Theme of love and death in harry potter

             Theme of love and death 

Love and death are major themes in J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter books. She herself has said in a recent interview in recent interview in the Tatler magazine that “My books are largely about death.” And in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, one of J.K. Rowling’s chosen spokespersons, Professor Dumbledore, impresses upon Harry that his “ability to love” is the only protection that can possibly work against the lure of power like Voldemort’s.” Voldemort trusts no one. He loves no one. He doesn’t appear even to have any desires, save one: immortality. Everything that Voldemort is about—his power lust, his obsession with killing Harry—is instrumental to his one goal of cheating death. It is in this context of Voldemort’s refusal to accept his own mortality that we can begin to understand his evil. Voldemort is obsessed with conquering death. He seeks the Sorcerer’s Stone to bring himself back to power, but also to give him everlasting life. Voldemort’s followers are called the Death Eaters. In an interview, J. K. Rowling tells readers that Voldemort “regards death itself as ignominious. He thinks that it’s a shameful human weakness.”7 Death and its avoidance even seem to be a part of Voldemort’s name, which appears similar to French phrases that mean something like “Flight of Death” or “Flight from Death.”  In the first four novels, Voldemort was unable to touch Harry because of the protection of Lily Potter’s loving self-sacrifice:

“Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”

         When Harry was possessed by Voldemort in Order of the Phoenix, he was able to save himself using the Power the Dark Lord Knows Not, the power of love. Harry’s friends have this power as well. Ron and Hermione risked their lives to help Harry to defeat evil many times throughout the series. The theme of self-sacrificial love is present from the first book onward, not just in the tale Lily’s dying to save baby Harry from Voldemort, but in Ron’s heroic actions in the giant chess game.