Looking at Harry Potter with a Jungian psychoanalytic perspective can, to some, seem a little overly critical and sometimes “reaching for straws,” but as one can see on closer inspection, Jung’s character archetypes are alive and well providing Rowling’s characters and events with motivation and her characters with “character.” If it weren’t for Carl Jung’s archetypes, the characters in Rowling’s series would have little definition and no clear way to be fully understood. The villains would simply be villains and no one would know why. The heroes would be heroes, but for nothing more tangible than simply being called a hero. What would a hero or a villain even be without a standard from which to base one’s analysis? Harry Potter’s relationship with Albus Dumbledore, Harry’s mentor and headmaster at school, would seem less important and strong than it truly is without looking at it scrutinizingly, and Rowling herself would seem to have chosen to end her series on book seven arbitrarily rather than allowing the psychological power of the number and thematic elements run rampant in exactly the way Jung lays out. Though touted as children’s and juvenile reading level novels, one can certainly see there is much more to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry than a beginning reader could ever understand.
Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist who lived at the turn of the 20th century, originated a list of psychological archetypes (“universal images that have existed since the remotest times”) that provide insight into the collective unconscious, “a storehouse of knowledge, experiences, and images of the human race” (Dobie 56). Jung’s list of archetypes are varied, but consist partially of the Hero, the Wise Old Man, the Devil, the Scapegoat, the Trickster, and the Outcast which will be discussed later, as well as a few others which play more minor roles in humanity’s psyches and literature’s more prolific characters.
In Rowling’s works, we see, obviously, Harry Potter as a Hero1. His mentor Albus Dumbledore leads him throughout the series as a mentor and father figure, but in the penultimate sixth book, The Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore is murdered by Severus Snape (who is throughout the novels played to be a Devilesque character, but really stands on more common ground with Tricksters) and becomes Jung’s Scapegoat. I intend to look at Harry’s relationship with Dumbledore throughout the series and show that his murder brings Potter’s story full circle (as much as this is possible with the series still yet to be finished) to his father’s murder, as each character involved plays into his or her archetype quite snugly.
To understand these archetypes and their meanings in literature, one must be provided with working definitions. Harry, as the Hero, comes from multiple instances of what makes a Jungian Hero which is, according to Anne B. Dobie’s book Theory into Practice: “birth from unusual circumstances” because his mother was a muggle or non-magic user, “an early escape from attempts to murder him” which is precisely what happens when Lord Voldemort murders his parents and fails to kill infant Harry, and it is also said that the Hero must go on a “journey which the Hero much answer complex riddles, retrieve a sacred or powerful artifact, or do battle with superhuman creatures for the purpose of saving someone else,” which happens to dictate just what Harry Potter does throughout the novels, especially in the sixth novel, The Half-Blood Prince, when Dumbledore puts him on the quest for Lord Voldemort’s seven horcruxes (58).
Albus Dumbledore fits into multiple archetypes: the Father and Wise Old Man who offer guidance and advice to the young Hero similarly to the way Obi-Wan Kenobi mentors Luke Skywalker in George Lucas’s original trilogy of Star Wars films, a series in which a Wise Old Man takes a young Hero who has never known his parents under his wing as a Father to guide him to the destiny of defeating the Galactic Empire and make resolution with Darth Vader who Obi-wan told Luke “killed [his] father” yet turns out to be his long-thought-dead parent. By the end of the trilogy, Luke helps his father find salvation from his evil deeds, bringing the series full-circle and parallels with Harry Potter’s life in that he is being guided by a Wise Old Man to defeat the Devil who murdered the parents he has never known. As the series progresses to its latest volume, Dumbledore takes on additional role when he is murdered by Severus Snape: that of the Scapegoat- a character who “becomes the sacrificial victim who is put to death…in order to remove the guilt of the people and restore their welfare and health.” By fulfilling all three archetypical roles, Dumbledore is the most important and influential person in Harry’s life. Like many Wise Old Men, it is foreshadowed that like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, Albus will be back to guide young Harry, but through a portrait in the headmaster’s office instead of an incorporeal ghost form. “Dumbledore was slumbering in a golden frame over the des, his half-moon spectacles perched upon his crooked nose, looking peaceful and untroubled.” His portrait being “peaceful and untroubled” lends itself again to an allusion to Star Wars and Obi-wan Kenobi being stricken down of his own accord by Darth Vader to return “more powerful than you can possibly imagine” which can be taken to mean that even though he may be physically dead, his influence will remain by guiding the Hero after his death to his destiny of defeating the man who killed both his parents and his Father (Lucas; Dobie 58).
There are various other archetypes that Rowling has spread liberally throughout the Harry Potter series. The most prevalent to the outcome of the story are those of the Outcast, the Devil, and the Trickster. The Outcast, represented in the novels by Voldemort is a character “who is thrown out of the community as punishment for a crime against it. The fate of the outcast…is to wander about for eternity.” This exemplifies Voldemort’s character, but he alters the archetype slightly. Instead of being outcast by the community, he forces their hand and becomes an Outcast of his own volition. His exile of eternal wandering is self-imposed, as he searches for immortality by any means possible, fulfilling the role of “[wandering] about for eternity” (Dobie 58). This isn’t to say that Voldemort isn’t both a Devil in his own right, either. He certainly has done Harry enough wrongs through the years by murdering his family and friends, whether it is directly like his parents or Cedric Diggory or by means of someone simply following his orders like when Snape kills Dumbledore
Jung wrote about the Devil as being an archetype that plays against the Hero. One would, on first inspection, think that Voldemort would be the main occupant of this archetype, but in reality, he doesn’t present more than a looming threat for Harry for the first half of the series, and even later on, he still maintains his threat through symbols and word of mouth more than physical intimidation. The Devil is overtaken by a group rather than a single person. The Malfoy family – Lucius, Narcissa, and Draco – plays the role of the antagonist (as much as there is a single one in the series) by constantly being wherever they need to be in order to make Harry’s life more difficult. They “[personify] the principle of evil that intrudes in the life of a character to tempt and to destroy him” (Dobie 58). Though the Devil in the very strictest archetypical stories tempt by offering the Hero wealth and fame, the Malfoys tempt Harry with negative reinforcement; if he doesn’t do what he knows is right, he will become like them, precisely that which he despises and works against, even though the Sorting Hat in The Sorcerer’s Stone speaks highly of Harry’s true nature, which could be the real Devil in the novels.
“Harry gripped the edges of the stood and thought, Not Slytherin, not Slytherin.
‘Not Slytherin, eh?’ said the small voice. ‘Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that – no? Well, if you’re sure – better be GRYFFINDOR!'” (Rowling 121)
The Sorting Hat’s mention that “Slytherin would help [Harry] on the way to greatness” can be taken as quite the opposite of what would happen if he were to be put in Gryffindor. Slytherin is the house at Hogwarts to which his arch-nemesis Lord Voldemort belonged, as well as his current impediment, Draco Malfoy, both of whom are cunning and talented with “greatness,” yet do not possess the heart and good will that Harry is said to hold. The only reason that he was sorted into Gryffindor by the Sorting Hat was, from Harry’s own mouth in The Chamber of Secrets “because I asked not to go to Slytherin”, not because his nature was similar to those who were naturally sorted there; his nature was that of Slytherin, but he had been pushed from that house (and ironically toward the one from which Dumbledore hailed) by his choice of friends. Dumbledore himself told Harry in The Chamber of Secrets that his abilities were Slytherinesque, even when he called him later a “true Gryffindor:” “You happen to have many qualities that Salazar Slytherin prized in his hand-picked students” (Rowling 333, 334). The thought that he could possess Slytherin’s prized qualities haunts Harry throughout the novels, yet his will and steadfast determination prevent him from doing anything that would be considered typical of a Slytherin member, although he does occasionally partake in some magical mischief regarding his uncle and family which is discussed at further lengths later.
Throughout the latest novel in the series, Harry and Dumbledore share a relationship that mirrors that of a father and a son. Though Harry and Dumbledore share no biological relation, their bond gives them the same strength as someone of the respective biological lineage. Dumbledore goes through novels one through five as a Father to Harry, giving him advice as he moves along, but never really influencing him in more than a “What would Dumbledore do?”-type way. Though Dumbledore does legitimately care about Harry (why else would he willingly, as some think, give his life at the end of the novel?), there are many pieces of propaganda throughout the books that subtly push Harry into Dumbledore’s tutelage.
The Trickster is a hard archetype to hammer out and nail down. One of the most famous and more easily identified Tricksters throughout literature is that of Puck from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a character full of life, energy, joviality, and practical jokes. In his own words, Puck makes “the whole quire hold their hips and laugh, / And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear / A merrier hour was never wasted there” after he has taken the role of a “roasted crab” who “against her lips [bobs], and on her withered dewlap [pours] the ale” (Shakespeare 157, 158). He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, but he wants to make the crowd see his influence and enjoy themselves at someone else’s expense. In Rowling’s novels, we don’t see the emblematic, happy-go-luck Trickster that Puck epitomizes, but we see one that plays the more somber, even darkly natured, role of Jung’s archetype. “The Trickster’s role is to hamper the Hero’s progress” (Boeree); Severus Snape does this throughout the series. As the series begins, Snape is seen as a professor who will stop at nothing to make Harry’s life miserable, and as the series progresses, we see their relationship mature into one where Severus sometimes helps Harry out a little in order to place a larger roadblock in his way. As The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince come into publication, we see Snape getting ever closer to Harry during tutoring sessions Dumbledore himself sanctioned. He is finally being forced into placing the largest roadblock he has yet placed in the young wizard’s way: murdering Albus Dumbledore.
There are other archetypes in the novels that Rowling touches on with various characters, but never fleshes them out past the “stock” of their archetypes. As loving as she is toward Harry and her own children, Mrs. Weasley is little more than the Good Mother archetype. Hermione Granger, for the first three novels at least, plays little more for the story’s movement than simply being a stock Virgin. She is innocent and naïve, helping her friends selflessly with her knowledge gained from a lack of a social life outside her protective circle. Cho Chang, Harry’s love interest for the novels The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix is a modified Temptress. She never really acts as though she will let Harry in, and when he bumbles over himself in Hogsmeade village in The Order of the Phoenix, she embarrasses him publicly, emasculating him as though she were a succubus, a hell-spawned temptress (Dobie, Boeree).
In The Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore finally takes a more hands-on approach to tutoring Harry and leads him on the way to finding Voldemort’s Horcruxes – magical artifacts that hold a portion of the owner’s soul. The first six novels have really just been leading into this quest. Jung’s archetype model states that in order to be a Hero, one has to have a quest which involves a “psychological as well as a physical movement from one place, or state of being, to another” (Dobie 60). This quest will end up taking Harry from Hogwarts, which happened toward the end of The Half-Blood Prince; Harry stated “[he is] not coming back [to Hogwarts] even if it does reopen” to finish his education, but would be attempting to once and for all rid the world of He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (Rowling 650). We can see how much his final task from Dumbledore means to him by his not returning to the place he calls home in order to finish it. The new acting headmistress, Professor McGonagall, tells Harry that “the situation has changed somewhat” and that he must give up the quest for the horcruxes to which Harry replies, “I don’t think so…Professor Dumbledore never told me to stop following his orders if he died” (Rowling, Half-Blood, 626). The task set to him by a man who personifies everything that Harry has ever wanted means so much to him that he would leave a place where being away from it made him miss “Hogwarts so much it was like having a constant stomach ache” (Rowling, Chamber 3). This dedication allows us to see just how deeply into Harry’s psyche Dumbledore has imbedded himself and the kind of loyalty that he inspires.
The secret club the students form in The Order of the Phoenix is also a reference to the headmaster. They call themselves “Dumbledore’s Army,” letting everyone who knows the name understand that they are willing to fight under a single man’s name. Not for their school. Not for their country. But for a single man. As Harry puts it in The Half-Blood Prince, he is “Dumbledore’s man through and through” (Rowling 649). The loyalty that Albus Dumbledore inspires isn’t out of fear or even out of the power that he possesses. It comes from the love and devotion he shows his students. Most students can see how caring Albus is by the way he handles the school in day to day matters, but those who are close to Harry Potter understand the personal level of interest he shares in the lives of his students. It just happens that Harry has the most traumatic events and the most common attacks on himself. When other students, such as Neville Longbottom, are afflicted, he comes running to offer whatever aid and care he can provide them, no matter how small. In The Sorcerer’s Stone, Dumbledore “award[s] ten points to Mr. Neville Longbotom” to help his house win a competition because “it takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends” (Rowling 306). He bolster’s Neville’s self-esteem by awarding him for something that he had simply done because it was right. Small things like this build Dumbledore’s character as a Father and Wise Old Man, knowing precisely when and where help is needed and to what degree.
Jung mentions that during the forging of a Hero, there is an archetypical cycle of Death and Rebirth. Both Harry and Voldemort himself go through these periods. Harry’s is more of a psychological cycle, as his parents death at the hands of the Dark Lord give him the chance to live, but Voldemort is destroyed at the same time. In The Goblet of Fire, Voldemort is physically reborn from a mass of flesh and his soul using Harry’s blood as a catalyst. By using Potter’s blood in his ritual, Voldemort gives Harry his second Rebirth; he finally has a visible end to his quest for vengeance for his parents’ deaths.
Looking further at Jung’s studies tied into Rowling’s series, one can see the “patronus” as it is taught to Harry in The Prisoner of Azkaban represents Jung’s animus, or “soul-image or life force that causes one to act” (Dobie 57). The patronus is conjured directly from one’s soul in Rowling’s novels, gaining shape and form based on what lies in the caster’s heart, and protecting the caster from harm and teaching young Harry what truly lies inside himself when even his mentor could not. Harry’s patronus is that of a great stag, a graceful creature of nobility and strength and power. One question that comes from his patronus being so magnificent is whether or not he was meant for Slytherin. Would his patronus have been as majestic if he had truly been a match for Slytherin? Or is the power and greatness embodied in his patronus another indication that while its nobility alludes to Gryffindor, he should be part of Slytherin due to his patronus’s inspiring and strong presence?
If Dumbledore had not been killed toward the end of the sixth novel and shifted archetypes, then Harry’s quest for his parents’ killer could have potentially never ended. If one is to look at it from a psychoanalytical perspective, Harry truly sees Dumbledore as the father he never had. Almost every aspect of his life is influenced by the headmaster, and as the sixth book moves toward its end, Harry becomes increasingly depressed that he cannot do the task set before him, showing his feelings for Dumbledore as a father figure and letting the reader see that he fears any sort of patriarchal disappointment.
There are months, though, between Harry’s semesters at his beloved school. It is during these months that he lives with his aunt and uncle. This kind of attachment to a school and a style of life, gives us insight into just how unhappy Harry has been his entire life with his uncle, aunt, and cousin. Vernon Dursley, Harry’s uncle and legal guardian, is the Father in Harry’s life for more than double the years he has attended Hogwarts, yet Harry does not see him as such. He seems to Harry to be a Trickster with a Devil mixed in, always getting in the way of the way things are meant to go and openly antagonizing the young man. Each semester as Harry moves back to the Dursley Residence, he grows a little more distant from his uncle, occasionally casting mildly annoying but ultimately harmless spells on him or a family member, and in doing so, he strengthens his growing bond with Albus Dumbledore. As the summer ends and Harry leaves the Dursleys’ place of residence, there is usually an instance of magic going awry as Harry casts a spell to make his Aunt Marge bloat and fly away like a balloon in The Prisoner of Azkaban or escaping from virtual captivity via a flying car stolen from the Ministry of Magic in The Chamber of Secrets, further placing a wedge between them that will never be removed due to Vernon’s inherent distrust of anything magical and non-Muggle.
Harry’s disdain for his uncle could stem from his never having known his father. Uncle Vernon never treated Harry as a child of his own (though Dumbledore truly does, which explains the close bond the two wizards share), but only keeps him in his home when he has to at the behest of his wife and her familial responsibilities. If Vernon had known nothing of Harry’s parents (from where his dislike of the boy stems) and had treated him as his own son, Harry’s life would be completely different, his personality would be less of his parents’ and more of his rotten uncle’s and cousin’s, and he would never have made the bond he did with Albus Dumbledore because his desperate need for a Father, no matter how skewed and perverted, would have been met by Vernon Dursely. Vernon and Petunia at some level, whether consciously or not, drove Harry away from them and into the arms of a loving parental figure – Albus Dumbledore.
Almost every single aspect of Harry’s life at Hogwarts (especially any portion dealing with the faculty from Gryffindor) is, in a way, a signpost pointing the way for him to become closer to Dumbledore. Even his best friend on the staff, the half-giant Hagrid, is such a strong proponent of Dumbledore, that even had the headmaster done something so wrong as Voldemort, Harry would very likely still care for him, if with nothing else than some sort of perversion of Stockholme’s Symdrome, “the dramatic and unexpected realignment of affections; this syndrome consists of a positive bond between hostage and captor, and feelings of distrust or hostility on the part of the victim towards the authorities” (Oxford). Dumbledore is not Harry’s captor, however. That would be Vernon Dursley, but the boy developed no such perverse love for his uncle because of being rescued, so to speak, from his uncle before such bonds could begin to hold. The Wise Old Man sees Harry as himself when he was younger, and wants to prevent Harry from making the same mistakes that he has made in the past, namely those made in dealing with the rising in power of the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Harry felt Dumbledore’s death more so than anyone, and the first time the words ever get uttered by a character is when Harry notifies Hagrid: “Harry cleared his throat; it was dry from panic and the smoke… ‘Dumbledore,’ said Harry. ‘Snape killed…Dumbledore.'” (Rowling, Half-Blood 606). The significance of his telling Hagrid lies in that the half-giant will undoubtedly comfort him and tell him the very thing he needs to hear in order to maintain the feelings of love and affection that will aid his grief and mourning process because Hagrid holds the same affections for Dumbledore; his emotions act as a sort of propaganda for Harry when he tells him of his death. He knows how he feels about the late headmaster, but having Hargrid remind him of his feelings, even reinforcing them, lets him grow even stronger in his rage and grief, giving him the perfect opportunity to not go back to his beloved School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (which was mentioned that made him happier than any other place) and pursue his quest for the Horcruxes that will forever annihilate what has destroyed much of his life, that of his parents, and his Father, Dumbledore.
Throughout the series, Dumbledore and Harry have talks and lessons with one another, whether it is the pensieve trips in The Half-Blood Prince or their talk in the infirmary in The Chamber of Secrets, the two men share a bond. Dumbledore gives Harry lots of proverbial advice, acting more as a Father than a teacher in some cases. Without Dumbledore around in the seventh novel, Harry will be presented with a challenge he hasn’t faced in six years since his introduction to the wizarding world: being alone. Not since his twelfth birthday has Harry been alone, and even with Ron and Hermione accompanying him on his journey for the horcruxes, Harry will be without the moral and emotional pillar against which he could lean for years.
“Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about the Harry Potter books is
that right from the outset Joanne Rowling conceived them as a series of seven” (Johnstone). This pre-planning makes J.K. Rowling play inadvertently into Jung’s archetypes and psychoanalytical importance of the number seven. This number is significant to Jung and his studies as he said that “when three and four are combined to make seven, the union produces a powerful product that is perfect and whole and complete” (Dobie 59). The separation of three and four comes from the mood and level of maturity of Rowling’s series. With The Sorcerer’s Stone, The Chamber of Secrets, and The Prisoner of Azkaban, we see a young boy coming into his own. Harry is innocent, learning, and full of light and hope through the end of the third novel, but as the fourth, The Goblet of Fire, is published, the series takes a dramatic change. Rowling begins to write darker and more forbidding events. The final four novels begin to have Harry and his friends deal with issues such as death, family, and mortality which take the children from their innocent lives and force them to grow up and deal with them. With Harry witnessing the death of Cedric Diggory in The Goblet of Fire, the death of Sirius Black in The Order of the Phoenix, and the death of Albus Dumbledore in The Half-Blood Prince, the lighthearted mood changes into one of increasing dread and gloom which will finally culminate in the seventh and final novel to finish the series and make it “perfect and whole and complete.
As one looks deeper into the realm of the psychological, it is easy to see that a writer as prolific in fiction as Rowling has done her homework so to speak when she sits down and creates her characters with the words on the page. Nothing in her books is out of place because everything, even the number of books in the series, is chosen with the greatest of delicacy. Her characters are fleshed out from not only her mind but that of the writers and thinkers who have come before her to establish such lasting archetypes that make her characters feel real instead of “stock.” Even though the characters in her novels fit snugly into an archetypical role, one cannot say that these characters are simply their archetypes and nothing more. Their motivations play on one another, and the bonds she weaves between them with her storytelling make the world rich and alive. Harry Potter and his friends and acquaintances are more than fictional people made up by a lady in a Scottish café. They live and breathe on the page. They act and react and interact with each other and their surroundings and the circumstances that J.K. Rowling puts in place for them. While the seventh book has not been published yet, we as readers can rest easily knowing that Harry Potter’s world of witches and wizards is in good hands as it has always been and that Rowling will allow for the characters to let their story unfold to her with their archetypical personalities and motivations in control while she simply fields the pen and scribes the words on the parchment.
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Dobie, Ann B. Theory into Practice. New York: Thomson Wadsworth, 2002.
Johnstone, Anne. “Fun is Brought to Book.” The Herald. [Glasgow, Scotland] 4 July 1998, 1 ed.
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Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press, 2006. 17 Oct 2006
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Rowling, J.K.. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. New York: Scholastic Press, 1999.
—. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Scholastic Press, 2000.
—. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. New York: Scholastic Press, 2005.
—, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Scholastic Press, 2003.
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Shakespeare, William. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The Complete Works of Shakespeare.
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11.
In order to maintain continuity in the paper, each Jungian archetype
will simply be referred to as its name in plain print with a capital
first letter. Ex: Harry Potter is a Hero; Dumbledore is a Father,
Wise Old Man, and Scapegoat. The proper nouns throughout the paper
will represent the archetypes, while the lower-case words are still
the ordinary nouns of standard definition.
