Harry Potter Banquet Hall Essay

On the night of Halloween in JK Rowling’s novel Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and his friend, Ron Weasley enjoy a meal in the Hogwart’s dining hall. During this scene, the author describes the banquet hall through describing the foods being served at each table and the decorations in the hall, such as floating pumpkin heads, replacing the usual floating candles. To apply Foster’s ideas presented in Chapter Two of his novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor to Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the scene depicted in Rowling’s novel was described in such a way that the reader feels as if they are a part of the characters as they enjoy a celebratory meal. Within this joyful communion, unity is depicted
as all the characters (for the most part) are celebrating the night of Halloween. They share the same food within the same school and are celebrating the same holiday. The shared experience contributes to the idea of the human experience through meals conveyed in Foster’s novel through demonstrating how the characters are sharing an experience. Even though the students come from different houses (there are four different groups in Hogwarts in which students are sorted in dependant on their character traits), the students are able to experience the same moment. In this scene, the different houses experiencing the same moment symbolizes how people are able to share an experience even though they come from different backgrounds, demonstrating the universality of a meal.