harry potter and the chamber of secrets

Summary
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets begins when Harry is spending a miserable summer with his only remaining family, the Dursleys. During a dinner party hosted by his uncle and aunt, Harry is visited by Dobby, a house-elf. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, the magical school for wizards that Harry attended the previous year. Harry politely disregards the warning, and Dobby wreaks havoc in the kitchen, infuriating the Dursleys. The Dursleys angrily imprison Harry in his room for the rest of the summer. Luckily, Harry's friend Ron Weasley steals Harry away in a flying car, and Harry happily spends the rest of the summer at the Weasley home.

While shopping for school supplies with the Weasleys, Harry has two unfortunate encounters. He first encounters Lockhart, one of his teachers, who demands to be in a photo shoot with Harry. Harry then encounters Lucius Malfoy, the evil father of one of Harry's enemies, who almost starts a fight with Mr. Weasley. As Harry prepares to return to Hogwarts, he finds that he and Ron are unable to enter the magically invisible train platform, so they fly the Weasley car to Hogwarts. They land messily, and both boys are given detentions. Lockhart, who believes Harry flew the car to get attention, lectures Harry.
Quidditch practices begin and Draco Malfoy is the new Slytherin seeker. On the field, he calls Hermione a "mudblood," insulting her Muggle heritage. After taunting Hermione, Draco is the suspect when, on Halloween night, someone petrifies the school caretaker's cat and writes a threatening message. Before the cat is attacked, Harry twice hears an eerie voice. He hears it first during his detention and second during a party, moments before the cat is attacked. Everybody in the school is alarmed. By doing some research, Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that fifty years ago a chamber at Hogwarts was opened and a student was killed.
Playing for Gryffindor, Harry wins the Quidditch match against Slytherin. During the game, an enchanted ball hits Harry and causes him to lose the bones in his arm. Dobby, a house elf, has enchanted the ball in an effort to have Harry injured and sent home. That night, Harry sees the body of a first-year who has been petrified arrive at the hospital. Soon after, Lockhart begins a dueling club. During the first meeting, Harry terrifies his fellow students by speaking in Parseltongue to a snake. Harry's ability frightens the others because only the heir of Slytherin, who is responsible for opening the chamber, would have the ability to converse with snakes. Harry comes under further suspicion when he stumbles upon the petrified bodies of Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly- Headless Nick.
Determined to catch the culprit, Ron, Harry and Hermione brew a potion called Polyjuice. The potion allows them to assume the bodies of Slytherins and question Malfoy on the Chamber of Secrets. They find out that Malfoy is not the heir of Slytherin. No more attacks occur for a while, and right before Valentine's Day, Harry finds a diary in the broken toilet. The diary belongs to a ghost named Moaning Myrtle who haunts the girls' restroom. Harry writes in the diary, which responds by writing back. Through this dialogue, Harry meets Tom Riddle, a boy who many years before had accused Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets.
Hermione and a Ravenclaw girl are mysteriously petrified. Harry and Ron venture out of the castle to question Hagrid. Before they reach Hagrid, the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, and Lucius Malfoy remove Dumbledore and Hagrid from Hogwarts. As Hagrid is led away, he instructs the boys that by following the spiders, they can find out about the Chamber monster. Several nights later, Harry and Ron sneak into the Forbidden Forest to follow the spiders. They discover the monster who killed the girl fifty years before was not a spider, that the girl's body was found in a bathroom, and that Hagrid is innocent. The boys are almost killed by a colony of giant spiders. As they escape, Harry and Ron decide that Moaning Myrtle must have been the girl killed by the monster.
A few days later, Ron and Harry discover a piece of paper with a description of a basilisk on it in Hermione's frozen hand. They deduce the Chamber monster is a basilisk. Before the boys can act on their knowledge, the teachers announce that Ginny Weasley has been taken into the chamber. Ron, Harry, and Lockhart slide down a secret passage in Myrtle's bathroom to underground tunnels. When Lockhart accidentally curses himself, Ron helps him and Harry leaves them behind. Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets and encounters Ginny's still body and Tom Riddle. Tom turns out to be a younger version of Voldemort, who has been enchanting Ginny through his journal. Harry calls for help from Dumbledore. A phoenix and a magic hat arrive. Tom summons a basilisk, but the phoenix punctures its eyes. The hat produces a sword, which Harry uses to kill the giant snake. Harry sticks a basilisk fang through the diary, destroying Tom. Ginny wakes up.
Harry explains his adventure to Dumbledore. Lucius Malfoy storms into the office with his house-elf, Dobby, and Harry frees Dobby from by tricking Lucius into giving Dobby a sock. All is well in the castle as the students leave for their summer vacations.

harry potter and the chamber of secrets

Context
The Harry Potter books were fabulously successful upon their publication. Most readers like an unlikely hero, and Harry, with his broken glasses, skinny frame, and late learning about the wizard world, is such a hero. He succeeds as a result of his enthusiasm, courage, and good friends. These are all positive traits that any reader can understand and desire. Because Harry's relatives undervalue his complex and companionable personality, we are satisfied when he triumphs over people and creatures more powerful than he. Harry is a quirky, unlikely hero.

J.K. Rowling's series of adventures touches the common children's fantasy that another world coexists with our own. The Harry Potter books describe us as Muggles, non-magical people who live our entire lives oblivious to the existence of wizards. The novels allow us to envision a magical world that we are otherwise unable to see. The attitude of wizards toward Muggles is usually tolerant and humoring. The book blurs the boundary between real life and fantasy. Even if there were wizards in our world, we, as Muggles, wouldn't know about them.
Rowling's world offers something to everyone. The novel contains all the elements of adventure stories, including monsters, magic, sports, and miracles. But it also resembles a detective story. The masterminds in the books are all clever, and they are never who they seem. Furthermore, the books familiarize Hogwarts, the magic school that Harry attends. Children can understand and sympathize with the environment of Hogwarts. Gradually, all of the extraordinary aspects of the school become unsurprising, and Hogwarts resembles any child's school where all things are connected and everything is contained. Harry is an ordinary boy who experiences the complexity of growing up, and yet we are able to see this process against an enchanting and vivid new background.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the second book in the series, describes the return of the evil wizard Voldemort in a new form. The events of the book suggest that evil can be warded off temporarily, but never banished forever. The Chamber of Secrets also shows how the wizard world shares many characteristics with the unmagical world. There is never a perfect, untroubled ending in either world. As Harry matures, the books mature as well. Each offers more plot complexity than the previous book, shows the ways in which Harry becomes more resourceful, and escalates the threat that Voldemort poses.

Paradise lost

Important Quotations Explained
1. Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful
Seat, Sing Heav’nly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen
Seed, In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s Brook that flow’d
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme.

2. Hail holy Light, offspring of Heav’n first-born,
Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam’d? since God is Light,
And never but in unapproached Light
Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
. . .
thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy Sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil’d. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear Spring, or shady Grove, or Sunny Hill,
Smit with the love of sacred Song . . .
. . .
So much the rather thou Celestial Light
Shine inward, and the mind through all powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

3. . . . though both
Not equal, as thir sex not equal seem’d;
For contemplation hee and valor form’d,
For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace,
Hee for God only, shee for God in him:
His fair large Front and Eye sublime declar’d
Absolute rule; and Hyacinthine Locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clust’ring, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
Shee as a veil down to the slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevell’d, but in wanton ringlets wav’d
As the Vine curls her tendrils, which impli’d
Subjection, but requir’d with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best receiv’d,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.

4. What better can we do, than to place
Repairing where he judg’d us, prostrate fall
Before him reverent, and there confess
Humbly our faults, and pardon beg, with tears
Watering the ground, and with our sighs the
Air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sigh
Of sorrow unfeign’d, and humiliation meek.
Undoubtedly he will relent and turn
From his displeasure; in whose look serene,
When angry most he seem’d and most severe,
What else but favor, grace, and mercy shone?
So spake our Father penitent, nor Eve
Felt less remorse: they forthwith to the place
Repairing where he judg’d them prostrate fell
Before him reverent, and both confess’d
Humbly their faults, and pardon begg’d, with tears
Watering the ground, and with their sighs the
Air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Of sorrow unfeign’d, and humiliation meek.

5. This having learnt, thou hast attained the sum
Of Wisdom; hope no higher, though all the Stars
Thou knew’st by name, and all th’ ethereal Powers,
All secrets of the deep, all Nature’s works,
Or works of God in Heav’n, Air, Earth, or Sea,
And all riches of this World enjoy’dst,
And all the rule, one Empire: only add
Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add Faith,
Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, add Love,
By name to come called Charity, the soul
Of all the rest: then wilt though not be loth
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A paradise within thee, happier far.

Paradise lost

Book XII
Summary
Michael continues relating the story of the future of humankind to Adam. After the flood, humankind develops from a “second stock”: Noah and his family (XII.7). Humans now act more obediently to God than humans before the Flood, offering sacrifices from their flocks and fields. However, several generations later, a leader arrives with proud and ungodly ambitions. This upstart is Nimrod, a tyrant who forces many men under his rule. He constructs the Tower of Babel in an attempt to reach up to Heaven. As punishment, God decrees that men will now speak different languages and be unable to understand each other. Adam agrees with Michael that no one should have dominion over other people, who are by nature free. Michael qualifies this freedom: because of the fall, he says, men only have true liberty when they obey “right reason,” or reason tempered by conscience (XII.84). Still, Michael adds, it remains a great sin for one person to take away the liberty of another.

Continuing his story, Michael explains that God chooses Israel as the one nation to rise above the rest. He takes one person, Abraham, father of the Israelites, from a race that worships idols. At God’s command, Abraham sets off from his native land and travels to Canaan, the Promised Land. His descendants eventually move to Egypt, and become enslaved by Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt. Finally, a man named Moses is born, and he eventually leads the people out of Egypt, through the plagues brought down upon the Pharaoh. Michael tells how God allowed the Israelites to pass through the Red Sea, then closed the waters around the Pharaoh’s army, which had come to recapture the Israelites. The followers of Moses must travel through the desert to return to Canaan, but they survive with the help of God.
Adam is much relieved to hear that God will bless a portion of humankind, after having it cursed for so long. But he does not understand how all the laws given to these people can possibly be obeyed, or how the Israelites are to remain just before God. Michael replies that they cannot remain just, even if they obey the law, until a greater sacrifice is made. He explains that after generations, the Israelites will turn more and more to sin, until God decides to strengthen their enemies. When they repent, God will save them from these same enemies. After many different rulers, there will come a king named David, and from his descendants will eventually come a Messiah, or chosen one. This Messiah, also known as Jesus or the Son, will once again bring together Earth and Heaven. However, he will have to suffer for it: he shall be hated by many while he lives and will be distrusted, betrayed, and punished by death. However, the grave will not hold this Messiah for long, and rising up he will defeat both Sin and Death, and bruise the head of Satan. His resurrection fulfills the prophecy about the Son finally punishing Satan through his sacrifice. Adam worries that the followers of Jesus will be persecuted, and Michael confirms that they will indeed be persecuted. However, the Archangel says, from Heaven the Messiah will send down the Holy Spirit to provide spiritual protection. But after the first followers die, corrupt leaders as well as good ones will enter the church. Thus those who genuinely follow the truth will still be prosecuted, laments Michael: the world will continue to accommodate evil and make it difficult for individuals to do good deeds. Finally, the Messiah will return a second time, to judge all humankind and reunite Heaven and Earth.
Adam is now more than comforted. He can hardly believe that out of his evil deed so much good will come. Now, however, it is time for him and Eve to leave Paradise. He comes down from the mountain with Michael. Eve awakens from her sleep and tells Adam that she has had an educating dream. Michael then leads the couple to the gate of Eden. There he stands with other angels, brandishing a sword of flame that will forever protect the entrance to Paradise. Slowly and tearfully, Adam and Eve turn away hand in hand with Michael, and wander out into a new world.
Analysis
The discussion between Adam and Michael about Nimrod and the Tower of Babel provides Milton with an opportunity to express his fundamental ideas about political and religious freedom. Adam’s admonishment of Nimrod for trying to control other men is the most extreme example of Milton’s distrust of institutions and his absolute faith in the ability of the individual person to make his own decisions. Humankind’s freedom has already been restricted by the fall, but humankind can still obey reason if individuals think and act separately and for God. When individuals use reason in this way, then they possess true freedom. However, because of Adam’s sin, humankind will find it difficult to always follow reason; when an individual strays from God and from reason, he becomes a slave to passions and desires, and is thus not truly free at all, but becomes a slave to desire. This paradox is the reason why Milton did not feel that total individual freedom, within the Church for example, would result in anarchy. Each person can act separately with reason and obey God. The rest of Michael’s discourse follows the biblical accounts closely. He progresses through the Old Testament, working his way through the most significant events until he comes to the line of King David, the line from which the Messiah would come. When Milton comes to Jesus’ birth, he works more of his own personal interpretations into the biblical story. When Adam asks Michael how the Israelites could possibly follow all of the laws that God gave them, which are contained in the four books following Genesis in the Bible, Milton begins a brief discussion of the Christian view of Old Testament law. Through the vision, Milton explains that law can identify and punish wrongdoing but cannot abolish or eradicate it completely. Without a proper remedy for Adam’s sin, attempts to obey God’s law only emphasize humankind’s sinfulness, according to Christian belief. This lack of a remedy is why the Israelites failed time and again to keep their covenant with God. When a worthy sacrifice is made, when Jesus offers himself on the cross, only then could humankind be capable of doing anything pleasing to God.
Adam brings up the pivotal concept of the fortunate fall, which asserts that the fall of humankind is fortunate for several reasons. Adam and Eve’s disobedience allows God to show his mercy and temperance in their punishments and his eternal providence toward humankind. This display of love and compassion, given through the Son, is a gift to humankind. Humankind must now experience pain and death, but it can also experience mercy, salvation, and grace in ways it would not have been able to had Adam and Eve not disobeyed. While humankind has fallen from grace, it can redeem and save itself through a continued devotion and obedience to God. The salvation of humankind, in the form of the Son’s (Jesus’) sacrifice and resurrection, can begin to restore humankind to its former state. In other words, good will come of sin and death, and humankind will eventually be rewarded. This fortunate result justifies God’s reasoning and explains his ultimate plan for humankind.
Adam’s ability to perceive the fall as a fortunate one is an inherent paradox in Milton’s mixture of the human and the divine. Adam is to be judged according to what he did in his own time, and yet he is allowed to see all the future consequences of his actions in an instant. A mortal mind cannot readily accept this idea. Few Christian thinkers (certainly not Milton) would say that the sin of Adam and Eve was an unequivocally good thing. Rather, the fall and the resurrection are both intimate parts of God’s providence—he foresees them both and sees them outside of time, existing together. Humankind, on the other hand, must do its best in a temporal world, dealing with the decisions of the present. As Adam and Eve leave Paradise, they know that obedience to God and love for his creation can help humankind toward its salvation, and lead humankind toward regaining the Paradise that has been lost.

Paradise lost

Book XI
Summary
God hears the prayers of Adam and Eve, inspired by his own grace. He allows his Son to act as an advocate for humankind, and eventually pay for humankind’s sins. The Father then calls all the angels of Heaven together, and announces his plans. He commands the Archangel Michael to go down to Earth and escort Adam and Eve out of Paradise. They can no longer live in a pure place now that they are impure. But through leading a good and moral life, they may be reunited with God after their death. To make the news easier on them, God allows Michael to show Adam a vision of what is to come in the future of humankind.

Adam anticipates that God has heard their prayers. He reassures Eve that she will be able to seek revenge on Satan by being the mother of humankind. She still feels ashamed for bringing Sin and Death into the world, and does not feel that she deserves to have such a role. Nevertheless, she asserts, she will try to obey God and live peacefully in Paradise. Michael then flies down from Heaven and tells them that they must leave Paradise. This news shocks and saddens them, even though their death will be delayed so that they may live for many years. Michael comforts them with the knowledge that all of the Earth, not just Paradise, has been given to them by God and is under the eye of the Father. They are saddened to leave Paradise but know they must obey God’s command. Adam laments that he will never be able to speak with God again, but Michael explains that Adam can speak to God wherever he goes. The Archangel then puts Eve to sleep and takes Adam up to a high hill to show him visions of humankind’s future.
From the highest hill in Paradise, Michael allows Adam to see nearly an entire hemisphere of the Earth. Adam sees two men offering sacrifices, and watches in horror as one of them kills the other. Michael explains that these men are Cain and Abel, the first sons of Adam and Eve. Adam is shocked and dismayed at his first vision of death. The angel then shows him the other ways that death will take the lives of men: disease, war, and old age. Adam asks if there is any alternative to death, woefully declaring that he could not die too soon, but Michael advises him that obeying God and living a virtuous life can allow people to live long and fruitful lives, so long as Heaven permits.
Next a vision appears of men and women enjoying dances, games, and amorous courting. Adam assumes that this vision is a good portent, but Michael informs him that they are atheists who live for pleasure, not for God, and that they will die as well. This image is followed by the appearance of great armies, slaughtering men by the thousands and plundering cities. Michael tells how war will be praised by violent men, and many terrible conquerors will be admired as heroes. One man, Michael explains, will try to prevent these wars: Enoch. The other men shun him and threaten to kill him, until God lifts him up and brings him safely to Heaven. The scene then changes to further sins of death and dancing and sex. These scenes depict a later era in which sins of the flesh will abound. A single man can be seen, preaching to the others to repent and stop this evil way of life, but he is ignored. He goes off into the mountains and constructs a giant boat, filling it with all the animals of the Earth, and his family. A great flood then comes, wiping out all living things except those on the boat. The good man who builds the boat is Noah. Michael explains how God was angered by humankind’s sinful ways, and decided to cleanse the earth of them. He finds one virtuous man, Noah, and preserves humankind through him. The flood wipes out all human life except for Noah and his family. At the end of the flood, Adam sees a rainbow appear and God’s covenant with humankind that he will never again destroy the Earth by flood. Adam feels reassured by this story and its promise that virtue and obedience to God will continue on Earth through Noah.
Analysis
The visions in Books XI and XII provide a larger context to Paradise Lost and allow Milton to “justify the ways of God to men” (I.26) and to conclude his epic poem with the message that one must live virtuously and be obedient to God. These stories, narrated as Adam’s visions, explain why God allows sin and death into the world, and why God wants us to live a certain way. Without these visions and stories, Milton could not explain God’s reasoning and his glorious plan for humankind. These visions enable Milton to transcend his focus from the first narrative in the Bible to subsequent books, so that he can discuss human history in broad terms. Part of his message is that human history should be told in terms of its sins, not its advancements in civilizations or invention. These visions expose a dangerous cycle of sins, from sloth and envy to gluttony and lust. Through these visions, Milton asserts the need for repentance and service to God.
Adam and Eve’s repentance is made possible through the grace of God. The act of repentance was necessary for salvation, and since God wanted humankind to be redeemed, he planted the seeds of repentance in the souls of Adam and Eve. This realization is appropriate to the belief that humankind, after the fall, is totally depraved. Adam and Eve cannot do anything good on their own accord without God’s guidance. God also now specifically reveals why he allows Death to come into the world. Humankind is now impure and unfit for Paradise, as well as for the kingdom of Heaven. The sacrifice of Jesus makes humankind worthy of Heaven: his sacrifice is humankind’s final remedy. The price of Jesus’ sacrifice is heavy, but the reward outweighs the cost. After death, humankind can be purified and renewed, thus restoring them to their previous position as God’s obedient children.
The whole sequence of visions contains a careful emotional balance between grief at the corruption of sin and joy at the redemption of the moral soul. Michael evokes this balance through these visions to inform Adam of humankind’s sins and punishments, as well as their sacrifices and rewards. Otherwise, he might have given up hope, and God does not want humankind to fall victim to the same despair that doomed Satan. On the other hand, Adam cannot fail to realize just how depraved humankind will become as a result of the fall—Adam and Eve’s sins will be repeated again and again by their children and their children’s children. The vision of ensuing decay through war, disease and intemperate living gives Adam a tremendous sense of worry and shame. But the figure of Enoch, the one who is saved by God, demonstrates the need to stand up for one’s moral beliefs, even if other nonbelievers will kill one for such integrity. The strength and hope in Enoch’s story gives Adam the confidence he needs to continue living obedient to God.
Milton presents Adam, along with other men from his vision, as prefigurations of Christ. The whole scene with Adam on the mountain prefigures an event in Jesus’ life. In the Gospels, Satan takes Jesus up onto a mountain and offers him all the kingdoms of the world, if he will bow down in worship to the devil. Adam’s time on the mountain is not such a test, but it does tax his courage. Likewise, Enoch’s ability to stand up for his beliefs shows the redemptive qualities of humankind. The story of Noah shows that his unwavering belief in God helps to save the virtues of humankind. Noah is given such an important place here because Milton, like many other Christian thinkers, thought of him as a Christ figure: a single man whose virtue in the face of evil saves humankind. From the stories of Enoch and Noah, Adam can recognize the power of devotion to God. These visions, and Adam himself, demonstrate the path of greatness that prefigures the salvation of humankind through Jesus’ sacrifice. These visions also demonstrate Milton’s belief that a true measure of a person, from Adam up until modern times, is his or her virtuous relationship with God.