UNIVERSITY OF INDONESIA
Communication Science Department
“Discourse Analysis on Children’s Literature:
J. K. Rowling’s Ideals in the Magical World of Harry Potter”
A Bachelor Degree Graduation Thesis by Indah S. Pratidina
Vii + 227 pages; 34 books, 31 articles; 2 theses
Language: Bahasa Indonesia
Bibliography: 1975-2001
Completed: December 2001
Graded: A
ABSTRACT
This research was conducted using critical discourse analysis, and therefore consequently the analysis units—Indonesian editions of Harry Potter books number 1 and 2, each with the title Harry Potter dan Batu Bertuah (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) and Harry Potter dan Kamar Rahasia (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret) published by PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama—had been viewed as a discourse with specific characteristics. A discourse at this point was viewed as an action that could not be separated from its social and historical context, also the elements of power and ideals within.
The background for this research was built from the positive attitude towards reading books. Books were always considered to have lots of utilities to their readers, this is why numbers of suggestions were endlessly given to every one every where to make use of this most permanent form of mass media. These recommendations were particularly offered to children. The writer of Parents Who Love Reading, Kids Who Don’t, Mary Leonhardt, stated ten advantages in reading books, a few of which: enable the readers to practice their high sense of language, broaden its reader knowledge, offering various perspectives on life, etc.
The vision of making books as children’s best friend felt so close to realization when the Harry Potter series were published. The book that told a story about 11 years old orphan who happened to be a wizard instantly grabbed the world’s attention short after its publication. TIME.com wrote in an article dated December 17th, 2000, that Harry Potter series had sold as many as 76 million copies and translated into 42 languages. But beyond that we should not forget that a book, a children book nonetheless, was a medium to its writer, a non neutral discourse.
Using Sara Mills’ discourse analysis method, this research would attempt to answer the question “What were the latent notions (ideals, values) that were being implemented by J. K. Rowling, considering her role as a member of British society, in Harry Potter series?” Therefore the objects of this research were to discover and disclose the hidden ideals within the text by correlating the text with its context.
The perspective used in the frame of thinking were the critical paradigm, along with the French Discourse Analysis approach which was very much influenced by Foucault’s theory of discourse and Althusser’s theory of ideology. A discourse in this approach was perceived endorsing ideology’s effect, defining the position of one’s ideology. Integral also to this approach, this research attended Sara Mills’ theories about author-reader position and how one was positioned by the text’s subject.
In the theoretical framework, this research applied the theory of mass media mediation by Dennis McQuail, which stated that one of media’s function is to connect its public with reality because media can be a mirror that reflects society’s image to itself—even with biases. The ideas of mediation role were then narrowed to the media content analysis theory. According to McQuail, media content was often viewed as proof of several matters, such as the society or culture where it had been produced, the media producers and their goals, the targeted audiences, etc.
Other than the reasons already mentioned above, Charles Wright stated that mass media content, more often than not, contained invaluable sociological aspects that were usually taken for granted. Seeing the analysis units were books, some of the literature’s theories had also been noticed, although not thoroughly, to strengthen the arguments. Wright’s notion was parallel to the genetic structuralism perspective of literature, which implied that a work of literature was considered to be born within the society as the result of imagination and reflection of the social symptoms at its surroundings. On account of seeing literature’s presence as a part of society’s life and acknowledging it to be rooted to its cultures/values, literature could easily viewed as a social-culture document. To build context in order to understand the text, the data gathering method used in this research was Reading Culture Material and Record.
Ideology was well known to be often found in the history of children’s literature itself. One of the three books recognized as the foundation of children’s literature, The History of Stanford Merton, already portrayed the issue of class conflict in it. Then, Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll were legendary for using fantasy fiction’s representation to challenge family authority using animals, cards, chess pawns, to take the role of adults.
The relation between children’s literature and ideology had always been close and this idea had repeatedly mentioned by Peter Hunt (1990), Kimberley Reynolds (1994) and other researchers in their notions. While critical discourse analysis often used to disclose the dominant’s or capitalist’s power within a text (usually a news article), this research used it differently. Analysis would show that power was everywhere and being used by all, even individuals and smaller subjects, linear to Foucault’s concept.
Using Sara Mills’ discourse analysis, analysis focused on text’s subject-object positioning and author-reader position. On the first part of analysis, this research tried to define how the social actors in the story were being positioned, who was positioned as the interpreter in the text—through his eyes would all the events in the story were interpreted, and the effects of this positioning. And the second part of analysis focused on the author’s and the reader’s position in the text.
From the analysis, it was found that Rowling chose her hero Harry Potter’s viewpoint as the story’s point of view. By doing so, Harry Potter had automatically become the interpreter for every matter and every characters in the story. Consequently the reader almost certainly would tend to be sided with the main character and in result, hating the hero’s enemies (the antagonists). It was interesting to find that there were a lot of social class representations in this story. Many of the characteristics of social classes amazingly corresponded with some of the traits owned by the characters in Harry Potter series. Harry Potter and his friends had the similar features with those known as the middle and lower class members, while their opponents strongly resemblance members of a higher class.
The conclusion reached in this research was that media could not be separated from the society from which it was born. Media as a discourse could not be comprehend and analyzed without considering its social historical context. From the analysis, it was found that Rowling: believed in the social class system; acknowledged that the society was divided into three groups (upper class, middle class and lower class); endorsing that conflict does exist between this social classes; and dreaming of a classless society.
