but I remember hanging on to the edge of my seat thinking I knew what was going to happen next, only to be surprised a few pages later. Multiple expectations arise including thinking the heir of Slytherin was a current Hogwarts student, expecting Harry not to go back to the Dursley's at the end of his first year, and assuming it was Snape jinxing Harry's broom during the Quidditch match. None of these expectations are fulfilled by the end of books one and two, but they were built to keep the reader interested. In order for the series to continue and be as exciting as it is, the reader cannot always guess what is going to happen next. Some expectations are filled, though those are not always as exciting. The first time I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, I did not think highly of Gilderoy Lockhart. I was not surprised to find that he had been lying for years.

Writing in such a way that the reader expects something and then proving the reader wrong is a great technique to keep readers engaged. If every expectation is fulfilled, the book would become boring because one could simply predict the end. Rowling's use of surprises kept me wondering what would happen next. By the end of the second book I often doubted my own guesses because I thought that Rowling would purposefully fail to fulfill my prediction.

Blog Post #1, The Element of Surprise

Expectations are tricky things. They change. It only makes sense that as you read the book and discover new things that your expectations may be altered. I don’t think that means that they aren’t ever fulfilled though. There are general expectations and there are more specific expectations. When I read a book I expect it to be a good story, especially if the summary was enough to pique my interest. Hopefully that general expectation is proved correct. Based on what happens in the story my expectations of what is going to happen will most likely change. That’s not necessarily a bad or unfulfilling thing though. I usually enjoy when I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. If the author has done a good enough job with the writing and character development to keep me guessing then I’ll continue to be interested in the story. Rowling is excellent at this. She builds upon what she has written before and continues to surprise the reader, shattering their initial expectations.

In book one we are led to believe that Snape is the one trying to steal the stone but it ends up to not only be Quirrell but also Voldemort through Quirrell. In book two she makes us think that Harry could be the heir of Slytherin and maybe he isn’t all good. Then she pulls the rug out again by having it be Tom Riddle, Voldemort, through his old diary. Not only that but he used innocent little Ginny as a pawn. Because Rowling seems to take us one direction but then takes us another in the end, it keeps the element of surprise. Sure it means we don’t know exactly what is going to happen, but because of that the story is fresh and exciting. I know that I personally don’t feel disappointed when the more specific expectations turn out differently. My more general expectations of a good story, good writing, and strong characters are met, and to me those are the bigger things. Having my expectations change as more details are revealed in the story, or even shattered when the surprise is revealed, is something I’m ok with. When a story can still genuinely surprise me I think it’s successful.

Blog Post #1 Response: Use of Red Herrings

It has been a very long time since I first read the first two Harry Potter books, so I can not remember exactly what my expectations were as I was reading the books. Iser says that expectations are rarely fulfilled due to the text continually modifying itself. This is not only true for books but for all stories, real or fictional. As you read a book, every new detail gives you a new detail to build upon your expectations, which in turn subtly changes your expectation. In the case of Harry Potter the story is written as a mystery, so clues and red herrings are intentionally placed in the prose to build certain expectations. In the first Harry Potter book Snape is built up as the villain of the book, but at the end you find out that while Snape is not a very nice person, he was actually fighting the real villain through out the course of the book. Red Herrings like this are very common in these first two books. Quirrell is pictured as a quivering coward of a man, Tom Riddle appears to be a hero of Hogwarts, and Harry seems to be a descendent of Slytherin. The danger of setting up these false expectations is that all the actions that initially seem incriminating must make sense when the twist finally occurs.