Aspects of Race and Parallels with the Third Reich in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, TU Dortmund, course: English Language and Literature Studies, language: English, abstract: Although ‘Pottermania’, as the newspapers have called the huge hype around Joanne K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, has come to an end, the Harry Potter series can still be seen as the most influential and most popular fantasy novels of our time. Children and adults around the world have read the stories of how the adolescent wizard Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione fight against Lord Voldemort and his followers. Professors of the Anglistik and Amerikanistik, such as Prof. Dr. Kullmann even claim that Harry Potter has the potential to become a classic and can be mentioned in the same breath with Alice in Wonderland or The Hobbit (DieWelt2012). Despite all the praise for the novels, also many critics have reflected about and commented on J.K. Rowling’s novels. In my bachelor thesis I am going to take a more critical look at the Harry Potter series, focusing mainly on Rowling’s fifth novel titled Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which builds the basis of my text oriented analysis. As the title of my bachelor thesis: Aspects of race and parallels with the Third Reich in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenixalready reveals, I will examine the novel in terms of its hidden parallels towards the beliefs and practices in the Third Reich as well as the aspects of race and racism which become obvious while analyzing the novel.