The following is the sixth in a series of 7 articles focusing on a moment of rhetorical significance in each of the Harry Potter novels. This series evolved out of a paper presented at the 2018 Harry Potter Academic Conference.
At the end of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry learns that a prophecy has decided his fate. Professor Dumbledore reveals the tragic fact that because of actions the evil Lord Voldemort took in the past, Harry’s future will be forever tied to him. “Neither can live while the other survives” 1 the prophecy says. Harry must kill Voldemort. Or he must be killed by Lord Voldemort.
Bitzer’s ‘Rhetorical Situation’
Rhetorician Lloyd Bitzer describes a similar word view in “The Rhetorical Situation”. In it he states, “a work of rhetoric is pragmatic; it comes into existence for the sake of something beyond itself” 2. Rhetoric is created in response to past actions (exigencies) and is shaped by an audience’s ability to create future actions (constraints). An orator wishing to engage in rhetoric is tied by the constituents of the situation. The rhetorician is a pawn in the game of Past and Future.
In Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the wise Professor Dumbledore debates the meaning of the prophecy with Harry. The prophecy says that Harry must kill Voldemort or be killed by Voldemort. But while Harry resigns himself to a fate including or ending in murder, Dumbledore reminds him that fate has not decided his actions, it merely describes them.
“It all comes to the same thing doesn’t it?” says Harry. “I’ve got to try and kill him or—”
But Dumbledore interrupts, “Of course you’ve got to! But not because of the prophecy! Because you, yourself, will never rest until you’ve tried!” 3
Vatz’s Rebuttal
In 1973, Richard Vatz published a response to Bitzer. In “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation”, Vatz states, “Bitzer argues that the nature of the context determines the rhetoric. But one never runs out of context. One never runs out of facts to describe a situation.” 4 Rhetoric is not an inactive player waiting for exigencies to call it into action. Rhetoric is created, and an exigence is called up to justify it.
Though the prophecy says that Harry is destine to kill or be killed by Voldemort, Harry’s actions are not dictated by it. Because he desires Voldemort’s defeat anyway. And of course, the opposite is also true. In this moment, Harry thinks to himself:
“He understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high.”
Vatz describes Winston Churchill similarly. Churchill was one of the 20th century’s greatest orators and somehow constantly found himself speaking at a major turning point in history. But Vatz admits “Churchill went around looking for ‘finest hours.’ The point to observe is that Churchill found them — the crisis situations — and spoke in response to them.”
Harry once thought that fate dictated his every action “com[ing] into existence for the sake of something beyond itself”. But he soon found that it was his choices, his “saving people thing”, that draws him towards danger and propels him through his finest hours. He walks into the arena not because he has to, but because he wants to.
- Rowling, JK | Chapter 37: “The Lost Prophecy” | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix | 2003
- Bitzer, Lloyd | “The Rhetorical Situation” | Philosophy & Rhetoric | 1968
- Rowling, JK | Chapter 23: “Horcruxes” | Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince | 2005
- Vatz, Richard | “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation” | Philosophy & Rhetoric | 1973