Dialectics: Harry Potter and Jane Eyre

Harry Potter:

• Parents died when he was young
• Left with his uncaring aunt and uncle
• Abused by his cousin
• Finds refuge in a new school

Jane Eyre:

• Parents died when she was young
• Left with her uncaring aunt
• Abused by her cousin
• Finds refuge in a new school

Weird how many similarities there are between the two, right? I mean there are obvious differences (although wouldn't it be awesome if Jane could just Wingardium Leviosa Mr. Brocklehurst right out of there?), but they have very similar stories. I am now curious to ask J.K. Rowling if she was at all inspired by Jane Eyre. They both come from very similar backgrounds, but when they get to school and into life they start to diverge paths. Jane goes through 8 years of learning and teaching, whereas the second Harry gets thrown into school he begins to grow up. Jane needed the time to be petty and learn from those around her, whereas Harry, an 11 year old boy, was forced to square off against arguably the most powerful wizard ever (besides Dumbledore, of course). Harry's timeline can be seen as a very squished version of Jane's, though. Where Jane takes years and years to grow up and learn about life, Harry does it in a couple of months. Although it takes him 7 years to fully complete his task, Jane at 18 and Harry at 12 are about the same maturity level. It's kind of a cool comparison to look at, since at first glance you would never think that these two books had anything in common. But when you look closer, many of the basic details and ideas are similar which leads to some interesting thinking about both novels. When I finish Jane Eyre I am excited to look back and see if I still think the same parallels are evident throughout the whole book. 

Blogging Around

On Jordyn's post about Ke$ha:
I have to say, I disagree with you about the disintegration of popular music. When Elvis first became popular, parents thought that his music encouraged sex and hip thrusting and all of those forms of evil. The forms of evil that are focused on are what has changed. Since our society has become more accepting of open sexuality, this is where popular music has turned. I get your point about autotune, but it has almost turned into its own instrument, which I actually think is cool.
I was also suprised to find out about Ke$ha's intelligence, as she does portray herself differently. (I think my reaction was "omgwtfpolarbear?!") But hey, at least that means that it was her concious choice to make music like this knowing that she COULD make something else, rather than her lifestyle being actually dictated around waking up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy. I'm sure her dentist doesn't appreciate her hygene habits :)
On Lauren's post about Food, Inc.: 
I absolutely LOVED this movie, as I am super interested in the exploitation of our food. Lots of it I've heard before, but I love that it's getting a stage that it hasn't in a long while. This is the reason I became a vegetarian...our food doesn't even start out as an animal anymore...people manufacture it from before it was born to become a Chicken McNugget.
If this interests you, read or listen to some of Michael Pollan's stuff. He writes a lot about issues with food like this and other things (like "organic" food and how it actually impacts the environment...surprising).