The Subversive Harry Potter: Adolescent Rebellion and Containment in the J.K. Rowling Novels

The seven books in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series bring together a variety of aspects of young adult fiction and portray youthful rebellion as well as cultural containment and an adolescent's negotiations through these conflicting forces. This detailed study of Harry Potter explores the limits of the formulaic structure of adolescent fantasy fiction and also examines the impulse of exploration, subversion, and resistance contained within the formula. Within both subversion and containment in the narrative, young adult fantasy becomes an embodiment of the experience of adolescence--its angst, rebellion and also its journey of personal maturation.