FUNDAMENTAL BRITISH POLITICAL VALUES IN THE HARRY POTTER 3 BOOK

Abstract

This study aims at widening the knowledge and understandings of a British cultural aspect—the fundamental British political values. The goal is to find out the concepts of these values, and figure out the underlying reasons for them to be considered “fundamental values.” Moreover, the research focuses on the expression of these values in Harry Potter 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. By a thorough text analysis, the researcher expected to find out the signs of fundamental British political values, then synthesize them to bring about a comprehensive picture of fundamental British political values in the Harry Potter novels. There were two research methods employed to conduct the study: the inductive qualitative research method to find out the fundamental British political values; and the text analysis method whose main means is the coding tool, to analyze the values in the Harry Potter extract. The findings showed that, there was a system of four generally-accepted fundamental British political values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. After that, the coding system applied to the extract had indicated only two values (the rule of law and mutual respect and tolerance towards differences) were presented. Nevertheless, there were many meaningful messages implied by the author through the short extract. These messages revealed how a true British think of their values, and how these values were reflected from real life to her work. More importantly, as a universal series, the Harry Potter book with these messages could have positive impacts on the readers.