Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter 4)
By J. K. Rowling
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From Tammy Nezol, for About.com
If you skip the middle 400 pages of Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you won't miss much of the plot. However,
you will miss everything else. J. K. Rowling's fourth installment to the Harry
Potter series includes dynamic character development, intense drama, and sly
politics. These elements are dispersed throughout the book, making the middle
section interesting only through our love of the characters and the world, and
not our love of the overarching story line.
The book starts out with promise.
Rowling, for the second time in the series, steps away from Harry's character
just long enough to show us what the story's main villain, Lord Voldemort, has
been up to for the past year. Once again, Rowling presents her readers with a
dreary image of a wasted away man, consumed by his own lust for power. This
time, the man has an assistant and a snake that are slowly nursing him back to
health. Next on this man's list? To reclaim his title as the Dark Lord and
destroy the one boy that had defeated him thirteen years before. Voldemort is
again plotting to kill Harry Potter.
Enter yawn here. Someone has always been out
to try and kill Harry since book one. This plot point has been used throughout
the books as a good thought degraded into a tiresome clich. However, Rowling is
a masterful story teller, and the reader will still follow each line quickly,
anxious to find out what will happen next. Will Voldemort rise this time? How close
will Harry come to death?
That is the last we hear of that plot
for most of the book. Rowling uses the majority of 734 pages to further develop
Harry and the magical world. The book lies before the reader as a masterful
painting, where each paint stroke reveals much more than one can find in a
glance. Harry is now a full fledged adolescence, complete with insecurity
around girls, and the need to continually prove himself. His thoughts are
growing in complexity as his view of the world expands.
As Harry's view grows, so does the
reader's. Rowling takes Harry to the Quidditch World Cup where Harry discovers
wizarding cultures from different nations. It is also here that Harry discovers
the fear and panic that comes in the wake of the dark, hateful followers of
Lord Voldemort.
Rowling moves the book along to where Harry
returns to Hogwarts for his fourth school year. Only now a new plot is
introduced where Harry must play champion in a deadly school game.
So why the change in focus? Rowling
moves from starting the reader with Lord Voldemort to forgetting that plot and
entering a new one. The plots are obviously connected, but how can one writer
get away with promising a book with the villain, and then keeping that same
villain out of view? There is a simple answer, Voldemort never really left the
book.
Voldemort is the antithesis to truth
and justice. He was created out of a lack of love. His spite turned him into a
venomous creature synonymous with a snake. While Voldemort himself may leave
the middle of the story, what he represents certainly does not. As Harry's
world view expands to include different cultures and ways of thinking, Harry's
notice of injustice and intolerance grows as well.
For instance, House-Elfs, small servant
creatures introduced in the second book, are treated as slaves. For all the
care they give to wizards, they receive no pay and rarely any gratitude. The
reporter, Rita Skeeter, is out for herself and not the readers of the newspaper
for which she works. She weaves lies between the thin lines of the truth,
manipulating the public to take whatever stance she wants them to take. And
worst of all, Harry sees Death Eaters, Voldemort's old followers, play spiteful
games with non-magical folk. Led by their prejudice, a Death Eater finds
happiness in hurting others and instilling terror into the rest.
It is through these themes that
Rowling uses a brilliant novel to discuss social justice issues. The reader,
when faced with such horrific tales, must look back into their own culture and
recognize the falsehoods and injusices that lie beneath it. As Dickens did in
the 19th Century, Rowling uses her work as a call to compassion and change.
It is true
that you can skip 400 pages of this book and not miss much of the overarching
plot. The beginning and ending of the book make for a good story within
themselves. In fact, the ending is intense enough to make a person scream, and
I wouldn't recommend it for anyone under 13.
However, as a complete whole,
beginning, middle, and end, the book is no less than brilliant. Rowling takes
her readers on an adventure that only Harry Potter can present, guaranteed to
satisfy any reader.
There are also elements guaranteed to
annoy any reader. The fourth book is over formatted. Each chapter fits in place
too well all revolving around which task Harry has to undertake next. This
makes the book seem choppy at a few too many places.
Another annoyance is the lack of
character development for Draco Malfoy. Surrounded by dynamic characterization,
it's hard not to notice that Malfoy hasn't changed a bit since Harry met him
four years ago. Malfoy's bullying antics come off as more of a plot point, than
an interesting bit to the story. This leaves nothing less than a feeling of the
reader's intelligence being insulted.
Still, these factors are nothing compared to
what the books do have to offer. With a vivid world and mostly realistic
characters, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is well worth a read, or
maybe three. I myself give a large “Bravo� to Rowling and thank
her for the wonderful gift that is the Harry Potter series.
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