1 Folktale Structure as the Key to the Success of the Harry Potter Series Dr. Joel Hunter A Brand of Fictional Magic: University of St. Andrews, Scotland May 2, 2012 The Question “Why has the Harry Potter series of books been so popular?” Hypothesis The popularity of the Harry Potter series is due to the books’ narrative structure, in particular, its concordance with a linear sequence of elements typical of folktales 1 as outlined by Vladimir Propp. The aesthetic satisfaction with any particular book in the series positively correlates to that book’s fairy tale structure as enumerated in Propp’s system of 31 functions of a folktale’s dramatis personae. 2 In other words, readers will report less aesthetic satisfaction the less concordance obtains between the tale’s actual morphology and Propp’s scheme; readers will report more aesthetic satisfaction the more concordance obtains between the tale’s actual morphology and Propp’s scheme. Introduction I. Propp and Potter Vladimir Propp was one of the leading figures of the Russian formalist school of literary theory. His seminal work, the Morphology, was published in 1928, but not translated into English until 1958. By that time the winds of theory had shifted in other directions in both Russia and the West. Nevertheless, since the 1960s, this work inspired a number of studies in multiple disciplines among English-speaking scholars. Its applicability to the folktales of other cultures, to other kinds of folk narrative and performance, to non- folklore literature and other cultural materials, and to the learning and transmission of 1 In this paper we will use the terms ‘folktale’ and ‘fairy tale’ interchangeably to describe the same type of literary unit, following the ambiguity inherent to the Russian skázka, the word used in Propp’s Morphology. 2 Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (1928), 2 nd ed., trans. Laurence Scott, ed. Louis A. Wagner (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1968).
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Folktale Structure as the Key to the Success of the Harry Potter Series
Why has the Harry Potter series of books been so popular?” It had everything to do with the folktale structure of the stories.
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Folktale Structure as the Key to the Success of the
Harry Potter Series
Dr. Joel Hunter
A Brand of Fictional Magic: University of St. Andrews, Scotland
May 2, 2012
The Question
“Why has the Harry Potter series of books been so popular?”
Hypothesis
The popularity of the Harry Potter series is due to the books’ narrative structure, in
particular, its concordance with a linear sequence of elements typical of folktales1 as
outlined by Vladimir Propp. The aesthetic satisfaction with any particular book in the
series positively correlates to that book’s fairy tale structure as enumerated in Propp’s
system of 31 functions of a folktale’s dramatis personae.2 In other words, readers will report
less aesthetic satisfaction the less concordance obtains between the tale’s actual morphology
and Propp’s scheme; readers will report more aesthetic satisfaction the more concordance
obtains between the tale’s actual morphology and Propp’s scheme.
Introduction
I. Propp and Potter
Vladimir Propp was one of the leading figures of the Russian formalist school of
literary theory. His seminal work, the Morphology, was published in 1928, but not
translated into English until 1958. By that time the winds of theory had shifted in other
directions in both Russia and the West. Nevertheless, since the 1960s, this work inspired a
number of studies in multiple disciplines among English-speaking scholars. Its applicability
to the folktales of other cultures, to other kinds of folk narrative and performance, to non-
folklore literature and other cultural materials, and to the learning and transmission of
1 In this paper we will use the terms ‘folktale’ and ‘fairy tale’ interchangeably to describe the same
type of literary unit, following the ambiguity inherent to the Russian skázka, the word used in
Propp’s Morphology. 2 Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale (1928), 2nd ed., trans. Laurence Scott, ed. Louis A.
Wagner (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1968).
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fairy tale structure in children has been examined.3 One such study brought to my
attention by a colleague examined the narrative schema in accounts of human evolution.4
The possibility of applying Propp’s schema to the Harry Potter series has been noted
before. The first instance found in the literature is Joan Acocella’s review of the series up to
the then-released Goblet of Fire.5 Acocello claims that Rowling was successful because of
her “utter traditionalism,” and Acocello proceeds to tick off a string of literary genres that
many other readers have identified. She then connects this literary borrowing to Propp,
whose schema of functions she deems a list of “just about every convention ever used in
fairy tales.” She then lists six of the functions and fills them in with plausible story
elements from Philosopher’s Stone. However, Acocello plays fast and loose with Propp’s
work and especially the four morphological laws (see below), treating the functions
precisely as conventions and without respect to the formal organization that is central to
Propp’s scheme. A couple of sentences later Acocello equates Propp’s functions to
archetypes, which is an unhelpful confusion of literary approaches.
In “Of Magicals and Muggles: Reversals and Revulsions at Hogwarts,”6 Jann Lacoss
applies Propp’s schema to The Philosopher’s Stone and The Goblet of Fire. After a brief
paragraph of introduction to Propp, Lacoss claims that “[t]he Harry Potter series seems to
employ these same functions, although not always in the proper order (in the Harry Potter
series, they are actually quite often in the same order as in magic tales).”7 She is quite
correct here, as our own analyses confirmed (albeit with significant variation from Lacoss’
tables, which we will discuss below in “Evaluation”). She also correctly claims that “each
book follows the sequence, and the overall plot of the series also appears to do so.” This is
quite prescient given that Lacoss was working only with the series through Goblet of Fire.
Furthermore, she speculates as we do that the language of tales “may be learned and
sublimated from childhood. Thus when the books were written, Rowling had an instinctive
3 Alan Dundes, Introduction to the 2nd ed of the Morphology (1968), xiv-xv. 4 Pace John M. Lynch, the work is Narratives of Human Evolution by Misia Landau (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1991), x-xi; 3-16. 5 Joan Acocella, “Under the Spell; Harry Potter explained,” The New Yorker (31 July 2000): 74-5.
John Granger also noted Acocello’s article in How Harry Cast His Spell: The Meaning behind the
Mania for J. K. Rowling’s Bestselling Books (Tyndale House, 2008), 21. 6 In The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, Ed. Lana A. Whited
(Univ of Missouri Press, 2004): 67-88. 7 Ibid, 85.
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‘road map,’ so to speak, for creating an engaging tale to which children (and adults) could
easily relate.”8 Like Lacoss, we are not arguing that Rowling followed this structure
intentionally. It is more likely that, like the Potter readers enthralled for reasons they
know not, Rowling followed unconsciously the “cultural script” of folktales in writing the
Hogwarts saga.
II. Morphology of the Folktale
Vladimir Propp finds that the magical folktales of his native Russia conform to a
schema of thirty-one functions. He derived this schema from a systematic analysis done on
a set of 100 stories in the collection of fairy tales compiled by Alexander Afanasyev. Propp
produced symbolized representations for about 50 of those to demonstrate in abstract
description the repetitive and uniform structure of these tales. These morphologies enable
the folklorist to do comparative analysis within individual tales and among multiple tales.
Propp notes that a simple tale can be analyzed by differentiating between elements
that are constant and those that are variable. “The names of dramatis personae change (as
well as the attributes of each), but neither their actions nor functions change. From this we
can draw the inference that a tale often attributes identical actions to various personages.”9
These “functions of the dramatis personae” are the tales’ constants according to Propp.10
His study of tales requires that what the dramatis personae do is the first order
phenomenon in a tale, while who does the action and how it is done are matters for
secondary study. The functions, then, are the atomic elements in Propp’s periodic table of
tales. “Function is understood as an act of a character, defined from the point of view of its
significance for the course of the action.” Functions are the constants in all tales,
“independent of how and by whom they fulfilled.”11 Furthermore, the number of functions is
small compared to the number of characters. This, according to Propp, accounts for two
contrasting features of tales: their uniformity and repetition (thanks to the very limited
number and constancy of functions as set forth formally in the first two morphological laws)
8 85. 9 Propp, 20. 10 He refers to four “theses” (pp 20-3) of which this is the first. It is clear within the pages of the
Morphology that these “theses” function as invariant laws of structure. We therefore refer to them as
Propp’s four morphological laws. 11 Ibid, 21.
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and their “amazing multiformity, picturesqueness, and color”12 (thanks to the settings,
characters, objects, and other variables of infinite variety).
Propp argues that two further structural laws follow from his morphological study of
tales: (3) that the sequence of functions is always identical and (4) that all fairy tales are of
one type in regard to their structure.13 Since the sequential progression of functions is
always the same, there develops a single narrative axis in all fairy tales. The position for a
given function is always the same in every tale, though a particular function need not be
present at all. These two morphological laws are central to our study and assessment of the
Harry Potter series of books.
III. The Big Idea
[Commentary on (a) sequential structural analysis vs. Levi-Strauss’ paradigmatic
structural analysis which organizes stories according to a matrix of paradigmatic thematic
units, typically expressed in a set of oppositions; (b) Propp’s approach is isolated from the
tale’s social and cultural contexts; (c) the approach is a way to begin to answer the question
of HP’s popularity; (d) this approach is helpful because its methods are empirical and
inductive, and the results here are reproducible by a similarly trained analyst; (e)
archetypal analysis, Marxist criticism, feminist criticism, reader-response criticism, and
other semantic-focused theories leap too quickly into genre analysis, authorial intent, and
the social construction of the text without giving due consideration to the historical and
sociological facts of the common cultural patterns that obtain in the narrative structure of
folklore materials of all kinds in both Indo-European and non-Indo-European societies.
Children all over the world hear many fairy tales; most like to hear them repeatedly. By the
time they become readers the narrative sequence of familiar stories has been mapped onto
their minds. Tales “go” a certain way. Specific actions should be present for it to “work” for
the listener or reader. Irrespective of whether we determine the Harry Potter series of
books as a fairy tale according to non-structuralist criteria and methods of analysis, we
should not be surprised that they are structured like other popular stories in bestseller
fiction, comics, graphic novels, movies, and so on. If the Harry Potter series of books does
12 21. 13 22-3.
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not harmonize with Propp’s schema, then we would have to look for others reasons that
readers are so easily and effectively drawn into the story (…)]
Methods
I. Aesthetic Satisfaction of Harry Potter Readers
An online survey was prepared and administered.14 We distributed the survey to
students who had completed our Harry Potter course and to colleagues hosting Harry
Potter-related academic and fan sites. Respondents first answered whether or not they had
read all of the books in the series. Those responding “No” were discarded from the data set.
Next, respondents were asked the number of times they had read through the entire series.
This indicates the probable familiarity the reader has with the story details of the series.
These levels of familiarity are denoted as follows:
A Novice has read the series only once.
An Amateur has read the series more than once but fewer than five times.
An Aficionado has read the series more than five times but fewer than ten.
A Savant has read the series more than ten times.
Respondents then selected the rank order of the books in the series from least aesthetically
satisfying (1) to most aesthetically satisfying (7).
II. Morphological Analysis of the Harry Potter Books and Series
According to Propp, “a tale may be termed any development proceeding from
Villainy [A] or lack [a], through intermediary functions to marriage [W], or to other
functions employed as a dénouement.”15 The analyst tabulates all of the functions in the
tale and then summarizes the results in a symbolic string using Propp’s notation for the
individual functions.
The 31 functions of the dramatis personae are organized in family units. Propp
suggests his taxonomy of group-to-function can be likened to the biological relation of
genus-to-species. Extending the biological metaphor, most functions have varieties which
Propp denotes with numeric superscripts. The function with the largest number of varieties
is Villainy [A] with 19. For the purposes of this study varieties of functions were not
14 Appendix. 15 Propp, 92.
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identified. The six genera of the functions are shown below with the corresponding species