The Strength of Weak Ties in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

THE ANALYSIS OF SOCIAL TIES IN HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF THE FIRE WITH THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE
Name of Student
The Name of the Class
Professor
The Name of the School
The City and the State where it is located
The Date
Abstract
This essay is a theory-oriented examination of J.K. Rowling’s novel “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” particularly discussing the social network in Harry’s world and how its weak connections impact his success in winning the Triwizard championship in the end. The essay particularly focuses on the climax of the novel where Harry has finally won all the challenges after fighting obstacles to empower him to redesign his country by placing his actions and victory against various sociological theories like conflict, slavery, injustice, and, above all, racism, which is shown to be the driving force of the plot. Besides, the essay incorporates the criticism by various sociologists, scholars, and critics to support the claim that weak social ties lead the protagonist to be the most powerful man in the end. Also, it analyzes their reviews and how all of them contribute to analyzing Harry’s world as the most significant social setting to discuss racism and its importance in building the characters and their development throughout the story. Finally, although all these scholars vary in their opinion, the essay shows how their diversity of opinion joins the same hub, displaying the triumph of Harry in championship deeply connected to the individual-society relationship.
Furthermore, analyzing Miller’s theory of ‘sociological imagination’ and its interpretation by Fields is also a part of the research. Finally, the essay reaches its conclusion through scholarly research of various other scholars like Lyubansk, Nejad, Walters, and Ollivier-Gooch. In the end, it connects back the victory of the protagonist with the weak ties of the social network, which results by racism, which is the underlying theme of the novel from start to the end; and which generates the main conflict, along with strengthening Harry to overcome it by individual freedom of choosing actions and applying magical tricks.
The Analysis of Social Ties in Harry Potter and the Goblet of the Fire with Theoretical Perspective
Like the entire Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire provide a broad platform to critically analyze the social world with a new mythological background. By discussing it theoretically, the story fits in the frame of multiple social connections, particularly based on stratification, racism, socioeconomic status, and gender. Every sociological theory applied in the novel holds much in-depth evaluation by critics. However, racism gains certain value in creating the conflict and defining how people in the novel have weak links to one another, in literally and metaphorically supporting the protagonist to be a winner of the trophy in the end. As the characters of the novel have different ethnic backgrounds, many scholars and critics accentuate the role of different cultural and national backgrounds in building the fictional and wizardry world of J.K. Rowling, where everybody is responsible and fighting for survival for being ethnically different from others. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the weak ties in social networks better assist the protagonist, Harry, to win the championship in the Triwizard tournament.
At first, the students chosen to play Triwizard contest have to qualify based on a racial setting. Muggles are not allowed to participate because they have no magical powers, and the competition requires supernatural skills to defeat other characters. Harry’s name comes out of the goblet because he was half-blood, which he did not know before (Rowling, 2019). Everybody was astonished; many of them considered it a “joke” (Rowling 32, 2019). Although the reaction of astonishment was coming from the confusion of the age factor, Harry’s racial code also did not match the criteria of candidates for the championship because nobody knew that one of his parents was a wizard. Here, we discover one of the most significant hierarchical problems in the fantastic society of Harry Potter, where people are classified into magical and non-magical groups on the top to claim their rights and secure their survival. Besides, Harry Potter wins the championship because he has to play it bound in the contract that once goblet spits a name, the person cannot draw back (Rowling, 2019). It shows that prevailing racism, backing up weak social ties, in Rowling’s world, which pushes Harry into the competition, is fundamentally responsible for his triumph in the end.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire provides us with the true implication of ‘the sociological imagination’ while showing us how people are not living their lives wholly independently to gain their targets. However, they are linked to a greater structure of social pressures. Comparing the social network supplied in the novel with the theory of ‘the sociological imagination by C. Wright Mills, we conclude that everybody in the story is accountable for their deeds and survival (Mills, 1959). Harry Potter is assigned to play the tournament to survive, while the other also has to overcome different trials to defeat others and save their life. The central problem of sociology, being the ‘individual-society relationship,’ becomes clear when the students from different races have different obligations and rewards (Fields, 2007). It impacts the choices of all characters in the story, making them take action and protect their survival from satisfying the demand of social pressures, ultimately making Harry the winner of the tournament. Also, there are several hints to slavery, as in the words of Hermione, which show the sentiments of inferiority complex among the characters based on their racial hierarchy (Rowling, 2019). In other words, the world Harry dwells in is an accomplished manifestation of Mill’s ‘sociological imagination.’ It shows the relationship between individuals and society. It supports the view that the weak ties become the strongest social force designing the choice of actions for every character in the novel, with results like the protagonist’s victory in the championship.
The underlying racism in the novel, as represented by the character and actions of Voldemort, and treatment with house-elves, reminds the reader of the historical ethnic-cleansing movements, metaphorically founding the pavement to success for Harry Potter in the championship. Nejad connects Voldemort’s obsession with blood purification and the spirit to cleanse the magical world of mix-bloods with the historical incidents of Europeans and Americans’ obsession with ethnic-cleansing campaigns and Hitler’s initiated movements of a similar type in Germany (Nejad, 2012). Voldemort declares that Muggles are inferior and do not deserve any right to wizarding inheritance; therefore, he only sets a war between the magical skill holders to purify the blood. This way, Voldemort gives authority to set a battlefield only between the people who can perform magical acts, giving Harry Potter a chance to win only by the power of ...