Departure-Initiation-Return Journey

 Departure- Initiation- Return Journey 

   

 Harry Potter’s adventures are described as a three stages quest, which a scholar Joseph Campbell labels as Departure, Initiation and Return (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2008). Within those stages are common themes. Campbell summarises such story this way:



 “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder. Fabulous forces are there encountered and decisive victory is won. The hero comes back from the mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”''  (A hero with a Thousand Faces, 2008:30) ''



''' I  Departure '''

 The hero is called to adventure. As Campbell describes it, the hero is first seen in our everyday world. He is starting a new stage in life. Also, an envoy is sent to announce that the hero is destined on a mission. The very start of The Philosopher’s Stone fits this description, as Harry suffers a dreary life with the Dursleys, and he is unaware of his belonging to the magical world. Because the Dursleys continually prevent Harry from finding out the truth of his ancestry, Hagrid, the gamekeeper at Hogwarts comes to collect him:



 “You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Dumbledore left fer him?

 I was there! I saw Dumbledore leave it, Dursley! An’ you’ve kept it from him all these years?’

 ‘Kept what from me?’ said Harry eagerly.

 ‘STOP! I FORBID YOU!’ yelled Uncle Vernon in panic. Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror. ‘Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh,’ said Hagrid. ‘Harry – yer a wizard.’

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> ‘I’m a what?’ gasped Harry.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> ‘A wizard, o’ course,’ said Hagrid, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, ‘an’ a thumpin’ good’un, I’d say(…).”'' (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, p. 42) ''

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> According to Campbell (A Hero with a Thousand Faces), there is a possibility, that the protagonist refuses the call to adventure, but later on discovers he has no choice in this matter. In Chambers of Secrets, Harry seems to be annoyed with the attention he attracts from the earlier adventure, but his fearless character does not allow him to ignore the mysterious occurrences, which are directed at him.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> In The Goblet of Fire, Harry finds himself in a struggle to take part in a competition he did not intend to enter. Once again, he is not only to fight for survival and the prize in the Triwizard Tournament, but is purposely placed in front of Lord Voldemort for the confrontation.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;">               '' ''

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt72px;line-height:150%;"> "We bow to each other. Harry," said Voldemort, bending a little, but keeping his snakelike face upturned to Harry. "Come, the niceties must be observed. . . Dumbledore would like you to show manners. . . . Bow to death, Harry. ..."

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> Another element of the protagonist’s quest according to Campbell is an encounter with a guide or a protector. At the very beginning, Harry is supported by Hagrid, who leads him to the magical world for the first time, and in the following series he is guided by his mentor Albus Dumledore. The final characteristic of the Departure journey Campbell describes as “The Belly of the Whale” which functions as a kind of a trap without a way out:

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt72px;line-height:150%;"> “The hero, instead of conquering or conciliating the power of the threshold, is swallowed into the unknown, and would appear to have died”.(2008: 83)

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> Whether Harry finds himself in the Chamber of Secrets or sneaks into professor’s Lupin hideaway under the Whomping Willow, he in “the Belly of the Whale”.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> II '''Initiation '''

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt33.15pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> In the initiation part, the hero undergo a path of various trials, which examine his determination towards his mission and eventually strengthen him. Joseph Campbell describes it this way:

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> “ONCE having traversed the threshold, the hero moves in a dream landscape of curiously fluid, ambiguous forms, where he must survive a succession of trials. This is a favourite phase of the myth adventure. It has produced a world literature of miraculous tests

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> and ordeals. The hero is covertly aided by the advice, amulets, and secret agents of the supernatural helper whom he met before his entrance into this region. Or it may be that he here discovers for the first time that there is a benign power everywhere supporting him in his superhuman passage.”'' (2008: 89) ''

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> This theme certainly appears in each of the books, as Harry receives new amulets each time, such as the invisibility cloak or the Marauder’s Map. He also learns how to create a Patronus to protect him from the dementors.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> In the quest, the protagonist is also said to fight a symbolic dragon, and he may suffer a ritual death. In the books, Harry battles a basilisk,  a genuine dragon, Dementors and the greatest

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> enemy of all- Voldemort. Although he suffers from minor injuries in each of the adventures, he goes through a kind of a renewal afterwards:

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> “Can the ego put itself to death? For many-headed is this surrounding Hydra; one head cut off, two more appear—unless the right caustic is applied to the mutilated stump. The original departure into the land of trials represented only the beginning of the long and really perilous path of initiator)' conquests and moments of illumination. Dragons have now to be

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> slain and surprising barriers passed—again, again, and again. Meanwhile there will be a multitude of preliminary victories, unretainable ecstasies, and momentary glimpses of the wonderful land.”( 2008: 87).

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> The hero is recognised by or reunited with his father. He comes to understand this source of control over his life. In every adventure Harry experiences a deeply touching moment of contact with his parents, such as when they appear in the Mirror of Erised in The Philosopher’s Stone and as ghost images in both- The Goblet of Fire released from Voldemort’s wand and in The Deathly Hallows by the use of the Resurrection Stone.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> “Harry was so close to the mirror now that his nose was nearly touching that of his reflection. ‘Mum?’ he whispered. ‘Dad?’. They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry’s knobbly knees – Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life.” ( Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, p. 157)

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> “The smoky shadow of a tall man with untidy hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him. . . and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his father. "Your mother's coming . . ." he said  quietly. "She wants to see you ... it will be all right.. . hold on. . . ." And she came. . . first her head, then her body... a young woman with long hair, the smoky, shadowy form of Lily Potter blossomed from the end of Voldemort's wand, fell to the ground, and straightened like her husband. She walked close to Harry, looking down at him, and she spoke in the same distant, echoing voice as the others, but quietly, so that Voldemort, his face now livid with fear as his

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> victims prowled around him, could not hear. . ..”(Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, p. 431).

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> “He closed his eyes and turned the stone over in his hand three times. He knew

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;">  it had happened, because he heard slight movements around him that suggested frail

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;">  bodies shifting their footing on the earthly, twig-strewn ground that marked the outer

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> edge of the forest. He opened his eyes and looked around. They were  neither ghost

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> nor truly flesh, he could see that. They resembled most closely the Riddle that had

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> escaped from the diary so long ago, and he had been memory made nearly solid.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> Less substantial than living bodies, but much more than ghosts, they moved toward him,

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> and on each face, there was the same loving smile. James was exactly the same height

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> as Harry. He was wearing the clothes in which he had died, and his hair was untidy and

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> ru <span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height:150%;font-family:"MSGothic";mso-bidi-font-family: "MSGothic"">l ed, and his glasses were a little lopsided, like Mr. Weasley’s. Sirius was tall and

<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt48px;line-height:150%;"> handsome, and younger by far than Harry had seen him in life. He loped with an easy grace, his hands in his pockets and a grin on his face. Lupin was younger too, and much less shabby, and his hair was thicker and darker. He looked happy to be back in this familiar place, scene of so many adolescent wanderings. Lily’s smile was widest of all. She pushed her long hair back as she drew close to him, and her green eyes, so like his, searched his face hungrily, as though she would never be able to look at him enough. “You’ve been so brave.” (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p.707)

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;">''' III Return '''

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> In the final part of the quest, the hero takes a ‘magic flight’ back to his original world. He may be rescued by magical forces, and a person or a thing from his original world may appear to bring him back. Joseph Campbell describes it in a following way:

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “  WHEN the hero-quest has been accomplished, through penetration to the source, or through the grace of some male or female, human or animal, personification, the adventurer still must return

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> with his life-transmuting trophy. The full round, the norm of the monomyth, requires that the hero shall now begin the labor of bringing the runes of wisdom, the Golden Fleece, or his sleeping princess, back into the kingdom of humanity, where the boon may redound to the renewing of the community, the nation, the planet, or the ten thousand worlds.” (A Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 179)

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> Harry is miraculously saved in The Philosopher’s Stone, and travels back while still unconscious. In The Chamber of Secrets, he is rescued by Fawkes, and is given a Sorting Hat, from which he takes the Griffindor’s sword to help him defeat basilisk. In The Goblet of Fire, Harry manages to escape from the cemetery by the help of ghost images of his parents and Cedric Diggory, released from Voldemort’s wand.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> The hero becomes master of two worlds: the everyday world, which represents his material existence, and the magical world, which signifies his inner self:

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “Freedom to pass back and forth across the world division, from the perspective of the apparitions of time to that of the causal deep and back—not contaminating the principles of the one with those of the other, yet permitting the mind to know the one by virtue of the other—is the talent of the master.” (A Hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 212-213)

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> Being in the present of Lord Voldemort for Harry is the worst nightmare of all. Despite having been there too often, he is able to see things no other wizard has seen. These encounters have made him aware of this part of his psyche that others never considered. Last but not least, according to Campbell, the hero is characterised as having won the freedom to live- he has finally conquered the fears that prevented him from living fully:

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “Such self-righteousness leads to a misunderstanding, not only of oneself but of the nature

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> of both man and the cosmos. The goal of the myth is to dispel the need for such life

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;">  ignorance by effecting a reconciliation of the individual consciousness with the universal will.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> And this is effected through a realization of the true relationship of the passing phenomena

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> of time to the imperishable life that lives and dies in all.” (A hero with a Thousand Faces, p. 221)

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> This element is fully visible in The Prisoner of Azkaban, when Harry learns to how to face his fears. Although professor Lupin is afraid to let Harry fight the boggart because he didn’t want an image of Voldemort flying through Hogwarts, Harry tells him:

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “Clearly, I was wrong,” said Lupin, still frowning at Harry. “But I didn’t think it a good idea for Lord Voldemort to materialize in the staffroom. I imagined that people would panic.”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “I didn’t think of Voldemort,” said Harry honestly. “I — I remembered those Dementors.”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “I see,” said Lupin thoughtfully. “Well, well…I’m impressed.” He smiled slightly at the look of surprise on Harry’s face. “That suggests that what you fear most of all is — fear. Very wise, Harry.” (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, p. 98)

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> Professor Lupin is clearly impressed by Harry’s insight and awareness of fighting one’s fears instead of keeping in deep down in one’s self. Although J.K. Rowling does not follow a step-by-step diagram of Departure- Initiation- Return journey, the previously mentioned patterns appear in each of the books, as they have been in mythology for centuries. To battle the dark forces in the world, hero must face the dark forces within.

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> Finally, Harry- after his alleged death finds himself in an alternate world at the King’s Cross station where he meets Dumbledore. The hero is totally deprived of any trace of evil in his soul and heart because of his will to die for greater good. He understands the necessity of the return and decides to finally defeat Lord Voldemort:

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<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> ““I’ve got to go back, haven’t I?

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “That is up to you.”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “I’ve got a choice?”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “Oh yes.” Dumbledore smiled at him. “We are in King’s Cross, you say? I think that if you decided not to go back, you would be able to. . . let’s say. . . board a train.”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “And where would it take me?”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “On,” said Dumbledore simply (…) “But you want me to go back?”

<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin:1pt4.75pt1pt24px;line-height:150%;"> “I think,” said Dumbledore, “that if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. I cannot promise it. But I know this, Harry, that you have less to fear from returning here than he does.” (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, p. 722)