Gothic Disruption of Internal and External Narrative in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban and Mary Poppins

Authors

  • Yiming Wang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.54097/pkw6kp90

Keywords:

Gothic Literature, Children’s Literature, Harry Potter, Identity, Mythic Tradition

Abstract

We often picture children’s books that contain fantastical nannies or magical schools as wholesome narratives where good triumphs over evil in straightforward storylines. However, closer examination reveals gothic themes in books like Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban and Mary Poppins. Both novels explore experiences of encountering the forgotten and unfamiliar, utilizing the gothic framework of the Unheimlich (The Uncanny) and Gothic disruption of personal spaces. This paper analyzes how gothic elements refine the protagonists’ identities, arguing that while Harry Potter ultimately embraces a unique self-concept through his encounters with gothic disruptions, Mary Poppins integrates the uncanny into everyday middle-class life.

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References

[1] Batty, Holly. “Harry Potter and the (Post)Human Animal Body.” Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, 53 (2015) No. 1, p. 24–37.

[2] Byler, Lauren. "Makeovers, Individualism, and Vanishing Community in the Harry Potter Series." Children's Literature, 44 (2016) No., p.115.

[3] Elick, Catherine. "Exploring the Mystery of Shared Origins: P. L. Travers’s Mary Poppins Series (1934-1998)." Talking Animals in Children’s Fiction, McFarland, 2015, pp. 91–119.

[4] Liggins, Emma. The Haunted House in Women’s Ghost Stories: Gender, Space, and Modernity, 1850–1945. Palgrave Macmillan, 2021.

[5] Marosi, Renáta. Mary Poppins: The Subversive Magic Helper. Contemporary Fairy-Tale Magic, edited by Lydia Brugué and Auba Llompart, Brill, 2020, pp. 229-239.

[6] Punter, David. The Uncanny. The Routledge Companion to Gothic, edited by Catherine Spooner and Emma McEvoy, Routledge, 2009, pp. 129–136.

[7] Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Bloomsbury, UK 2014).

[8] Travers, P. L., and Mary Shepard. Mary Poppins (Harcourt Brace & Co., USA, 1997).

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Published

14 March 2025

Issue

Vol. 18 No. 3 (2025)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 International Journal of Education and Humanities

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.