This is a rhetoric paper I wrote for my Rhetorical Criticism class. It is a genre analysis of Harry Potter and how it fits into the genre of Magical Realism. Here is an excerpt: 

The genre of Magical Realism started with Latin American Literature such as Isabel Allende’s novels, but there are a few texts outside of that category that now also fit into the genre. In J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, she uses the real world as a foundation for the magic world. They are a part of the same world, this is shown many times. The genre of magical realism is generally a more realistic version of magic, such as telepathy or telekinesis, something that could be easily explained in the real world. Harry Potter takes the same idea and creates a more intricate magic system with explanations for why ordinary people do not notice its existence: 

J. K. Rowling’s invented world of wizardry is not a distinct other world of the same kind as Tolkien’s Middle Earth or C. S. Lewis’ Narnia, but constantly interconnects with and interpenetrates the world we know; in fact, it is part of the same world, but hidden from Muggles, that is, non-­wizarding folk. Nevertheless, like a faerie world, it has strict rules of being. Its imaginative creation resides in the existence of magic. (Christianson 184-185)

Since Harry Potter has been labeled as being a part of the Fantasy genre the question remains how does the Harry Potter series participate in the Magical Realism genre?

Genre’s are an elusive type of device, while they are generally easily defined, they can also be interpreted in many ways. In trying to find the beginning of a genre, one must look at literature from long ago:

The novelty therefore consisted in the amalgamation of realism and fantasy. Each of 

these, separately and by devious ways, made its appearance in Latin America: realism, 

since the Colonial Period but especially during the 1880's; the magical, writ large from 

the earliest-- in the letters of Columbus, in the chroniclers, in the sagas of Cabeza de 

Vaca-- entered the literary mainstream during Modernism. (Flores 189)

This excerpt does not seek to define Magical Realism, but rather point to its existence as a genre based in Latin American literature. The word “amalgamation” here means a unifying “of realism and fantasy,” this is the best definition of what Magical Realism is. As with any genre by defining it so specifically to Latin American literature a constraint is formed and there is little room left for expansion. But the world is not stagnant and genres expand beyond their original limitations. The key characteristics of the genre of magical realism are the following: 

It is characterized by two conflicting perspectives. While accepting the rational view of 

reality, it also considers the supernatural as a part of reality. The setting in a magical 

realist text is a normal world with authentic human characters. It is not at all fantastic or 

unreal; it is a mode of narration that discovers the natural in the supernatural and 

supernatural in nature. It is a mode in which the real and the fantastic and the natural 

and the supernatural are more or less equivalently and coherently represented. (Dash 1) The author suggests that magical realism cannot or does not contain fantasy. Rather that by having supernatural elements within the rational reality the work does not become fantasy. As Rosemary Jackson puts it: “The fantastic exists as the inside, or underside, of realism, opposing the novel’s closed, monological forms with open, dialogical structures, as if the novel had given rise to its own opposite, its unrecognizable reflection” (25). Here she suggests that fantasy and reality are interconnected and though they are considered opposites, they can exist within one another. She even goes as far as to say they are dependent on one another: “The fantastic cannot exist indepen­dently of that ‘real’ world which it seems to find so frustratingly finite” (20). This dependence is something that Rowling captures in her world of Harry Potter. It is also the same key feature that makes the reader feel as though they too are a part of the universe, that they are reading about. 

The integration of reality and fantasy or supernatural elements creates a new reality, a magical one. Within each world there are limitations or rules and without these elements the reader would feel lost. Since the fantastical world and the magical world have many common characteristics, I will be using the terms synonymously. The fantastic world being created within a real world and being dependent on the real world's existence, it also becomes dependent on the existence of magic. Without magic the fantastical world would not seem fantastical. Magical Realism generally follows human characters. This is an important distinction because in fantasy worlds there can be many creatures and other beasts that do not truly exist, but are created within the facet of the world. To have the main character be one of these fantastical creatures would take the reader away from the reality of the world being created. Since readers tend to see themselves as whichever character is being followed by the story. It is in an author’s best interest to keep the reader submerged in their created world, whether magical or fantastical.

To take it a step further, “the supernatural element is said to have infiltrated the realist novel, subverting its narrative procedures, destabilizing its ideological programs, making havoc of its epistemological and ontological coordinates” (Smajic 2). This author suggests that it is not really a symbiotic relationship between realism and supernatural, rather that the supernatural has taken over the realistic world and changed it. Though this viewpoint is most interesting because it continues to link the supernatural world and reality. Along this same line of thought, history itself can exist within the supernatural or fantasy world, “Rather, they can call upon myth and even anecdote to embellish their alternative perspectives” (Bowers 5). Here the author argues that history is used within this context to create a reality within the novels or artifacts which captures the reader and keeps them interested. In this way the reader is allowed to believe in something that would normally seem impossible in reality and by weaving it into the reality of the story the author takes the reader further into the created world. 

In this way Magical Realism has become a distinguished genre, easily defined as a part of literary genres. Many novels and other works have been specifically labeled by this genre. This is interesting because it allows for the genre to expand and take into consideration new works that otherwise might have been labeled something else. Though Harry Potter has been labeled as Fantasy, it is not hard to see how the connection to Magical Realism can be made. The way Rowling weaves her worlds together, making the reader believe in the impossible, is all a part of this genre. 

The method of analysis is Generic participation: “A critic who engages in generic participation determines which artifacts participate in which genres. This involves a deductive process in which you test an instance of rhetoric against the characteristics of a genre” (Foss 188). This is a method that is structured within a broader type of analysis called Generic Criticism which “is rooted in the assumption that certain types of situations provoke similar needs and expectations in audiences and thus call for particular kinds of rhetoric” and “The purpose of generic criticism is to understand rhetorical practices, sometimes in different time periods and in different places, by identifying the similarities in rhetorical situations and the rhetoric constructed in response to them” (Foss 179). This is all to say that generic participation is a way of looking at a genre to see if a text meets the criteria and in what ways. 

Rowling’s Harry Potter series begins in the real world, which is called the muggle world. It has no magic and no comprehension of magic. To a muggle, magic is nothing more than a fantasy written about in books or seen in movies. Rowling creates a veil of sorts that leads to the magical world. Any muggle can deny the existence of magic, because she has created it into a secret. Some muggles are aware of the magic world but most are left unaware. The reader is told that the muggles are better off not knowing. Even so, the magical world finds a way to creep its way into the muggle world. There are many times when Harry, the protagonist, sees someone on the muggle television news who is a dark witch or wizard. The wizarding world has to keep the muggle world aware of the dangers without telling them the specifics. 

Harry has a place in both worlds and he is the character the books follow. This gives the reader a good description of both worlds from the same perspective. It is in the magical world that Harry feels most comfortable because he has magic inside him. His parents are nothing more than a story to him and the magical world is a way for him to connect with his heritage. Most of the series takes place in the wizarding world but there are very noticeable shifts back to the muggle world. Rowling constantly weaves the two together, to create an atmosphere of seclusion. The wizarding world is mostly a secret and this gives the reader hope that it might really exist in the actual world, outside of the series. 

By weaving the two worlds together, Rowling achieves the characteristics of the genre. One world is based in reality and rationality, the other is a supernatural realm that his hidden from the common eye but still exists within reality. There are a few times when muggles notice something is not quite right. Magic seeps into their reality and they cannot understand it and oftentimes the wizarding world has to make them forget, by using a forgetting spell. 

Bowers, Maggie Ann. “Magical Realism and Subaltern Studies.” Critical Insights: Magical Realism, Nov. 2014, pp. 35–48. Literary Reference Center Plus, search.ebscohost.com.

Christianson, Eric S., and Christopher H. Partridge. The Lure of the Dark Side : Satan and Western Demonology in Popular Culture. Routledge, 2014.

Dash, Pragyan Prabartika. “Magical Realism: Growth and Development.” Indian Review of World Literature in English, vol. 10, no. 2, July 2014, p. 1. Discover GALILEO, search.ebscohost.com

Flores, Angel. “Magical Realism in Spanish American Fiction.” Hispania, vol. 38, no. 2, 1955, pp. 187–192. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/335812.

Foss, Sonja K. Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration and Practice. Waveland Press, Illinois, 2018.

Jackson, Rosemary. Fantasy. Routledge, 2003. Discover GALILEO, search.ebscohost.com

Latham, Don. “The Cultural Work of Magical Realism in Three Young Adult Novels.” Children’s Literature in Education, vol. 38, no. 1, Mar. 2007, pp. 59–70. Advanced Placement Source, doi:10.1007/s10583-006-9017-1.

Smajić, Srdjan. “Supernatural Realism.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, vol. 42, no. 1, 2009, pp. 1–22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40267751.