Chamber of Secrets Character Names

The names of the characters reflect their personality. Lucius Malfoy for example. 'Mal' is the Latin root for 'bad', along with Lucius echoing Lucifer. Along with that, Professor Lockhart's name connects to his personality as well. Lockhart could suggest being secretive or guarded, which he is with his secret identity and figurative 'locked heart', ergo Lockhart. Even Dumbledore, whose name happens to be bumblebee in old English. He is an wise and old wizard who strives to protect his community and students and preserve the culture and peace of Hogwarts.

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.

The Chamber of Secrets Characters

The characters in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets each come back after undergoing their summer vacation and are surprised with the strange happenings about the school. Harry's summer was particularly dreadful, having had to spend it with his Uncle and Aunt and snobby cousin who appear to enjoy his misery.

Through the book, Harry and friends Hermione and Ron have been blamed for all of the strange occurrences due to the highly inconvenient and merely coincidental evidence against them [i.e.; Finding the cat, Colin Creevey being stunned after he frequently annoyed Harry]. This frustrates them and they decide to solve the mystery to clear their name, but no one seems to trust them.

Harry Potter And The Chamber of Secrets Summary and Predictions

I am about half-way through the book, and I predict that the new teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart, has something to do with all of the children turning to stone [because you can never trust a teacher at Hogwarts] and also because he has all of these wild stories and 'experiences' but he hasn't, so far, been able to demonstrate any further knowledge of the things he teaches the 2nd years about.  I also predict that Draco also has a part in it because of the discussions he had with Crabbe and Goyle [his friends] and how said he knew how to open the chamber of secrets.

Summer Reading Book: Theme of Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore

The theme of my summer reading book, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour bookstore, was that immortality is not found in living forever but in the work you do and the friendships you make in your lifetime, and what you do to make a name for yourself. It emerges when the idea that the founder of this fellowship, the Unbroken Spine, held the key to immortality in his codex vitae. Many of the characters believe that Aldus Manutius (said founder) was speaking of living forever, and many suspected that he was alive himself.

But, after his codex vitae was translated by Clay Jannon, the main character-a feat that has never before been completed in the 500 years the Unbroken Spine had been trying- its revealed; “Really, Manutius’s codex vitae is just what it claims to be: its a book about his life.” (Sloan 272)

Throughout the book, immortality is used in different ways. Towards the end of the book, Clay discovers that his favorite author from sixth grade used to frequent the bookstore, and even became one of the Bound in the Unbroken Spine. The third and final book in the author’s series, The Dragon Song Chronicles, was in fact his codex vitae. The codex vitae is not aloud to be read until the author of it is dead, and he wanted to let the world know his hardships. He went through all of that work, and even cracked the code of Manutius's codex vitae, just to publish his book; the book of his life.

Clay draws a connection between a character in the book and Mr. Penumbra, saying "Penumbra has already earned a touch of immortality. Does he know?" (Sloan 264)

This shows a development in the character's opinion of immortality compared to the beginning where he would often think of 'frozen heads' and 'living for a thousand years and more' when the word popped in his mind.

Article from the New York Times