Harry Potter Poverty

Is it coincidental that Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Bill Joy and many other multi-millionaires were all born within a span of 3 years? Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Outliers, suspects that there is something more behind this occurrence than just a simple coincidence. He asserts that there is no such thing as a self-made man and success does not come from natural talent, rather it comes from extraordinary opportunities and hidden advantages. In Outliers, Gladwell attempts to debunk the myth that people are successful because of themselves, and not because of other factors. Even Malcolm Gladwell acknowledges that passion and hard work are required to succeed. However, he believes that this passion and time to put in the work would not be possible without the aid of extraordinary opportunities. Gladwell prepares a firm set of logical arguments, including the advantages of birth dates, cultural legacy and family backgrounds, to guarantee that his audience will be convinced of his conviction.

One of the most prominent examples of this issues is poverty. Multiple characters are portrayed in the series as living in poverty, from the Weasley family to Remus Lupin. But this poverty is created due to a limitation of magic creating a scarcity of resources such as food and other goods. As Rowling said in an interview “Something that you conjure out of thin air will not last.” (World Exclusive) If we posit a world where magic is limitless, families like the Weasleys would not exist. Limitless magic would mean that anything could be conjured permanently, so there would be no such thing as a scarce resource. Anthony Giddens suggests that one definition of a post-scarcity society is the one given by Marx, where there is abundance for everyone.

All this has added to the growing popularity of the Harry Potter brand that is everywhere today. Young readers can relate to Harry’s issues and the books create another world the readers can subconsciously ‘escape’ too.

J.K Rowling is now the author of a $20 billion worth book series that has been translated into 72

Hundreds of students, parents, and faculty members gathered and created an audience to witness J.K Rowling’s speech at Harvard University in 2008. J.K Rowling is a well-known author, famous for her Harry Potter book series, and much more. Rowling’s speech was well thought out, and delivered excellently, with three main points she addresses throughout the speech. The three points being: failure can lead a person to success, never give up hope on your dreams and aspirations, and lastly Rowling emphasizes the importance of imagination. Sometimes we fail to see that the obstacles in our life help shape the road to our success in the future, and Rowling points out to us that failures and obstacles is what helped us become successful , and to never ignore that.

However, there are many great people who had overcome adversity through being grit. For example, a famous author, J.K. Rowling is known for her best-selling series Harry Potter. However, Rowling was not rich or famous before the series, she faced many challenges throughout her life. Around the age of twenty-five, Rowling discovered that her mother died from a disease, later, she got married, but she struggled in her marriage with her husband, soon they got a divorce. In addition, Rowling was a single mother, who took care of her daughter on welfare. Through the struggle, wanting to commit a suicide, she decided to do something that she is very passionate about, writing. At this point, Rowling’s began to take a drastic turn for the better, the idea of writing a Harry Potter book. Years later, after she had finally finished the book, she sent it to an agent, but it got declined. Even though

C.S. Lewis is one of the greatest authors in history. His books are still widely available and sold to many interested readers. In Lewis’ childhood, he experienced a tragedy that affected his belief in god; in his middle life, he mainly focused on college and his studies, but his father’s death played a role in Lewis later becoming a Christian. In Lewis’ later life, he married one of his own fans. Clive’s passion for writing began when he was a small child, and it continued to grow as he furthered his education to become a college professor at Oxford University. Lewis is still remembered today for his great works, such as The Screwtape Letters and The Chronicles of Narnia, which is a popular series among children.

During adversities, J.K. Rowling finds hope in writing. Rowling has gone through many hardships in her lifetime; the death of her mother and collapse of her marriage sent Rowling into a deep depression. Being left to raise her daughter alone, Rowling had to find a way to keep going, which she did through her writing. “Despite numerous setbacks, she found solace in doing what she loved –writing” (Ostrowsky). Rowling struggled through her depression only to find that writing gave her

Throughout all of time, literature has played an important role in people’s lives. Books are more than just stories to laugh at, cry with, or fall asleep to, but books can teach. Books can teach a person a simple task such as baking cookies or an extremely complex one such as solving for the derivative of a trigonometric path and its parabolic motion. Whatever the subject, whomever the reader, books can teach people many lessons. One of the most important lessons that a book can teach a reader is a lesson about himself, about the difficulties of life, and about living a good life. As time has passed, so has literature itself. Older books focused on historical events, fictional poetry, and important figures; however, books now have evolved to

An individual’s chance of success is predetermined by their family background and upbringing. As Gladwell investigates those who were successful and those

Looking at a long history of hero’s through time, regardless if they are billionaires, rock stars, or entrepreneurs, a majority of successful individuals seem as though they defeated the odds and rose from poverty or considered a “self-made man” (Gladwell, 2008, p. 18). Gladwell (2008) believes that “People don’t rise from nothing,” rather, every successful person owes some of their success to parentage and patronage (p. 19). While Gladwell states innate talent exists, he also deems each extraordinarily successful person has entertained hidden advantages and cultural legacies, which helped pave their path. Immense success is shaped merely by talent but also preparation, and the circumstances one is exposed to.

Alluding to well-known people like the Beatles, he achieves the message he is trying to portray. His usage of allusions intensifies the claim he is making in this chapter. Gladwell states, “Achievement is talent plus preparation”(38). He incorporated this throughout the chapter, especially through the life of Bill Joy. Gladwell also lists the top seventy-five billionaires; these are also allusions the reader can personally connect with. When looking at the Americans on that list, the reader sees that they were born between the years 1831 and 1840. During that nine year span, we see that the wealthiest people from our own country rose to their respectable ranks. This piece of evidence ties in with the first chapter. Talent isn’t the only thing that defines success. How one acts upon it, their passion, the work they put in and the opportunities they receive all come into play when concerning their chances of becoming

In 2008, author J.K. Rowling wrote and gave a commencement speech to the graduating class of Harvard University. Rowling aptly named the speech “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”. In this speech Rowling tries to convey the message that failing can be beneficial or an individual and that people should not be afraid to use their imagination. Rowling begins the speech with a reflection on what went through her mind while writing the speech and how the process affected her. During this time Rowling asked herself what she wished she had known at her graduation and came up with the two main ideas of this speech; the merits of failure and significance of imagination. Rowling explains the benefits of failure by using her own personal failure of living in poverty with her daughter and what that failure taught her. For the significance of imagination, Rowling describes it not in terms of how it helped her out of poverty, but of how it opens up people to the world and other individuals around them.

Using imagination and creativity, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series has defined literature as transformative. In this seven-book series J.K Rowling imagined and creatively pieced together a fantasy world of muggles, wizards, tyrants, and heroes to symbolically share with readers problems plaguing modern society. Similar to Shelley’s work of the past, never before have readers in the modern era seen teenage and adult mania surrounding an 11-year-old wizard. Some will argue that J.K. Rowling’s young-adult series lacks depth or wants to twist young minds by using magic and evil, but through close examination it is evident that

In her 1895 novel The Sorrows of Satan, Marie Corelli presents a character who is eerily similar to Harry. The character is an author called Geoffrey, a very talented writer who does not have money to publish. Unfortunately, when he inherits a fortune and has all the money to publish, his talent disappears and he finds himself unable to even make mediocre literary work (McElrath & Robert 77). Similarly, Harry the main character herein is born in a very poor part of Paris and grows up in poverty and misery. He is a very talented writer who gains fame, but not a fortune from writing. His fame, however, enables to meet and fall in love with a wealthy woman, and a wealthier one after that. His marriages and relationships are all based on real love and almost on cue keep ending, but he keeps on getting wealthier with every subsequent relationship (Hemingway). However, the moment Harry became wealthy by his marriages and relationships, his writing creativity was completely eroded. Although he had so much to write about, he could not bring himself to write at all. This either creates the impression that being a good author requires so much effort that one must be desperate to achieve it. It can however, also be argued that there are no talented authors, just individuals who need enough money to try hard enough (McElrath & Robert,