Religious Symbolism In Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

In Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, the author J.K. Rowling presents many different themes throughout the fantasy story. For example, it seems that Rowling has tied some religious aspects into the story, whether it be explicit references or simply religious symbolism. She also delves into deeper ideas, such as good vs. evil, as well as death and immortality, which you might not exactly expect from a children’s book. Beginning with the explicit references to religion, two major references would be the mention of the holidays Christmas and Easter, which are both usually associated with the Christian religion. However, in this story they don’t seem to be celebrating these holidays religiously. In chapter 12 when it is Christmas, Ron and …show more content…
There is another main theme throughout the novel, good vs. evil. This can mostly be seen through the actions of the characters. For example, one of our first views of Dumbledore is that he is a noble wizard because of a conversation in the first chapter about him being too noble to use dark powers that he could obtain. Throughout the entire story he is seen as a good character when he is helping Harry and his friends. Another good character is Harry himself. Several times throughout the novel he was willing to do whatever he could to help his friends, like with Hermione and the troll, or to help Hogwarts, like with the Sorcerer’s stone and willing to risk his Hogwarts education and even his life. I believe this is showing that people who are “good” are people who are seen as noble, and those who are willing to risk their lives to save the those around them. Although there are many good wizards in this novel, there are also some very bad ones. For example, Voldemort himself. It is shown in the story that he will go to any extent to get what he wants, even if that includes killing a creature that is “…pure and defenseless.” as Firenze said (page 258.), or leaving someone who helped you get to where you wanted to be, like he left Quirrell to die after he was defeated by Harry. Quirrell himself can be seen as another evil character. He was supposed to be a teacher for the school, who protects the students. Instead, he put all of them in harm and went against the rest of the “good” wizards. This is showing that people who are “evil” are really willing to do whatever they need to in order get what they want, even if it involves hurting other people or creatures that do not deserve to be