Chamber of Secrets Theme Analysis

The Book Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets is about Harry, frequently referred to as 'the boy who lived' in the first novel, and his troubling second year at the imfamous Hogwarts; school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It starts with the night they [Harry, Ron and Hermione] attend a death-day party for their friend Nearly-Headless Nick. On their way back from the dungeons where the party is being held, they discover the dead cat of the caretaker who's blood spells out 'The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware." Under such inconvenient circumstances, the students are released from their dinner at the dining hall and the trio is discovered there.

They have to find out who exactly the heir is, and who wrote the message. But it doesn't end there, Tom Riddle's diary is uncovered and Harry can see him writing to him magically. On top of that, a mysterious force is turning students and staff to stone [not quite literally, but they are frozen in time] and this claims Hermione as well. This makes it more urgent to discover who is behind this.

Along with everything else, a new proffessor is at the school, a celebrity at that. He is very arrogant and full of himself, as many celebrities are. Harry and Ron suspect he is keeping something from the students, but aren't quite sure what. As he has had all of these adventures written in his books and can't seem to prove himself as having actually done those things outside of that.

A big theme in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is that its important to show tolerance of differences among a community. The way 'mudbloods' [wizards with non-magical ancestry] were treated worse than the pure-blooded, almost 'pedigree' like wizards. This is displayed with the slytherins who tend to stick their noses up at anyone who isn't a pure-blood. They hate mud-bloods, half-bloods and muggles alike simply because they are not as 'pure' as them. The Dursleys also demonstrate this, with their liking of being humans and 'normal' where as the wizarding world is completely ridiculous in their eyes and they are truly quite terrified of magical people.

Throughout the book, Draco Malfoy especially shows his clear disliking of the muggles and mud-bloods-due to his background as a slytherin student who tend to be described as rather snooty and arrogant, along with being strange looking and plainly mean. He even called Hermione a mud-blood when he snapped at her in one of their arguements. People were clearly taken aback by this and Hermione was embarrassed.

"'It's about the most insulting thing he could think of,' gasped Ron, coming back up. 'Mudblood's a really foul name for someone who is Muggle-born--you know, non-magic parents'" (Rowling 115). This quote shows the reaction to him calling her a Mudblood.

Harry Potter and friends try to make the point of how preposterous it is to hate people for whether their family is all pure or not. Because Hermione is a muggleborn, and Harry is a half-blood this is especially important.

So, this shows that it doesn't matter where people come from or if they are the richest or the poorest, the most magical or the least, all that matters is the person they are on the inside.