J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is the second entry in the Harry Potter Series. In brief, Harry continues his career at Hogwarts, which is having quite the problem with a mysterious creature let loose in the school, paralyzing students by its mere gaze. Harry investigates and eventually does battle with the creature’s controller, a memory of Lord Voldemort left trapped in a journal written when the dark lord attended Hogwarts.
Rowling departs from the relatively lighthearted tone of Sorcerer’s Stone towards a darker adventure in this volume. While she carefully avoids explicit murder, she certainly comes close throughout the book. Several characters are threatened with death, each avoiding it by a carefully manipulated trick of narrative.
Additionally, in this book Rowling begins to place Harry and the fight with Voldemort in the midst of a larger narrative, extending beyond the reach of the series. In Sorceror’s Stone, the entire plot revolves around Harry becoming acclimated to attending Hogwarts, but in Chamber of Secrets we begin to get a glimpse into the larger history of the school. Voldemort is present again as the principle antagonist of the book, but he does not act through literally being present in the school. Rather, a shade of his person torments Ron’s younger sister throughout the story.
This placement of the antagonist in the story is much more effective for an early volume of the series than Voldemort’s actions in Sorcerer’s Stone. Rather than being physically present for Harry to fight and presumably conquer, he merely acts through others, extending his malevolence through an artifact. Additionally, we begin to see more of the way that Voldemort’s attack on Harry and his parents twelve years earlier will shape the story to come.
Harry’s trademark scar on his forehead begins to act not only as a triumphant symbol of his mother’s victory over Voldemort, but signifies a greater depth of connection between the two. When Voldemort attacked him on that night, a certain element of his person was transferred into Harry, leaving the young boy with abilities he is only just beginning to understand. It is worthwhile to note that a lightning bolt visually connotes not only the ray with which Voldemort murdered Harry’s family, but is also a visual reference to a snake.
Rowling employs snakes in an interesting manner throughout this series as well. They are predominantly employed as symbols of evil: Voldemort’s serpentine visage, Slytherin’s house symbol, and especially the basilisk. Rowling also works them into the series as gatekeepers to hidden knowledge. Consider the only unintentional magical event in Harry’s life prior to Hogwarts that Rowling explores in any depth-the escape of the boa constrictor in the zoo. Harry speaks to the snake, and barely a week later, he enters into the world of magic.
In Chamber of Secrets the re-emergence of the basilisk from the eponymous chamber draws Harry into a greater understanding of Voldemort’s own history. Through his interactions with the basilisk, we learn in detail of Harry’s ability to speak to snakes and the dark connotation this trait carries in the wizarding world. Even Draco Malfoy, Harry’s primary foil in the series is unsettled by Harry’s ability. Harry’s quest to defeat the basilisk brings him into a confrontation once more with Voldemort, although in the form of a memory. Through their interaction, Rowling gives the reader a glimpse of Voldemort’s life at Hogwarts, adding a depth to the villain sorely lacking in his role as the embodiment of pure evil in the first book.
One of my favorite moments in the book is tucked in towards the end, in a little throw-away bit of Harry’s thought. When prompted to select his classes for his third year at Hogwarts, Harry reflects that he is not particularly enthused about any of the classes offered to him, he’s only really passionate about Quidditch. This little remark prompts a realization about Harry’s career at Hogwarts. He’s a phenomenally skilled athlete, who by virtue of his popularity, athletic prowess, and in no small way his role as the central protagonist of the series, is allowed to flaunt the rules in place at the school in service of whatever adventure he pursues in a given book.
Chamber of Secrets maintains the clever writing and slick wordplay which made Sorcerer’s Stone such a success in my mind, but does little to further my enjoyment of the series. Despite Rowling’s better use of Voldemort as an antagonist in this volume, the book feels somewhat like a pause between volumes one and three to give the reader more background on Harry and Voldemort. This settling-in to the narrative, while somewhat detrimental to Chamber of Secrets on its own, helps pull the reader into the series as a whole and confirms the narrative formula Rowling’s novels follow: evil is present at Hogwarts, Harry learns of this evil and raises his concerns with his teachers, they are unwilling to follow up on the leads Harry presents them and forbid him to investigate further for his own good, Harry then investigates the evil behind their backs, learns a twist on its nature, and ultimately triumphs.
Would I recommend Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? Yes.
Score: 3.4/5
Would I keep this on my bookshelf? On its own, maybe not, but for sake of the series, certainly.
-Mr. Cheddar
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