Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone

Over the course of the Women Writers Two course we read and evaluated various texts dealing with feminine issues and literary genres like magical realism, short fiction, poetry, satire and literary theory. The class mainly deals with the idea of fairy tales being fractured or based toward a strong male character leaving the female roles to be minor or “dimmed down” comparatively. We are asked the questions of what makes these fairy tales fractured or feminist and how we can equalize these two fields. Reading different types of literary works including Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K Rowling, Transformations by Anne Sexton, The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition, Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy

First, when starting the course I found it very beneficial to start with an easier more relatable book like Harry Potter. While the book did not focus on the feminine aspect of the class, but rather the more magical realism of the book. We were still able to make connections to how the characters are portrayed giving the male and female roles equal power in the book. It also helped as an introduction into the more classical fairy tale books bringing up typically fairy tale qualities throughout the book. I also found our second book in the class very helpful, by Anne Sexton as it dove more into the fairy tale and feminist theory in the class. We were able to look at the recreation of some of the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales look at how they portrayed the different genders and common stereotypes of the characters. One thing seen throughout the book was giving the female characters more of a powerful role and showing how much they were put on a lower level than their male counterparts. Anne Sexton’s Transformations showed me how early fairy tales were not a great influence on little girls and boys showing them typical stereotypes on how they are supposed to act and be a normal society. Anne Sexton breaks the stereotype showing how stories can be both beneficial and have equal

Even though the book had both aspects of magical realism and feminist theory, I though overall the story was confusing and lacking in any suspense as well as plot. This was also the book I felt that should be taken out of the class as it's the least helpful in overall explaining the values of the class. I feel that there are many other, better books out there that show these values, maybe even The Hunger Games as it has a primary female strong character as well as provides feminist theory and magical realism in the book. The Probable Future besides lacking in showing a true feminist tale, was hard to follow and didn’t have the suspense and plot like the other stores. I felt like it didn’t leave a mark on me as a person and not as effective as the other works in the