Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Themes

 

Magic, Difference, and Belonging

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the first novel in a seven-part series centering on protagonist Harry Potter, who discovers that he is a wizard when he is eleven years old. The series tracks an epic battle between good and evil in the wizarding world, but the first book is, in its essence, a coming-of-age story. Harry spends his early life feeling different from the non-magical people (“Muggles”) around him, though he doesn’t know why. It is only when he discovers he is a wizard and is introduced to the other wizards and the magical world around him, that he is able to grow and feel confident. The magic, then, is not just an exciting part of Rowling’s fantastical world, but also a metaphor for Harry’s coming into his own. Harry’s transition from the non-magical “Muggle” world to the magical world parallels his transition from the isolation and dejection of feeling different to the beauty and excitement of finding a place where he belongs.

Harry’s early life in the Muggle world is marked by isolation and rejection; his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon make him feel that he is profoundly different from other people and punish him for that difference. Harry’s parents, Lily and James (who are a witch and wizard), die when he is just a year old when they are killed by a dark wizard named Voldemort, and subsequently Harry is raised by his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (who are Muggles). They treat his magic as dangerous and refuse even to tell Harry that he has these magical abilities. When they literally try to fit him into their “normal” life, Harry’s magic comes out in full force and he is often punished as a result. One day, Aunt Petunia tries to cut Harry’s hair to her own liking, making him almost bald except for his bangs. When his hair grows back immediately the next day, she punishes him by making him remain in his cupboard for a week. In other words, Aunt Petunia isolates Harry for what makes him different—his magical abilities, which are still unknown to him—making him feel worthless and like he doesn’t belong. When Harry is included—a rare occurrence—on a trip to the zoo for his cousin Dudley’s birthday, he finds that he is able to communicate with a snake in a glass display. He then unintentionally makes the glass disappear, allowing the snake to escape. Harry is severely disciplined and again made to stay in the cupboard for a week without any meals. Later, Vernon insists to Aunt Petunia that when they took him in as a baby, they swore they would “stamp out that dangerous nonsense.” In referring to magic as “dangerous nonsense” that needs to be “stamp[ed] out,” Vernon firmly positions Harry’s difference—his magical ability—as something inherently evil that needs to be quashed. Vernon and Petunia’s displeasure is then passed on to Dudley as well, who makes sure Harry is miserable at school by preventing him from making friends, often chasing him or picking on him. These treatments sum up an idea that Harry has felt through his whole life: the odd occurrences that seem to mark a difference in him signify that he doesn’t fit in.

When a wizard named Hagrid visits Harry and informs him that he is a wizard, Harry’s understanding of himself and the world around him drastically changes. Magic represents a new world to which Harry finds that he truly belongs, and one that he starts to grow into over the course of the book. J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world is not an entirely separate, mythical place, but one that is woven into the fabric of the non-magical world. Hagrid takes Harry on a shopping trip in London, and when Hagrid taps on a brick in a nondescript back alley, the wall pulls away to reveal the magical Diagon Alley, a wizarding shopping area where Hagrid gives Harry a basic knowledge about what his magical abilities mean. As Harry is initiated into this new world, it transforms Harry’s difference from “dangerous nonsense,” as Uncle Vernon put it, to something that makes him special. At Hogwarts, the wizarding school where children learn to harness their magic, the differences from regular school are many. Rather than math, science, and languages, Harry learns Charms, Herbology, Potions, and Transfiguration. The building itself is very different, as the staircases move on their own, ghosts flit about the hallways, and owls deliver the morning mail. “Harry had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place,” which implies that the things that make Hogwarts (and perhaps Harry himself) seem different or “strange” are also the things that make it “splendid.” Additionally, the magical Sorting Hat at Hogwarts places children into four different “Houses” based on their personalities and defining attributes. When Harry is placed into Gryffindor House, it literally gives him a sense of belonging, of joining a group of children that become his closest friends. On a broader scale, Hogwarts itself is a place for those who are different and don’t quite fit into the Muggle world. In other words, Harry essentially finds belonging by embracing rather than shying away from the magic that makes him different.

The Sorcerer’s Stone bears many touchstones of a classic coming-of-age story: Harry Potter is a neglected child who feels different and isolated from those around him. When he enters a new school and makes new friends, however, he sees how his differences give him the opportunity to feel as though he belongs. What sets Harry Potter apart is Rowling’s sly implication that being able to find that world—where one’s differences are celebrated—can literally be a magical thing.

 

Theme of Love, Family and Friendship

At the center of The Sorcerer’s Stone is the importance of love from both family and friends. Though Harry’s parents, Lily and James, love him a great deal, they die when he is very young, and he is placed in the care of his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, Muggle relatives who treat him terribly. When he goes to school at Hogwarts, Harry gains a group of friends—primarily Ron and Hermione—who demonstrate that the love at the heart of friendship can be just as important as that at the heart of familial ties. Ultimately, as Harry learns about his magical abilities and tries to thwart the forces of evil in the wizarding world, Rowling argues that love, family, and friendship serve as forms of protection that help Harry to overcome whatever challenges come his way.

Through Lily and James’s sacrifices for their son, they demonstrate that family can be a life-saving source of love. Harry’s story starts in the aftermath of his parent’s death. When he is only a year old, an evil wizard named Voldemort goes to the Potter home in order to kill Lily and James. Both are killed trying to protect their son, but Lily’s sacrifice in particular prevents Voldemort from being able to kill Harry, as it is implied that this love gives him a kind of magical protection. Additionally, when he tries to kill Harry, Voldemort becomes incredibly weak and disappears. The sacrifice that Lily makes continues to protect him even later in his life. Harry comes face-to-face with Voldemort again at the end of the novel; he has returned, even though he is weak, by taking over the body of a Hogwarts professor named Quirrell. Professor Quirrell is unable to touch Harry without being burned, which ultimately prevents him from being able to kill Harry. Dumbledore, the headmaster at Hogwarts, later reveals to Harry that Lily’s love is indeed what protected Harry and kept Quirrell from being able to touch him. Dumbledore explains that “to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” Thus, love becomes essentially the ultimate force for good and a weapon against evil.

While love is always a force for good in the novel, family is not always a conduit for love. Rowling provides a counterexample to James and Lily in the Dursleys, Harry’s unpleasant aunt and uncle, who demonstrate how family ties without love essentially constitute meaningless bonds. Harry’s Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon have absolutely no love for him and are hesitant to take him in as a baby in the first place. Over the first eleven years of his life, they make his living conditions horrendous by forcing him to live in a cupboard, giving him no possessions of his own, and essentially treating him as a servant in their home. Thus, even though family can be a source of love, when a child is not treated with love, it can make a child feel far from protected. Harry feels vulnerable and isolated in the only home he has ever known; as a result, he must find the familial love he is not getting from the Dursleys from other places.

Ultimately, friendships come to take the place of Harry’s family in terms of providing love, support, and protection. The friends that Harry makes at Hogwarts function as a kind of chosen family, as they allow him to feel loved, and, perhaps more importantly, help him to overcome challenges in his life. Even before Harry has officially started school, he meets a classmate named Ron on the train to Hogwarts. Harry confesses his fears that he won’t be good at school because he doesn’t know any magic. Ron immediately quells those fears, telling him that there “loads of people who come from Muggle [non-magic] families and they learn quick enough.” Harry in turn shares his candy with Ron on the train, demonstrating the mutually beneficial power of friendship. Ron and Harry, in turn, help another friend overcome a great challenge; when a troll is running loose at Hogwarts, they help to save another girl in their class, Hermione, from being killed by it. Buoyed by their ability to overcome this obstacle together, the three immediately form a tight-knit bond as a result—one that drives not only the rest of the plot of this book, but the rest of their seven years at Hogwarts. At the end of the novel, Harry is trying to prevent one of the professors, Snape, from obtaining the Sorcerer’s Stone, which is a powerful object that can grant its bearer eternal life. The Stone is guarded by several rooms, each bearing a different obstacle. When Harry, Ron, and Hermione decide that the best way to protect the stone is by stealing it first, they work as a team to get past these challenges. Hermione is able to remember a key detail from Herbology to get past a set of vines that threatens to strangle them; she also gets past a tricky logic puzzle. Ron takes the lead on a chess game with living pieces, even sacrificing himself in order to let Harry and Hermione advance without him. Harry uses his flying skills to retrieve a key with wings, allowing them to pass through yet another door. Only together are they able to advance, and thus their love and friendship is ultimately what allows Harry to face Voldemort and conquer him once more.

The power of love is a thread that runs through all seven of the Harry Potter books, but Rowling’s argument concerning love is clear even from the very first pages of the very first novel in the series. Love allows Harry to live, and then ensures that he has the support he needs to fight off the forces of evil. Ultimately love becomes the definitive difference between Harry and Voldemort, and is the reason why good will always conquer evil.

 

Theme of Power, Greed and Desire

For Harry and his friends starting school at Hogwarts, magic comes with a certain degree of power: the ability to make a feather levitate, to turn a match into a needle, to fly on a broomstick. But Rowling also hints at what happens when adult wizards grow greedy for power and the dangerous ramifications of that desire. Thus, not only does Rowling associate greed and the desire for power with evil, but she also argues that even more innocent desires can be harmful, because they can lead to a destructive kind of greediness.

Voldemort is the prime example of how power and greed are dangerous, as the desire for power leads him to becoming the most evil wizard in history. In one of the book’s early chapters, Hagrid explains Voldemort’s backstory to Harry: decades earlier, Voldemort had wanted power and thus turned “as bad as you could go.” Those who stood up to him were killed—including Harry’s parents, Lily and James. Thus, the desire for power is immediately associated with evil. Voldemort is so powerful that wizards don’t even want to say his name, instead calling him “You-Know-Who” or “He-Who-Must-Not Be-Named,” demonstrating how power can breed fear. This fear, in turn, allows Voldemort to gain more power, as he enlists followers simply because people are afraid of him, or are enticed by the power that he has and want some of their own. Voldemort, having been inexplicably unable to kill Harry as a baby, disappears for eleven years, but he returns when Harry begins school at Hogwarts. He takes over the body of a professor, Quirrell, and tries to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone in order to revive himself and eventually return to power. Quirrell himself also reinforces this association of power with evil. He tells Harry, “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.” Yet, because this statement is being spoken by a character who has been overtaken by an evil wizard, Rowling implies that this kind of philosophy only serves those who are evil.

While Voldemort is easily associated with greed and the desire for power, other characters also toy with the same feelings. Rowling shows how seemingly benign desires can bleed into greed, ultimately arguing that deep desires can be dangerous and ultimately lead to bad choices. Harry himself is tempted by intense desires; one day while roaming in the castle at Hogwarts, he finds the Mirror of Erised (“desire” spelled backwards). The Mirror’s reflection shows Harry with his parents next to him, and he is filled with an intense longing for them. He returns to the Mirror again and again, trying to see more of his late parents, until Dumbledore discovers him in front of the Mirror. Dumbledore tells Harry that the Mirror shows one’s innermost desires—which is why Harry sees his parents, since he’s never truly known them—but he also cautions Harry that many wizards have wasted their lives or have gone insane because of what they see in the Mirror of Erised. Through Dumbledore’s advice, Rowling demonstrates that desire and greed—even if the greed stems from a perfectly innocent and understandable place—can be dangerous, and must be approached with caution. Harry’s cousin Dudley is another embodiment of greed. Dudley receives more presents from his parents each year, eats as much as he wants, and gets anything he asks for. Vernon and Petunia spoil Dudley with both material goods and attention as a way of loving him. They don’t intend to turn him into a repulsive person, but nonetheless their actions instill that greed in him. Even though he is not nearly as bad as Voldemort, Rowling thus reinforces the association she has created between greed and bad character.

If love is the driving good force in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, then power, greed, and desire serve as the primary forces of evil. Though characters are not always so black and white—even predominantly “good” characters can be tempted by these ideas—they are ultimately defined by their abilities to overcome dangerous desires and greediness.

 

Humility and Self Sacrifice

In contrast to the ideas of power, greed, and desire held up as forces for evil, humility and self-sacrifice become the cornerstones of good character in The Sorcerer’s Stone. While antagonistic characters like Voldemort, Quirrell, and Dudley tend to focus on their own desires and needs, characters like Harry, Ron, and Hermione often think about others before themselves. In associating her protagonists—and Harry in particular—with these virtues, Rowling emphasizes the idea that humility and self-sacrifice are key indicators of goodness and are virtues worth striving for.

Throughout the novel, Harry is the primary example of how characters are shown to be good by exhibiting selflessness and humility. After Harry’s parents are tragically killed and Dumbledore is figuring out the best course of action to take regarding the newly orphaned one-year-old Harry, he comes to the conclusion that it is best to leave him with the Dursleys in the Muggle world. Otherwise, he reasons, Harry’s ego will swell considerably, as he is soon to become famous in the wizarding world as “the boy who lived,” and the boy who was able to defeat Voldemort. In fact, Snape’s instant dislike of Harry stems from the idea that he thinks Harry is arrogant due to his fame. This could not be further from the truth, however: Harry spends the first eleven years of his life essentially as a servant to his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, with no knowledge of the wizarding world, and thus he has no conception of the fame surrounding him (and little conception of his own self-worth, as Petunia and Vernon constantly belittle him).

When Harry discovers that he is one of the most famous people in the wizarding world, he still remains humble. Instead of letting the fame go to his head, he actually becomes worried because he doesn’t think that he can live up to people’s expectations. Thus, Harry sets out to try and prove himself through hard work rather than relying on his reputation. He works hard in school and earns good grades, even though he does sometimes get into trouble. He also becomes the youngest Quidditch player for a Hogwarts team in a century after Professor McGonagall sees his knack for flying. But again, rather than let this get to his head, he works harder and harder at practice. When he wins a match for his team in under five minutes, which is an astonishing feat, he is hardly phased by the adoration his classmates heap upon him—he is simply happy that he is no longer just a famous name, and that he has an accomplishment to be proud of. This humility fuels Harry’s self-sacrificing tendencies, putting his own desires and sometimes his well-being aside in order to please others or to do good deeds. When Harry thinks that Professor Snape is out to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone (a powerful object that gives its owner eternal life), Harry is adamant that he should find the Stone before Snape does—not because he wants its power, but simply because he wants to protect the Stone from those with evil or selfish intentions. He risks his life completing the obstacles that are guarding the Stone, all in service of the good of the school—and the wider magical world. These actions make him the hero of the book, and associate his core qualities of humility and selflessness with his goodness.

Hermione and Ron, the two other protagonists, also follow Harry’s lead, learning to putting others’ needs above their own. This reinforces the importance of striving toward humility and selflessness as a means to be a genuinely good person. When Ron, Harry, and Hermione discover that Hagrid is trying to keep a dragon illegally, Ron offers to give the dragon to friends of his brother Charlie (who works with dragons for his job) so that Hagrid will not get into trouble for keeping it. At another point in the novel, Harry and Ron try to save Hermione from a troll that is loose in Hogwarts and they get in trouble for not leaving it to the teachers to handle. Uncharacteristically, Hermione lies to the teachers so that only she will get in trouble instead of the two boys, thus sacrificing herself for her friends. This moment is a key turning point in Hermione’s character, as she sheds her towering self-importance and instead begins to be more selfless and humbler. Ron and Hermione also accompany Harry on his quest to protect the Sorcerer’s Stone, and when facing the challenges that guard the stone, each of them stays behind so that Harry can advance closer and closer. Ron deliberately allows himself to be hurt playing a game of wizard’s chess (in which the pieces are alive and violently break each other when the pieces are taken) so that Harry and Hermione can move forward to the next task. Then, when Hermione figures out a logic puzzle that will only allow her or Harry forward, she argues that Harry should go ahead; she’ll return to Ron and send an owl to Dumbledore. Thus, each of them retains humility and understands that the greater good is more important than achieving some kind of personal glory.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s humility sets them apart from the other characters in the book. In contrast with characters like Voldemort and even Draco Malfoy and Dudley, the novel’s three kid protagonists care about others more than they care about themselves. In making these traits key to getting the Sorcerer’s Stone, Rowling emphasizes how humility and self-sacrifice are necessary qualities to being the heroes of the book and achieving success in their mission.

 

Rules and Rebellion

Although the wizarding world provides Harry with freedom that he did not receive at his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon’s house, there are still strict rules that he must follow in both the wizarding world in general and particularly at Hogwarts. Harry does not set out to be a troublemaker, but over the course of the novel, he ends up breaking rule after rule. Harry believes that when the rules are in conflict with doing what he feels is the moral thing to do, it is better to rebel than to submit to them. And because Harry is more often than not rewarded for this rebellious behavior, J.K. Rowling too argues that breaking rules is sometimes necessary in order to do what is right.

As quickly as Harry is introduced to some of the rules of the school, he breaks them when he feels that it will help those who are being picked on, or who would be otherwise targeted. Harry is often rewarded for the way he elevates kindness and helping others over following arbitrary rules. On the first day that Harry learns to fly on a broomstick, a classmate of his named Neville breaks his arm, and the professor, Madam Hooch, whisks him away to the hospital wing. She cautions the other students not to fly until she gets back, or else they’ll be expelled. But when Draco Malfoy, the class bully, picks up a gift from Neville’s grandmother called a Remembrall and begins to make fun of Neville, Harry tells him to return it. Malfoy instead dares Harry to get it back, mounting his broom and throwing the Remembrall as far as he can; Harry mounts his broom as well and is able to catch it while flying on his broomstick, but Professor McGonagall sees him. Yet instead of punishing him, she gets him to join the Quidditch team, making him the youngest Quidditch player at Hogwarts in a century. By bravely sticking up for Neville—even when he was not around—Harry is rewarded rather than punished for breaking the rules, a pattern that will continue to crop up throughout the novel. Another instance of rebellion comes a few months later, at Halloween. A dangerous troll is loose in the castle, and all students are instructed to return to their dormitories to take shelter while the teachers deal with the situation. Instead, Harry says that he and Ron should go to find Hermione in the girls’ bathroom; she’s been crying there all day because Ron made fun of her, and thus she doesn’t know about the troll. Unluckily, the troll ends up in the very bathroom that Hermione is hiding in. Although Harry, Ron, and Hermione are able to defeat the massive troll, Professor McGonagall is furious with the students for not being in their dormitories as instructed. But before McGonagall can punish Ron and Harry, Hermione swiftly (and surprisingly) takes the blame for their actions. Thus, again, Harry receives few consequences for not following the rules, and for good reason, too, as he is able to save Hermione as a result.

Harry is not only encouraged towards his rebellious tendencies because he often receives little punishment; he is also encouraged to disregard the rules by Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts. At Christmas, Harry receives a package left anonymously, inside of which is an Invisibility Cloak, which allows the person who wears it to become completely invisible. The package is later revealed to be from Dumbledore, who writes in a note, “use it well.” While this doesn’t explicitly counsel Harry to break the rules, it certainly allows him to do so, as long as he is using the cloak “well,” or for a good purpose. He uses the cloak to break into the restricted section of the library in order to find out more information on the Sorcerer’s Stone, ultimately aiding him in keeping the precious Stone away from those with evil intentions. Harry also uses the cloak to try to help Hagrid get rid of the dragon he has secretly raised, because keeping a dragon as a pet is illegal. Thus, again, Harry breaks the rules in order to help his friends try to stay out of trouble and do what he feels is right. Perhaps the ultimate episode of rule-breaking in which Harry, Ron, and Hermione participate occurs when they try get to the Sorcerer’s Stone before Snape does, thinking him the villain. They “petrify” (a curse that literally stuns whoever is hit with it) Neville, who tries to stop them from sneaking out at night. They then go to a corridor on the third floor, which has been expressly forbidden to students. Such blatant rule-breaking allows Harry to get to the Stone, where he is able to save it from getting into Voldemort’s possession. Even more than that, Harry’s rule-breaking consequently saves the entire magical community from Voldemort—at least for the time being. While Harry’s success is validation enough, Dumbledore confirms that he believes Harry did the right thing. He praises the young boy’s efforts to fend off Quirrell and Voldemort, and awards Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville enough house points to allow Gryffindor to win the House Cup.

It is worth noting that Dumbledore awards Neville points as well, observing that it takes courage to stand up to one’s friends. Thus, it is not that Dumbledore is simply rewarding rebellious behavior; he is rewarding students for doing what they feel in their heart is the right thing to do. And to Rowling, who uses Dumbledore as the highest moral authority in the novel, doing what is right is far more important than following the rules perfectly. If Harry hadn’t broken so many rules in his first year of school, Voldemort presumably would have gotten ahold of the Sorcerer’s Stone and returned to power with a vengeance, thus cutting short the entire series and ending the magical world as Harry knows it.