Harry+Potter+and+the+Order+of+the+Phoenix

Lindsey Phillips Bibliographic Data
 * Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix **
 * By J.K. Rowling **

Publication Date: 2003 Publisher: Scholastic Imprint: Scholastic Press ISBN: 0-439-56761-8 Hardcover Price: $15.99 Paperback Price: $7.99 Number of Pages: 870 Best for ages: 9 & up Type of book: Fiction/Fantasy

Summary: Wizard Harry Potter is once again living with his aunt and uncle during the Summer Holidays. Fearing the newly risen Lord Voldemort plans for take over, Harry secretly listens to the muggle news for any signs of magical disaster. While with his muggle cousin Dudley, Harry is attacked by with a dementor and forced to use magic for protection. The use of magic outside of school is against the law and Harry learns quickly that the law is really out to get him. After narrowly being cleared of all charges Harry is forced to face live in a magical world where the ministry of magic is in denial about Voldemort’s return and slander Harrys name causing even his many friends to turn on him. His school year includes continual detentions from his new Defense against the dark arts teacher, Professor Umbridge, a life ban from playing quidditch, OWL examinations, extra lessons from his least favorite teacher Professor Snape, taking care of a his friend Hagrid’s brother, and painful visions into Voldemort’s mind which cause Harry to not only be unsafe in the world, but inside his own mind.

Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a capturing story for children and adults alike. The third person narrator fallows Harry giving readers insight to the workings of a teenage hero’s mind. In comparison to the previous books in the Harry Potter series this book dives deeper into emotions such as guilt, shame, grief and rejection. The emotional tone is dark and stressful because of the rejection Harry is receiving from all sides. Children require some emotional maturity to take on this book this book.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Author Biography: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Joanne Kathleen Rowling was born in 1965 in England where she went to Wyedean Comprehensive. She went to Exeter University, then moved to London and worked as a researcher at Amnesty International. During a delayed King’s Cross train journey from Manchester to London she started the idea for the Harry Potter series. She got married in October 1992 and gave birth to a girl in 1993. When her marriage failed, she and her daughter returned to the UK to live in Edinburgh. When her book first book was ready to be published she decided to go by the name JK Rowling rather than Joanne Rowling because her publisher thought the female name would not appeal to the target audience of young boys. J.K. Rowling is the had won numerous awards and honorary degrees including the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, France’s Légion d’Honneur, and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, and she has been a Commencement Speaker at Harvard University USA. Apart from being an author she has a heart for teaching and aims to transform the lives of disadvantaged children. She is the founder of Lumos, which is a charity working to do just that, transform the lives of deprived kids. JK Rowling now lives with her Husband and three children in Edinburgh.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Literary Element Analysis: Theme <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Along with, death, bravery and other themes evident in all seven Harry Potter novels, the theme of isolation in especially prominent in the 5th book The Order of the Phoenix. From the very first chapter Harry is once again in isolation from the magical world he calls home. Even after seeing the resurrection of Lord Voldemort and witnessing the murder of Cedric Diggory he is forced to return to his dreadful aunt and uncles Muggle home in Little Whinging. Magic in his Uncle Vernon's house is the dirtiest of swears. When Harry pulls out his wand his uncle grabbed him by the throat saying "Put-it- away! Now! Before- anyone-sees." After the attack on himself and his cousin Duddley by <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">dementors Harry is again left with no information. He becomes furious."Up and down [Harry] paced, consumed with anger and frustration, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists, casting angry looks out at the empty, star-strewn sky every time he passed the window. Dementors sent to get him, Mrs. Figg and Mundungus Fletcher tailing him in secret, then suspension from Hogwarts and a hearing at the Ministry of Magic – and still no one was telling him what was going on." He was forced to use magic in self defense, but the Ministry of Magic had sent him a letter for illegal use of magic, hoping to expel him but no one would talk to Harry to tell him what was happening. He was just left to worry. "So that's it, is it?" he said loudly. "'Stay where you are?' That's all anyone could tell me after I got attacked by those dementors, too! Just stay put while the grown-ups sort it out, Harry! We won't bother telling you, though, because your tiny little brain might not be able to cope with it!" With no letters with any information about the magical world from his best friends Ron and Hermione Harry becomes angry at them. When he is finally united with the magical world he finds things are quieter than he had imagined. Lord Voldemort was working in secret and the Ministry of Magic did not believe Harry and Dumbledore's story of Voldemort's return. Both Harry and Dumbledore are given a very bad reputation. This reputation causes him torment back at school. Everywhere he goes people turn their backs on him with whispers. Even his roommate and friend of four years Seamus Finnigan believes Harry to be a liar and a kook. On Harry's first night back at school he gets in a shouting match with Seamus. After Ron enters and asks what's going on Seamus shouts, "He's mad, is what's going on! Do you believe the rubbish he's coming out with about You-Know-Who?" It was not only friends and Rita Skeeter calling him a lunatic. Even talking objects called him mad.“First sign of madness, talking to your own head.” Harry is not the only one feeling isolated and hated by his friends and the world that he once loved. His godfather, Sirius Black was wrongly arrested for the murder of thirteen people. He had escaped and was now ordered to remain inside his parents old home which he hated. Very similar to Harry being forced to stay in his Aunt and Uncles home all summer. Despite the danger of being recognized by anyone who wanted him dead (Death Eaters or anyone in the magical world who though he was a murder), Sirius took many excursions out into public. He was very bitter about being forced to stay locked up and Harry was very empathetic to how Sirius felt. After his murder Harry raged at Dumbledore saying that people do not like to be kept locked up. Harry blamed himself for Sirius's death but it made him feel better to blame Dumbledore.

Not only was Harry Often physically isolated he was mentally isolated. After the vision/dream where he was a snack and attacked Mr. Weasley he felt like he was in the wrong. "[Harry] felt dirty, contaminated, as though he were carrying some deadly germ, unworthy to sit on the Underground train back from the hospital with innocent, clean people whose minds and bodies were free of the taint of Voldemort ... he had not merely seen the snake, he had been the snake, he knew it now ... " Even his mind felt unsafe and for the he really believed he was a danger to the people around him. This caused him to lock himself away from the people who wanted to help him.

And a final quote summarizing the impact of isolation, “Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike.”


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Related Links: **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Pottermore.com <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">http://harrypotter.bloomsbury.com/author/awards <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">http://www.goodreads.com/quizzes/70-harry-potter-and-the-order-of-the-phoenix <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">http://www.jkrowling.com/en_US/