ABSTRACT
There is a certain corner of Harry Potter scholarship which argues that J.K. Rowling’s view of death is essentially derived from Christianity and its expression in Western culture. However, this chapter argues that the modern Western view of death is rooted in two major sources that are quite distinct from Christian theology, namely, modern medicine and Platonism. To demonstrate these claims, this chapter focuses on Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ highly influential On Death and Dying and Plato’s description of Socrates’ death in his Phaedo. Analysis of the marriage of these two influences reveals that Western culture feels a deep sense of conflict and anxiety regarding death. Building on the work of scholars like Lesslie Newbigin, N.T. Wright and Stanley Hauerwas, this chapter will demonstrate that the view of death ubiquitous in both Western culture and these books is not the view of death traditionally embraced by Christian theology. Historically, Christianity has at its centre an understanding of immortality which is corporeal and earthly. As such, it resists concentrating immortality in the soul and therefore resists the acceptance of bodily death. Rowling hints at this corporeal understanding of death and its attendant resistance to easy acceptance of death but she, like much of Western culture, is unable to find a place for such a view in the already established categories provided by psychological science and anthropological dualism.
