Regardless of whether you are a die
hard Harry Potter fan or not, a majority of people know the premise of the series
and are familiar with the four houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and
Hufflepuff. At Hogwarts, all of the students are sorted into one of the four
Houses, which creates a sense of community at the school. Upon arrival, each student
put on the sorting hat and becomes a part of one of the Houses. The four Houses
all have a personality of their own and their students typically embody these characteristics.
The Houses serve a very important role
in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
and throughout the rest of the series. The Houses serve the purpose of making
each and every student feel as if they fit in and create a home away from home.
With the Houses, there is an
element of competition throughout the novel. The competition is evident in both
an academic and athletic sense. “Each House has its own noble history and each
has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your
triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule breaking will lose House
points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the
House Cup, a great honor” (Rowling 114). Having each student’s actions be a
reflection of their respective houses also keep the students focused and in
line. When the troll was released in Chapter 10, Hermione put herself into a
place of danger and was reprimanded by Professor McGonagall as she said, “Miss Granger,
five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this” (Rowling 178). She does not
take points because she is particularly angry, she uses this point deduction in
order to teach a lesson and show her concern and disappointment.
On the other hand, the Houses pride
themselves on their athletic ability as Quidditch is the most important sport
in the wizarding world. Every game played a part in the House cup in terms of
both points and pride. In Chapter 13, “As the match drew nearer, however, Harry
became more and more nervous...The rest of the team wasn’t too calm, either.
The idea of overtaking Slytherin in the House Championship was wonderful, no one
had done it for seven years” (Rowling 221).
The House Championship is one of the biggest events at Hogwarts so the
characters get nervous and excited for the match each year as it is the most competitive
game of the year.
Overall, the Houses serve the purpose of creating a sense of community and home for the students. The competition between the Houses fuels good behavior and athletic events.
Overall, the Houses serve the purpose of creating a sense of community and home for the students. The competition between the Houses fuels good behavior and athletic events.
I think the houses serve as a plot device to drive the action. The competition and rivalry between Slytherin and Gryffindor fuel a great deal of the conflict in the series. In the first book especially, Slytherin is portrayed negatively, despite the characteristics listed in the sorting hat song, and all of the antagonists are Slytherin. One could argue that this negative portrayal is due to Harry being eleven, and that Slytherins become more nuanced as the series progresses; however, I do not think that the nuances become that progressive.
ReplyDeleteWhile the competitive nature of the sorting system does encourage the students to behave for house points and may boost athletic participation, it also contributes to a lot of negative behaviors. There is a lot of bullying in the books based on housing. The competition goes too far in some aspects and totally eclipses some of the good that could be done collaboratively. In the later books we are introduced to some other wizarding schools Durmstrang Institute and Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, which do not have houses, these schools are portrayed more cohesively but that could be due to in-group and out-group biases, where groups that Harry Potter would not belong to would be stereotyped and thought of as less diverse.
Certainly, I can see that the house system has some benefits, and ideally does serve to drive students forwards; to quote from something near to my heart, "One lesson you should learn, and never should forget, is the art of friendly rivalry." However, like our own system of government, it has fallen prey to this horrid separatism and intense polarization. The houses have become entirely partizan, they cannot resolve themselves to cooperate in general, and so we get this atmosphere of elitism and exclusion between houses.
ReplyDeletePicture if you would large-scale cooperative ventures between houses, projects where two houses are paired against the other houses, and these teams rotate yearly. I think it would go a long way to bridge the divide between Gryffindor and Slytherin if both served to gain from the alliance, and would actually encourage the Slytherin side to extend the olive branch, if they truly will do anything to win, have them swallow their pride. In later books, this could also serve to help give Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff a way to get some limelight,