Harry potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (original title in English, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , except in the United States, where it was titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), is the first book in the Harry Potter, written by the British author J. K. Rowling in 1997, which also marked Rowling's debut as a professional writer.

The novel was rejected by several publishers until Bloomsbury Press decided to publish it. The UK edition was released on June 26, 1997, followed in the United States on September 1, 1998 by the Scholastic Corporation edition. Editorial Salamandra obtained in the year 2000 the rights to publish the book in Spanish. In 2007, a first edition signed by Rowling was auctioned in London for £27,876. In addition, a commemorative edition of the novel was released that same year.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has won several literary awards in the United Kingdom and the United States; In August 1999, it reached the top of the list of fiction best-sellers that appears in the newspaper The New York Times, remaining among the first positions on the list during the most of the years 1999 and 2000. Along with the rest of the Harry Potter series, this volume has been criticized by various religious groups and has been banned in some countries due to accusations of promoting secrecy. witchcraft. However, some Christian commentators have written that the book exemplifies important concepts valued in Christian doctrine, including the power of self-sacrifice and the way in which people's decisions shape their personality.

Several adaptations of the novel have been made, including audiobooks, video games, and a feature film released in 2001. The film based on the book was directed by Chris Columbus and became one of the highest-grossing films in history of the cinema.

Plot

Harry Potter grows up in the house of his uncles, the Dursleys, who hide his true family history from him; When Harry turns eleven years old, letters from unknown senders begin to arrive, increasing in number as his uncles do not let him open them. They bring the news that the boy has been admitted to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, since, like his parents, he is a wizard.

The Hogwarts College is the main stage where the events of the series of novels happen.

It is then discovered that the Potters did not die in a car accident as Harry had been told, but had been murdered on Halloween night by a dark wizard known as Lord Voldemort, who had terrorized the wizarding community. British years ago. However, something happened that night: Voldemort managed to kill the Potters but was unable to kill the baby, lost his body and left the child with a permanent lightning-shaped scar on his forehead.

Rubeus Hagrid shows up to take Harry away one night when the Dursleys try to stop him from leaving for school. Later, the man helps Harry buy his school supplies in Diagon Alley and there he discovers that he is famous among wizards for having survived the murder attempt. Later, the boy takes the train that takes him to Hogwarts and there he meets Ron Weasley, a red-haired boy who is the son of wizards, and Hermione Granger, a young girl of Muggle origin with high academic aspirations. The three become friends and later, during their school year, they find themselves involved in a series of episodes related to an object hidden in the depths of the building: the philosopher's stone, an artifact with the power to transmute metals into gold and produce the elixir of eternal life. Different facts make them assume that one of their teachers, Severus Snape, wants to get the stone to deliver it to Voldemort, with whom the teacher would be in cahoots.

After confirming that the spirit of that dark wizard haunts the castle and that the stone is in danger, Harry, Ron and Hermione alert the teachers, but they dismiss this possibility, since the object is protected by various traps in an underground chamber at the college. The three children alone, then, go through the trap door guarded by a three-headed dog and are subjected to different tests until they reach the chamber where the stone is found. Harry discovers that Professor Quirinus Quirrell was the one trying to steal it all along, since Voldemort—who was parasitizing on the professor's neck—had ordered him to. Harry gets the stone and Quirrel attempts to kill him, but fails to survive contact with the boy and dies when Voldemort leaves his body.

After a revealing talk with the school's headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, Harry is reunited with his friends and heads back to his aunt and uncle's house, the school year over.

Main characters of the book

• Harry Potter is the protagonist of the novel. Orphan of parents, Harry lives with his uncles, the Dursleys, and his cousin Dudley, who kept his true identity secret. On his eleventh birthday, Harry begins to receive many letters from the Hogwarts College of Magic and Witchcraft informing him of the availability of a place to study. Rubeus Hagrid assists him to take the trip to high school, helping him buy his school supplies and get to King's Cross Station to take the train. At school you know those who will later become their best friends and together discover that Voldemort wants to seize the philosopher's stone to get immortality.

• Ron Weasley is Harry's best friend. He lives next to his humble family in a picturesque house known as "La Madriguera". Ron has six brothers, two of whom live alone (Bill and Charlie), three of whom attend Hogwarts (Percy, Fred and George) and his little sister, Ginny. In Ron's family, they're all magicians.

• Hermione Granger is one of three protagonists and is the best friend of Harry and Ron. She's a smart girl who had acquired a lot of knowledge about magic even before entering school. Like her friends, she is selected as a student at the Gryffindor house. In addition to being the one who does everything possible to prevent his friends from getting into trouble, his intervention is vital in the attempt to get the philosomal stone before Voldemort, as his knowledge helps him to decipher the riddle of the bottles that consisted of drinking the right one to cross through the flames of fire that prevented them from passing to the next room.

The coat of arms of Hogwarts, a school to which Harry and his friends come.

• Albus Dumbledore is the director of the magic school. Accompanied by Hagrid and McGonagall, he leaves little Harry only a year old at the door of the Dursley House. According to many people, Dumbledore is the only person to whom Lord Voldemort is afraid, as he is recognized as one of the most powerful magicians of the century. At Christmas he gave Harry a layer of invisibility that had belonged to the boy's father. At the end of the book mentions that by mutual agreement with the alchemist Nicholas Flamel had destroyed the philosophical stone created by the latter to avoid future drawbacks.
• Minerva McGonagall is the professor of transformations; she is also the head of the Gryffindor house and is the deputy director of the school. McGonagall is a cheerleader and can adopt the form of a cat. He's the one who gives Harry his first flying broom, the Nimbus 2000, so he can play his first match. quidditch.
• Draco Malfoy is the son of an aristocratic family of pure-blooded magicians—of which he is proud—and a member of the Slytherin house. His parents Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy were on Voldemort's side during the First War. Always try to get Harry, Ron and Hermione into trouble and despise all the people who are children of mugglesAs is the case of the latter.
• Neville Longbottom is a student of the Gryffindor house who is characterized by his clumsiness and bad memory, which is why his grandmother sends him a recorder. His magic skills are rudimentary and in fact his family thought he was not a magician until one day he fell off the roof of his house and began to bounce.
• Rubeus Hagrid is a semi-gigant and the guardian of the keys and land of Hogwarts. After learning that Harry had not received the letters from the school, Hagrid is going to look for him to give him the missives. He accompanys the protagonist in his purchases through the Diagon alley, where he acquires his magic wand and school supplies; in addition, Hagrid buys a lettuce to which Harry calls him Hedwig, which will be the boy's pet and will allow him to send and receive correspondence. Hagrid is a great fan of magical creatures, especially those dangerous beings that the rest of the world fears, something that proves by buying a Norwegian ridgeback dragon that breeds in his cabin.
• Severus Snape is the head of the Slytherin house and professor of potions, but many students rumor that the teacher has always wanted to be the professor of Defense against Dark Arts. From the beginning of the classes, he's the only teacher who shows cheer for Harry and tries to punish him. Snape becomes the main suspect for Harry and his friends when unusual things begin to occur that will then be related to the whereabouts of the philosophal stone; the three initially assume that the teacher wants it for himself, but then deduce that he seeks the artifact for Voldemort. However, Snape turns out to be innocent and, in addition, he would have tried to save Harry from an attempted murder perpetrated by Quirrell.
• Professor Quirrell is the professor of defense against the Dark Arts and true assistant of Voldemort. When Harry arrives in the stone chamber, he meets Quirrell in front of the mirror of Oesed, in which the stone was hidden. Only at the end of the novel is discovered that Quirrell had allowed Lord Voldemort to stay in his body parasiticly. Quirrell does not survive the clash with Harry when Lily Potter's curse flaps his body and Voldemort abandons him.
• Lord Voldemort is the dark witch who terrorized the United Kingdom during the 1970s in a conflict known as the First War. His body was destroyed by the curse he threw against Harry and bounced. He then recruits Quirrell to get the philosophal stone in order to achieve immortality.

History of the book

Development

J. K. Rowling is the author of the series.

The genesis of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is closely linked to the events that took place in the life of its author, the English writer J. K. Rowling, from 1990; that year the author moved with her then partner to the English city of Manchester. After a week of looking for an apartment in the city, Rowling returned to London by train and it was there that it all began: "I really don't know how the idea came about [...] It started with Harry, then all the characters and situations surfaced in my head»; all this current of ideas constituted the outline of the situations that would occur in the school of magic that Rowling would name Hogwarts. During the rest of the trip he elaborated the idea in her mind since she did not have anything to write with, a circumstance that she recognized as beneficial for the creative process of the plot.In that flow of ideas characters such as Ron, Nearly Headless Nick, Rubeus appeared Hagrid and Hermione. The author decided that the story would be divided into seven novels.

That same night he began writing his first novel, which would take five years to complete; During those five years she dedicated herself to creating the entire universe that surrounds the Harry Potter story.The author had written the first paragraphs and drawings on napkins during a trip to Scotland and she used these notes frequently; subsequently, she continued to write her novel on her typewriter.

In the late 1990s, Rowling's mother died of multiple sclerosis, a fact which, the author admits, influenced her writing profoundly; the consequence of this event in her writing is manifested in the fact that Harry is an orphan and in the treatment given to the theme of death in all her novels:

My books are largely about death. They begin with the murder of Harry's parents and there is Voldemort's obsession for conquering death, their search for immortality at any price, the great achievement of anyone who possesses magic. I understand why Voldemort wants to conquer her: we all fear her.

J. K. Rowling.

Nine months after her mother passed away, Rowling, who had studied foreign languages at Exeter College, moved to Porto, Portugal, to teach English as a Foreign Language to students between the ages of 8 and 62; she wrote in local cafes or at school. Six months later, the writer finished the first three chapters of the book and met the journalist Jorge Arantes, whom she married and had a daughter named Jessica. In Portugal she devised many of the central aspects in his novel, such as the philosopher's stone, which became an axial element for the development of the plot; although Rowling already knew details about the stone thanks to her high school chemistry lessons, this object used as the structural principle of the book really arose in 1991 in that country. There she also wrote the chapter "The Mirror of Erised", which recognized as her favorite. The author stated that she did not know very well how to write the first chapter and mentioned that there are many versions of it; in those appeared characters who were completely eliminated from the plot, the Potters lived on an island and the Grangers on the coast and Voldemort could be seen arriving at Godric's Hollow before committing the murder of the Potters. Rowling acknowledged that the final version of the first chapter did not turn out to be "the most popular thing I've ever written" as many people have found it difficult to read. "The problem with that chapter was (as so often happens in the Harry Potter books) that it had to put in a lot of information and hide a lot more at the same time."

In late 1993, the writer returned to the UK as she had divorced and her job was not working; Rowling went to live with her daughter at the home of her sister and her brother-in-law in Edinburgh, although she subsequently moved in succession to different apartments. She had great difficulties writing since she was going through a depression and since she could not hire a nanny for her daughter, everything was "doubly difficult". In order to continue writing her novel, she began to frequent her brother-in-law's café, where he could sit quietly when there weren't many customers with his daughter, whom he previously took for a walk until she fell asleep and thus made it easier for her to write. In that place he was able to finish writing the book.

After finishing her work in 1996 and typing two copies of it, Rowling went to the Edinburgh Central Library to find literary agents. She sent the first three chapters to an agent, but he turned them down, then sent them to another. Christopher Little Literary Agents agreed to find a publisher that could publish the manuscript. After twelve publishers rejected the book, the author received approval—and a £1,500 advance—in 1996 from publisher Barry Cunningham, who worked for a small London publisher called Bloomsbury Publishing. "[...] I received a reply letter. I assumed it was a rejection slip, but inside the envelope was a letter that said, “Thank you. We will be delighted to receive your manuscript. ", the writer read the letter eight times and considers it the best letter she had received in her life. This decision may be due to the fact that the editor's daughter, an eight-year-old girl at the time, read the first chapter of the book and wanted to read how it continued; the girl told her father that this fragment was "much better than anything else", so her father decided to publish the novel.

Post

After approval, the publisher paid Rowling £2,500. However, the publisher was less concerned with the length of the book than with the name of its author; Little had realized that men rarely read fiction written by women and so the editors asked Rowling to adopt a pen name that did not show her full name. Just prior to publication, Rowling adopted the pen name "J. K. Rowling" to hide the name "Joanne"; the "K" stands for "Kathleen", a name she borrowed from her grandmother. The publisher also initially suggested the name Harry Potter and the School of Magic. the school of magic) but the author objected, although in the French edition it was published with a translation of that title into French (Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers).

Prior to publishing the book, Bloomsbury sent copies to various reviewers and publishers to gather some feedback on the book and gauge feedback. This also sought to get some criticism to support the publication of a work by an unknown author. After receiving glowing reviews, Cunningham hired an unknown illustrator, Thomas Taylor, to edit the book, partly due to a tight budget. The cover illustration remained unchanged in later editions, but the back cover illustration was altered as it it showed Albus Dumbledore with a brown beard and not a silver beard as he is described in the book.

In June 1997, Bloomsbury published The Philosopher's Stone with an initial print run of 500 copies, of which 300 were distributed to libraries. The initial print run had some hardcover copies but was edited mostly in paperback or rustic format and did not receive any further promotion than the one already carried out by the publisher after contacting critics and editors. The response was not immediate but the novel received enthusiastic reviews in the newspapers The Scotsman and The Glasgow Herald. Prior to the English publication of the book, Christopher Little had organized an auction for the rights to publish the book in the United States. Arthur Levine of the Scholastic Corporation had read the book during a transatlantic flight and in April 1997 bought the publishing rights at the Bologna Book Fair; he paid $105,000, an amount estimated to be excessive for a children's genre novel. Rowling received the news three days after the novel's British publication. After lengthy debate, the title was changed to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) since the editorial considered that the word philosopher (philosopher i> in translation) would give the impression that the book dealt with philosophical subjects and would have no commercial appeal. Rowling later stated that she regretted this change and would have fought harder to maintain the original title if she had been in a better position. Philip Nel noted that because of the change, the novel's connection to alchemy and the meaning of other changed terms were lost in the translation from British English to American English. The novel was published in the United States in 1998 and in October of that same year. year, Rowling toured ten days around the country giving interviews to promote the book.

Since the UK editions were published a few months before the US version, some US readers became familiar with the British English versions they purchased online, which sparked controversy. The same thing happened with its successor, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, for which the publisher Scholastic denounced Amazon.com —an Internet sales site— for not taking into account territorial rights and, therefore, acting illegally.

Commemorative Editions

In January 2007, Bloomsbury published a new version of the book for the publisher's 21st anniversary that included a short introduction written by Rowling herself. In September 2008 Scholastic also published another edition for the 10th anniversary. 10th anniversary of the book's publication in the United States, which included a new front and back cover illustration by Mary GrandPré, who had illustrated previous US editions.

Criticism

The novel received favorable reviews, particularly regarding Rowling's imagination, humor, and writing style, though some complained that the final chapters seemed rushed. The work was compared with texts by Jane Austen —one of Rowling's favorite authors—, by Roald Dahl —in whose works stories of children subverting the order of adults predominate—, and with the work of the Greek poet Homer, whose His style was compared to Rowling's: "quick, simple and direct in expression". Some of these comments noted that the novel took up Victorian and Edwardian themes such as life in English boarding schools, while others suggested that the novel introduced important topics related to today's society.

United Kingdom

The alchemist Nicolas Flamel is, in the novel, the creator of the philosopher's stone.

“Rowling uses classic narrative devices with originality and ease, delivering a hugely entertaining thriller, with a complex and demanding plot,” commented Lindsey Fraser in one of the first reviews the novel received; In it, she highlighted the credibility achieved in the construction of the protagonist and the realism that the author had injected into her work. Her comment published in The Scotsman preceded other favorable opinions that she obtained Rowling's debut novel. The Glasgow Herald also called the book "an utterly riveting fantasy that takes flight from its first page".

Given the repercussion that the book had obtained in Scotland, national newspapers began to echo the sales phenomenon. Thus, The Sorcerer's Stone garnered reviews in widely distributed publications such as The Guardian and from The Sunday Times and The Mail on Sunday, who also noted parallels to Dahl's work. Books for Keeps editor Rosemary Stone selected the novel and published a review of it in the September issue of 1997; "Rowling is a most exciting and vigorous new talent," concluded the specialist from the column dedicated to new authors.

United States

The commentary published in The Boston Globe again emphasized the similarities with the work of Roald Dahl. Liz Rosenberg, who wrote the review, felt that The Sorcerer's Stone met many of the criteria that could make it a classic of children's literature. However, the commentator also noted that the last twenty pages of the novel suffered from a hasty resolution and from the lack of development of some characters. More glowing reviews appeared throughout 1998 in publications such as School Library Journal , Booklist, and Publishers Weekly; In the latter, the plurality of elements that the author had included in her work stood out, delivering a mixture of mystery, humor and fantasy.

In the online magazine Salon another glowing comment appeared, this time from Christopher Taylor; He said that despite the prejudices that a novel of these characteristics could arouse (because of its possible didacticism or its eventual morals), reading it managed to overcome any negative expectations:

I don't think anyone can read 100 pages Harry Potter and Philosopher Stone without beginning to feel that unmistakable chill that tells you that you are facing a classic. [...] I do not want to be condescending with Rowling and say that she has written a wonderful children's novel; what she has written is a wonderful novel and point. And for those who insist that novels should teach a lesson, that of Harry Potter be the only one that matters in literature: separate the muggles of the magicians.

Two reviews that appeared in The New York Times in 1999 added to the praise the book had already received. Michael Winerip wrote:

As was the case with Roald Dahl, J. K. Rowling has largely this gift to maintain the emotions, fears and victories of his characters on a human scale, even though the supernatural appears everywhere.

The editor also commented on the mischievous humor that Rowling displayed, although, in his opinion, the novel failed in the last chapters in terms of the development of some characters. The other comment, signed by Pico Iyer in October, commented on the curious effect produced when a novel so steeped in English literary traditions (such as the story being set in boarding schools) reached a culture as different as that of the United States; in these cases, what in the original culture was perceived with a certain degree of realism or worldliness became something exotic, a fact in which he found a point of comparison between The Philosopher's Stone and One Hundred Years of solitude by Gabriel García Márquez.

However, despite all the positive reviews the book had received, literary theorist Harold Bloom wrote a negative review of the book that appeared in the Wall Street Journal newspaper in November 2000. Bloom argued, among other things, that the novel lacked good writing but also suffered from more important problems such as a lack of imagination and a debt to earlier works of English literature. He in turn compared Rowling to other writers such as Stephen King, John Grisham or Tom Clancy who had great sales of her titles but who, in his opinion, lacked talent.

Other countries

Given the furor caused by the success of the novel, writers and specialists from various countries began to speak out for or against it.

In Argentina, the media reported a profusion of opinions from local writers about the novel. The writer Ana María Shua, who has published children's and youth stories, commented:

The books of the series I love for the boys, although they do not bring great news: they are classic and without experimentation, but are well done, they are round, with a good narrative structure and full of knowledge about the relationships between the boys and these with the adults.

Graciela Cabal, with a similar opinion, spoke about the author's skill in structuring the story: «Each chapter is a clear structure, which also closes with a certain suspense. And the present horror is so much that it ends up merging into very English humor." Similar comments by Santiago Kovadlof, Eduardo Gudiño Kieffer also appeared: and Ema Wolf; the latter wrote that "Although it does not contribute anything new in the field of literature and is not surprising, this does not detract from its merits, because it is not an ambitious book". On the other hand, Beatriz Ferro declared that the book had disappointed her and Margara Averbach stated that the elitism she saw in the books disgusted her.

Colombian writer and teacher Yolanda Reyes said that despite the book's defects «there is [in it] a touch of freshness, ingenuity and humor, as well as a careful construction of that atmosphere between everyday and unusual, which it gives the novel its greatest power of seduction and captivates the readers". i> pointed out that the influences of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis were felt in the novel but that it also managed to build its own identity. Sonia Sierra indicated in the Mexican newspaper El Universal that in the novel "Harry it has an enormous capacity to captivate readers. In addition, at home the book is read by several people.

Xavier Riesco Riquelme, who lives in Spain, also received the novel as a surprise in the face of what he described as "a market full of politically correct products."

With this curious mixture of fantasy (dragons, unicorns and gnomes) and novel about children in school (matons, enemies of playground and bone teachers), Harry Potter's story is inscribed by his own right among the best novelties of child literature. In addition, it is possible to read it at almost any age and enjoy it, a considerable achievement in any genre.

Religious disputes

Some religious groups have held that books Harry Potter incite to practice witchcraft.

The novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, along with the entire series, has been the victim of controversies sparked by different religious groups under accusations that it contains satanic texts and promotes witchcraft. Nancy Flanagan Knapp, looking for those elements that could be interpreted as an apology for witchcraft, concluded that although the Potions classes taught by Severus Snape could be taken as an example to support the aforementioned accusations, they rather resembled a simple class. chemistry rather than esoteric rituals. The series was at the top of the American Library Association's "Most Questioned Books" list for the period from 1999 to 2001. In addition, people from New Mexico organized an event to burn the books in the series on the grounds that the stories taught witchcraft, satanism, and the occult.

In the United States there have been calls to exclude school books; These, on many occasions, led to challenges and restrictions on the use of books as the maximum consequence. In one such case, Pastor Tony Leanz claimed that Harry Potter promoted the Wiccan religion and, taking the novel as a book with religious content used in public institutions, argued that it violated the separation of the State and the Church. In 2003, the Catholic World Report criticized the protagonist of the novels for the lack of respect he showed towards rules and authority, and considered that the series mixed the magical worlds and mundane as "a fundamental rejection of the divine order in creation".

In 2003, Gabriele Kuby published a book entitled Harry Potter: Good or Evil in which he wrote that "the Harry Potter books corrupt hearts." of the young, hindering the development of a well-ordered sense of right and wrong, and thereby damage their relationship with God while it is still developing." In 2005, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger—later Pope Benedict XVI—received a copy of Kuby's manuscript; Shortly before becoming Supreme Pontiff, Ratzinger—who had once been prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith—described novels as a potentially corrupting influence on children, stating that they had "subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and thus deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can properly develop"; he later gave permission for the publication of the letter expressing that view. However, Peter Fleetwood, a British priest who helped writing an official document on New Age phenomena in 2003, mentioned that the Harry Potter stories are moral stories that teach children the importance of making sacrifices to overcome evil; "They are not bad and they do not fight against Christian ideology either," the priest declared.

Response from other religious groups has been positive. Rowling mentioned that her books “Just as they have been attacked from a theological perspective, [so] have they been praised and mentioned in pulpits; And for me, the most interesting and satisfying thing is that several different religions have done it. The author also remarked that the books are not "exclusively" Christian and that she never attempted to write an allegory as C. S. Lewis did with The Chronicles of Narnia. Emily Griesinger wrote that fantasy literature helps children to deal with reality; According to her, The Sorcerer's Stone describes Harry's first step across Platform 9 ¾ as a plea for faith and hope and his encounter with the Sorting Hat as the first of many occasions on which Harry appears determined by the decisions he makes. Griesinger pointed out that the sacrifice of Harry's mother constituted the form of "deeper magic" that, above the "technological magic" also present in the novel, was capable of defeating everything and that is what "the hunger for power" Voldemort doesn't understand."

Analysis

Structure

The novel works through the classic three-act structure, with an introduction set in the Muggle world and both the middle and the resolution in the school; the structure is completed with the subsequent return to the world from which it starts. This simple structure, which is repeated in almost all the books in the series, helps to create a feeling of familiarity with the text. the plot is Harry's initial journey to Hogwarts School and the process of self-discovery that the protagonist goes through, but then the intrigue around the philosopher's stone becomes the axis of the book. According to Julia Eccleshare, Rowling takes advantage of the mechanism of the search as a dramatic engine, a structural principle and a way of characterizing the characters involved in it morally. Polly Shullman commented regarding this novel structure that "The first book had a dramatic trajectory Simple: Harry is sure he knows who the good guys and the bad guys are, but he assumes wrong."

Shullman also compared the structure of each volume to a series of sonnets, since although the settings and situations are often repeated following the model of The Philosopher's Stone, Rowling does not write each chapter as a part independent but with a sense of trajectory and dramatic evolution.

Themes

The main theme of the book is happiness, which in the author's words has been in her work from the beginning. In the first chapter of the novel the death of the Potters is announced and, from that moment, fatality haunts the protagonist. The intrigue surrounding the Philosopher's Stone is motivated by Voldemort's ambition, who wishes to be immortal through the elixir of life. «The question of immortality is almost always present in the imagination of J. K. Rowling. The whole first book revolves around Voldemort's desire to get the stone [...]" commented David Colbert about it.

Love-motivated self-sacrifice is another central theme in this book and throughout the saga, according to Daniel Mitchell. Love is the force that can stop Voldemort's power since he is completely unaware of its power and how it operates. Furthermore, Mitchell sees certain Christian resonances in Lily Potter's sacrifice for the life of her only child, which are then repeated in other characters such as Dumbledore and Dobby throughout the novel cycle.

According to Gwen Tarbox, The Sorcerer's Stone also addresses the issue of relationships between children and adults based on the concept of "infantile innocence" derived from the Enlightenment; this conception determines that an "innocent" child is one who ignores certain facts. According to Tarbox's analysis, a relationship is established between Harry and Dumbledore based on the possession of knowledge that the latter provides to the former, a relationship that reaches its peak in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Power and the temptation for it constitute another thematic nucleus. Alan Jacobs noted that magic, as described by Rowling, functions as a metaphor for the role technology plays in the real world and that its mastery is to learn it through study; characters such as Voldemort display an ambition to master that magic that has made them go to the dark side. A. O. Scott has argued that Harry is faced with promises of power and greatness when he chooses not to be part of Slytherin house, but maintains that the boy will inevitably be tempted by power at other times. Shullman, by contrast, is of the opinion that Harry He does not present that type of doubt, but his temptations have more to do with longing for loved ones who are not with him, as would be seen in his relationship with the Mirror of Erised.

On the other hand, the novel also shows as one of its themes the power of the word and its relationship with Harry's path as the protagonist of the series of novels. Lucas Gagliardi argued that this novel, in particular, links Harry's access to language (from specific wizarding community terminology or Voldemort's name and epithets) to his growing up and construction of his identity. Regarding this theme and its treatment, The Philosopher's Stone is related to the genre of the learning novel.

Intertextuality and influences

It has been pointed out that the Harry Potter saga —and The Philosopher's Stone in particular— bears stylistic, thematic and narrative similarities with other works that preceded it both in the English literature as well as in the literary production of other countries. These intertextual relationships (a category proposed by Julia Kristeva on the basis of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin), according to what most specialists point out, are manifested in Rowling's work through the reworking of situations, characters and ideas. Regarding these reworkings, the professor at the University of Almería, Blasina Cantizano Márquez, wrote that:

Knownly or not, Rowling takes the best ingredients of English-language youth literature, to create some characters and to draw up stories that captivate the reader, (...) is precisely because of this synthesizing and recreational ability so today we must value Rowling's contribution to contemporary fantastic literature.

Fairy tale

Taking into account the investigations carried out by the child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim and the historian Joseph Campbell applying psychoanalytic categories to the analysis of folkloric stories, it was pointed out that Harry Potter recasts archetypes loaded with deep meanings. In The Uses of Enchantment, Bettelheim proposed that the fairy tale was the only type of children's story from which solutions to humanity's great problems could be inferred; Richard Bernstein, following the Austrian psychologist, asserted that viewed from the point of view of child readers, The Philosopher's Stone expresses the terrors of childhood, which makes it appealing to such readers. The text reflects the fear of parental cruelty and competition with siblings through Harry's relationship with the Dursleys; This family link makes the text related to stories like "Cinderella". The novel also reflects the anguish arising from the abandonment or disappearance of the parents (as in "Hansel and Gretel") and the insecurities in the face of changes and adaptations that the protagonist must go through, for example, when entering Hogwarts. Another inheritance One of these narratives is the clear distinction between the father figures recognized as benign (the Potters) and the surrogate and hostile father figures (the Dursleys), who operate as two sides of the same coin but appear split due to issues of conceptualization of the mind. childish. However, the protagonist differs from the central characters in these narratives since Harry does not usually have the help of any supernatural helper, but must solve problems himself. Another difference occurs with a very important element. common in fairy tale lore: the mirror; while in most of these stories the mirror is a disturbing element or the door to other worlds, in Rowling's text it is an element that allows catharsis and the strengthening of the personality.

“Hansel and Gretel”, one of the many fairy tales that merge Harry Potter.

At a structural level, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is also related to fairy tales for having a happy ending —a sine qua non condition of this type of storytelling — which comes after a series of surmountable obstacles. "Morality is not the theme of these stories," Bettelheim stated, "but to give the assurance that one can get ahead." Another structural characteristic similar to the aforementioned stories is the repetition of scenarios and situations that The Philosopher's Stone establishes throughout almost the entire saga. Colbert, supported by the structural theories expressed by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, pointed out that the beginning of each story in the suburb of Little Whinging with the Dursleys and the return to the "real world" after The adventures at Hogwarts is related to the cyclical nature that Campbell attributed to all folk tales and to Harry's role as the embodiment of a heroic archetype. The latter crosses literature and cinema with works as dissimilar as the Odyssey and Star Wars.

Novel set in schools and bildungsroman

Cantizano Márquez pointed out that the series is influenced by the realistic literature that had its peak in England during the Victorian era; for the researcher, these influences can be seen in the fact that the plot of the novel develops in settings that the reader can recognize as everyday (a school, the suburbs, London, etc.). The presence of the Hogwarts Institute also relates the novel to the subgenre of stories set in schools; among these, the predecessors with which Rowling's work has been most closely associated are David Copperfield by Charles Dickens and School Days of Tom Brown written by Thomas Hughes, novel which some have described as the direct and non-magical antecedent of Harry Potter. Even more similarities can be drawn between The Sorcerer's Stone and Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones or Jill Murphy's The Worst Witch, stories featuring wizarding schools; with Murphy's novels, moreover, there are great similarities in the description of Hogwarts and its possible location in Scotland. In fact, it was pointed out that it is precisely the elements of the British boarding school that make Harry Potter unimaginable as American fiction since the latter country does not have a school tradition of this type.

The literary works set in British boarding schools have influenced the work of J. K. Rowling.

The tradition of the boarding school novel to which Rowling connects explores such issues as rivalries, rites of passage, friendships and relationships with authority, and school sports. Robert Kirkpatrick opined that Rowling's novels lead to the extreme the possibilities of this subgenre, and Kelly O'Brien affirmed that the novel directly subverts the norms of the subgenre since there is a female character like Hermione who is at the same level as the other two protagonists, an atypical fact since these types of stories do not usually give much room for female characters. Pico Iyer, for his part, established numerous similarities between Hogwarts school and the Oxford Dragon School that he attended as a young man.

The Philosopher's Stone also establishes in the novel cycle the characteristics of the bildungsroman genre or educational novel, since, together with the tradition of fictions set in schools, the The entire saga follows the evolutionary process of Harry, who goes from childhood to adolescence throughout the series. In this sense, the novel could be related to the saga started by A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin and Wise Child by Monica Furlong, novels that address the education of a wizard protagonist. In addition, the Harry Potter series also offers a buildgunsroman of co-stars Ron and Hermione, an unusual detail in the genre. of the Harry Potter series for many of these exponents is that the formation of the protagonist is not given only in a personalized way —generally under the tutelage of a wise mentor such as Dumbledore— but rather It complements the school situation where a teacher instructs many students simultaneously.

Worldview

Rowling does not conceive of the world in which her novels take place by adopting the high fantasy model of Tolkien or Le Guin. The plot of her books does not take place in an alternate universe and completely separate from the real world; on the contrary, the Harry Potter universe exists within the world considered "real" and has contacts with it on various occasions. Seen through Hogwarts, the setting created by Rowling appears mutable and in constant change unlike the realities established in the works of the aforementioned authors.

This, as has been pointed out, makes it easier for the reader to suspend disbelief and enter the world that the novel proposes, since they are given points of reference in known reality. The book begins in the modern city of London and all that pertains to the wizarding community coexists in a form hidden from the view of non-wizards. This "hidden reality" has a geopolitical, educational and economic organization, other points of reference for the reader. In the world of Harry Potter, magic cannot solve any problem; Tom Morris wrote that the problems presented in the novel were rarely solved by magic, but rather by a combination of different classical human virtues.

It has also been said that the England described by Rowling is purely literary, as it retains the fundamental features of an Edwardian image of the country that appears very frequently in national children's literature.

Characters

Lord Voldemort has similar traits to those of Satan in the Paradise lost.

Diverse configurations are perceived in Rowling's characters that relate them to the creations of other authors. In the case of Harry, for example, Colbert commented on the many similarities that Harry has with other literary heroes thanks to the monomial that Joseph Campbell described. Other researchers have pointed out more specific similarities with heroes like King Arthur, since like him, Harry is a "dispossessed prince" who does not know his lineage.As for his orphan status, multiple sources have been pointed out; Philip Nel stated that Harry has many similarities with the protagonist of Oliver Twist but even more with James Trotter, the central character of James and the Giant Peach, since both had been raised by uncles who forced them to live in small quarters.

In other characters in the novel, intertextual features are also seen: Voldemort would represent in Rowling's work what the figure of Satan represents in John Milton's Paradise Lost, a being that has decanted on the dark side due to his desire for power; Dumbledore would embody the figure of the wise man like Tolkien's wizard Gandalf; and certain theological conceptions of Milton; the Dursleys are similar in terms of their repressive function, peripheral position and ideology to the Wormwoods who mortify the protagonist of Matilda, also by Dahl.

Cultural Impact

Awards and distinctions

After publication and reception by specialized critics, the novel won several literary awards in the English-speaking world; among the awards received in British territory, the National Book Award stands out, which was awarded to him in 1997. That same year, the Youth Libraries Group awarded J. K. Rowling with the gold medal of the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize, which he chose The Philosopher's Stone as the best novel for the 9-11 age group, beating novels by Philip Pullman and Henrieta Branford. For Julia Eccleshare, this latest award established the popularity of the book, she says, since in addition to having been shortlisted by a jury made up of critics, illustrators and writers, the final result depended on the children's vote, a strong indicator of the acceptance of the book. He also won - already in 1998 - most of the literary prizes in which children officiated as judges: the Children's Book Award, the Young Telegraph Paperback of the Year Award, the Birmingham Cable Children's Book Award and the Sheffield's Children Book Award. In addition, The Philosopher's Stone was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian's Children's Book Prize, both prizes chosen by adults. Other awards were given to her for her business performance in the book industry; specifically the British Book Award in the Children's Book of the Year category and the Author of the Year award given by the Bookseller's Association.

In the United States, the novel was selected for the ALA Notable Book and for the Best Book of the Year category of the Publisher's Weekly Awards, both in 1998. The Sorcerer's Stone won neither of these two distinctions, but Parenting Magazine and the New York Public Library gave it the Best Book of the Year award in 1998. Other awards won they were the School Library Journal's Best Book of the Year and the one awarded by the American Library Association in the category Outstanding Book and Best Book for Young Adults.

Impact on various disciplines

The book has been analyzed from areas such as education, psychology and marketing.

Recreation of the Anden 93⁄4, from which part in the popular fiction of the series Harry Potter the express from London to Hogwarts, mounted between the 9th and 10th platforms of King's Cross station. It represents a cart crossed on the wall, as it happens in the book.

Already in 1986, specialists in the field of education had discovered that children's literacy was directly related to the number of words read per year, which improved their reading comprehension, even in the cases of learning one second language; it was also noted that children read much more if they found material they liked. Nancy Flanagan Knapp argued that the novel had all the hallmarks of a book that encourages reading. In addition, a 2001 New York Times survey estimated that nearly 60% of children in the United States between the ages of 6 and 17 had read at least one Harry Potter; of this group, at least 50% had read The Philosopher's Stone. Since the first two volumes of the series are quite long, Knapp calculated that a child who had read the first four would have read more than four times the number of pages of school texts read in a year. This would improve the children's skills. and their motivation to read.

Regarding teaching in the field of educational psychology, Jennifer Conn contrasted the expertise in her area of teaching demonstrated by the character Severus Snape with his method of bullying students; on the other hand, the quidditch coach, Madame Hooch, illustrates useful techniques in teaching physical skills, such as breaking complex actions into simple sequences to help students avoid common mistakes. Joyce Campos remarked that the books illustrate four of the five main themes of sociology: "Sociological concepts such as culture, society and socialization, social stratification and inequality, social institutions, and social theory".

An article was published on the official CNN website highlighting Harry Potter as a curriculum at many colleges. Danielle Tumminio, a Yale graduate, teaches in a chair called Christian Theology and Harry Potter, where students examine Christian-related themes such as sin, evil, and resurrection present in the series.

The mirror of Erised, showing the viewer what they want most, has been used as a metaphor for the way pharmaceutical advertising exploits the enthusiasm of doctors to save lives and eradicate suffering. Stephen Brown noted that the early Harry Potter books, especially The Sorcerer's Stone, were a great success despite an inadequate and poorly organized promotional campaign, and he advised marketing executives to worry less about rigorous statistical analysis and the "analysis, planning, execution and control" of the management model. Instead, he recommended that the Harry Potter stories be viewed as "a master class in marketing" filled with attractive products. As a result, the toy maker Hasbro licensed in 2001 a real version of each Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, a fictional candy from the series.

Explanations about the success of Harry Potter

Given the unprecedented success of the novel, different explanations arose that tried to clarify the reason for this phenomenon. The variety of explanations is very wide, since some of them resort to the socioeconomic and cultural context, others pay attention to the marketing operations that accompanied the publication of the novels, and a third group looks for justifications in the type of materials in the publication. literary tradition Rowling works with as well as other intrinsic features of the work.

Zack Snipes believes that the novel's success was due to a strong marketing campaign. Andrew Blake argued in The Irresistible Rise of Harry Potter that the success of the series of books could not be explained simply by resorting to a marketing campaign as an exegesis of the phenomenon. "That doesn't explain how a children's book that was initially published in a print run of 500 copies... gains worldwide attention in the first place, or why that book, and the subsequent series, are so appealing to adults" The success of the novels would be related to the way in which Rowling impacted her novel in a specific political and cultural context. As for the first, England was going through a crucial moment when the novel appeared: the country was redefining its position towards globalization and a change in the British cultural paradigm was taking place; As for the latter, Harry Potter arrived in the midst of a literary scene dominated by political correctness.

Other more immanentist positions analyzed what characteristics of the text provoked the fascination of the public. Some like Anne Hiebert Alton determined that the fusion of different genres and themes constituted an attractive whole for the readership; Peter Appelbaum, on the other hand, affirmed that the interest that the novel arouses has to do with the presentation of magic as consumer technology. For the Christian specialist Daniel Mitchell, the supposed attraction to witchcraft that the books would generate is not enough for explain success; Rather, she believes, the latter could be explained by the characteristics of the text, such as the protagonist who embodies the archetype of the helpless orphan who generates empathy with the reader. For Gwen Tarbox, it is also not enough to explain the popularity of the books by understanding the epic confrontation between Harry and Voldemort that these present; For her, the appeal of the series lies in the protagonist's constant struggle to distance himself from innocence and ignorance.

Translations

It is estimated that by February 2018, the book series had managed to sell more than 500 million copies and that the first book had been translated into more than 80 different languages.

In addition to the languages currently spoken, Bloomsbury publishing house has published translations into classical Latin (under the name Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis) and ancient Greek in order to encourage the study of the classical languages; it should be noted that this translation represents the longest text published in ancient Greek and the first classic of children's literature translated into that language. The Greek translation was carried out by the scholar Andrew Wilson and its translation has it has been described as "one of the most important pieces of ancient Greek prose to have been written for many centuries". The Latin translation, on the other hand, was done by Peter Needham; the translator renamed the protagonist of the saga based on the name "Arrius" that appears in a poem by Gaius Valerius Catullus.

The first editions in Spanish were in charge of the Emecé publishing house, although later this book and the rest of the series were reissued by Editorial Salamandra; the translator Alicia Dellepiane Rawson was in charge of translating Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , this being her only participation in the Spanish-speaking publication of the series. Some investigations have analyzed certain aspects of the translation of the book that show deficiencies and represent difficulties for the interpretation of the book. For the most part, aspects related to proper names and their semantic load have been studied which, since they have not been replaced by equivalent words in Spanish, would produce a loss in the interpretative value of the texts.

Accommodations

Movie

Locomotive of the Hogwarts Express used in the film.

In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights to the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for £1 million ($1,982,900 or €1,127,861). Rowling demanded that the main cast be nationals British, but some Irish actors such as Richard Harris who played Albus Dumbledore were allowed to participate. The main roles of the cast fell to Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, playing Harry, Ron and Hermione respectively. Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, and Tom Felton played the roles of Dumbledore, Hagrid, Snape, McGonagall, and Draco Malfoy.

In the early stages of the project, Steven Spielberg was brought in to direct, but he turned the offer down and director Chris Columbus was eventually selected; the production was in charge of David Heyman and the script was written by the American Steve Kloves. Filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Studios and ended in July of the following year. The theatrical release occurred worldwide on November 4, 2001, achieving such success on the first day that it grossed $33.3 million in the United States, thus breaking box office records. The film's total collection was $974,733. 550 worldwide, making it the second highest-grossing film in history, since it lost years later although it remains among the top 10 highest-grossing films until 2010; however, it continues to be second of all films. films of the series since the last part, the eighth film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, released in July 2011, grossed more than 1.3 billion dollars worldwide, ranking third among the highest-grossing films in film history, behind James Cameron's Avatar and Titanic. In addition, the film received three Oscar nominations in the categories of best soundtrack, best costume design and best production design.

Video Games

Loosely based on the novel of the same name, the video games were released between 2001 and 2003, generally under the US title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Most of them were distributed by the Electronic Arts company although they were produced by different companies.

Electronic Arts distributed and released the game for the PC (with Microsoft Windows operating system), Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and PlayStation platforms in 2001. In 2002, Aspyr Media released it. released for Mac OS 9. By 2003, the game was released (again by EA) for the Gamecube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox consoles.

Audiobook

The book, like all the novels in the series, was also published in the audiobook format in its original language. This occurred around the year 2002 and featured the voice of actor Stephen Fry for the version distributed in Great Britain, while in the United States version the narration was provided by Jim Dale.

In 2003, Editorial Salamandra published a Spanish version of the novel, and it had a total duration of eight hours. The version for Spain featured the voice of Eduard Farelo, while the versions distributed in Mexico and Argentina had the works of actors Christopher Smith and Gustavo Di Sarro, respectively. This was the only installment of the saga that was published in Spanish. The audiobook is made up of a total of eight discs and, at the express indication of J.K. Rowling, does not contain music or special effects.