Review Potter3 Chapter 1

The Characters in Chapter One “Owl Post”

of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” by J.K.Rowling

In class, we listened to the first chapter of “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”. This is indeed an extremely interesting chapter since it contains all the basic information you have to get to understand the “Potter Universe”.

It gives quite detailed information about most of the important characters.

The chapter starts with very important information about Harry. It says:” Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. […] And he also happened to be a wizard.”

As the story unfolds, you get to know Harry as a boy of thirteen years with untidy jet black hair who is quite small and skinny for his age. His eyes are bright green and he wears round glasses. The most important feature, though, in the description of his appearance is the scar on his forehead, shaped like a bolt of lightning.

The book explains that Harry got the scar when his parents, James and Lily Potter, wizard and witch themselves, were murdered by the dark wizard Voldemort, the most vicious of his kind for a hundred years.

This explains why Harry has to live with his only living relatives, whom he obviously dislikes.

It is also made clear that Harry only spends the summer with his relatives to go back to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the rest of the year, which he has attended for the last two years.

His relatives are his uncle Vernon Dursley, aunt Petunia Dursley and his cousin Dudley Dursley. They are non-magic folk, so-called Muggles, and they are extremely scared of anything that has to do with magic. This shows when Harry’s uncle roars at one of his wizard friends on the phone:” DON’T YOU COME NEAR MY FAMILY!”.

To the Dursleys it is very important to make a good impression on their neighbours and so they are terrified of anyone finding out that Harry is a wizard and goes to Hogwarts.

They think that magic people belong to some kind of a lower class, which shows clearly when Uncle Vernon screams at Harry:” HOW DARE YOU GIVE THIS NUMBER TO PEOPLE LIKE- PEOPLE LIKE YOU!” Magic people seem to be dirty and worthless and even dangerous in his eyes.

Three of the magicians closest to Harry are characterized in chapter one in detail.

First, there is Ron Weasley, one of Harry’s best friends at Hogwarts. He descends of a whole family of wizards and so he knows a lot more about the magic world than Harry does. On the other hand he is quite helpless when he comes across 'muggleґ things, like a telephone or anything that needs electricity to run.

He is the second youngest of seven children (he has five older brothers and a younger sister) and his family is “very nice and extremely poor”. This is represented by the family owl Errol, who is old and worn,