Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets


Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the second novel in the Harry Potter series. The plot follows Harry's second year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, during which a series of messages on the walls of the school's corridors warn that the "Chamber of Secrets" has been opened and that the "heir of Slytherin" would kill all pupils who do not come from all-magical families. These threats are found after attacks that leave residents of the school petrified. Throughout the year, Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione investigate the attacks.
The book was published in the United Kingdom on 2 July 1998 by Bloomsbury and later in the United States on 2 June 1999 by Scholastic Inc. Although Rowling says she found it difficult to finish the book, it won high praise and awards from critics, young readers, and the book industry, although some critics thought the story was perhaps too frightening for younger children. Much like with other novels in the series, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets triggered religious debates; some religious authorities have condemned its use of magical themes, whereas others have praised its emphasis on self-sacrifice and the way one's character is the result of one's choices.
Several commentators have noted that personal identity is a strong theme in the book and that it addresses issues of racism through the treatment of non-human, non-magical, and non-living people. Some commentators regard the diary as a warning against uncritical acceptance of information from sources whose motives and reliability cannot be checked. Institutional authority is portrayed as self-serving and incompetent.
The film adaptation of the novel, released in 2002, became the fifth highest-grossing film ever and received generally favourable reviews. Video games loosely based on Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were also released for several platforms, and most obtained favourable reviews.

Plot

On Harry Potter's twelfth birthday, the Dursley family—Harry's uncle Vernon, aunt Petunia, and cousin Dudley—hold a dinner party for a potential client of Vernon's company. Uninvited, Harry, who has not been receiving any news from his school friends, is visited by a house-elf named Dobby. Dobby warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts, and has been intercepting the post from his friends. Failing to persuade Harry to not return to Hogwarts, Dobby uses magic to smash Petunia's dessert on the kitchen floor, framing Harry, who is not allowed to use magic outside school, in an attempt to get him expelled. The Ministry of Magic warns Harry against using more magic, but allows him to return at the start of the next year.
Meanwhile, as his business deal has fallen through, Vernon locks Harry in his bedroom. Harry’s best friend Ron Weasley arrives with his twin brothers Fred and George in their father Arthur’s enchanted Ford Anglia. They rescue Harry, who stays at their family home, the Burrow, for the remainder of his holidays. Harry and the other Weasleys—mother Molly, third-eldest son Percy, and daughter Ginny —travel to Diagon Alley. They meet Hermione Granger, Lucius Malfoy, father of Harry’s school nemesis Draco, and Gilderoy Lockhart, a conceited autobiographer appointed new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor after the death of Professor Quirrell. At King Cross station, Harry and Ron can't enter Platform 93⁄4. Having missed the Hogwarts Express they decide to fly Arthur’s car to the school, crashing into the Whomping Willow on the grounds, and damaging Ron's wand.
Throughout the year, Harry learns that prejudiced wizards discriminate between people with “pure” blood and those of Muggle parentage. He also notices a voice only he can hear, seemingly coming from the walls of the school. During a deathday party for Gryffindor House’s ghost Nearly Headless Nick, Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the school caretaker Argus Filch’s petrified cat, Mrs. Norris, and a scrawled warning: “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware.”
Rumours regarding the Chamber of Secrets begin circulatng. Harry discovers from Cuthbert Binns, the professor of History of Magic, that it allegedly houses a monster and was created by one of the school’s founders, Salazar Slytherin, after a disagreement with the other founders. Slytherin believed the school should exclude Muggle-born students, and built the chamber to that end. Supposedly, the Heir of Slytherin could open it and control the monster inside.
During a Quidditch game, a Bludger chases Harry and breaks his arm. Attempting to mend it, Lockhart accidentally removes the arm's bones, forcing Harry to stay in the hospital wing overnight to heal. Dobby visits Harry in the night, confessing that he charmed the Bludger and sealed the gateway at King’s Cross and revealing that the Chamber of Secrets was opened before. Another attack occurs on first-year Gryffindor student Colin Creevey, giving rise to panic in Hogwarts. A duelling class is set up for the students, during which it is revealed that Harry is a 'Parselmouth', having the rare ability to speak to snakes.
This sparks rumours that Harry is the Heir of Slytherin, as Slytherin was also a Parselmouth. Another attack occurs on Hufflepuff second-year Justin Finch-Fletchley and Nearly Headless Nick, fueling the rumour. Harry, Ron, and Hermione begin to suspect Draco Malfoy is behind the attacks, given his family's connections with Slytherin house and open hostility toward Muggle-born students. To confirm this, Hermione concocts Polyjuice Potion, which allows Harry and Ron to impersonate Draco’s lackeys Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. The disguised Harry and Ron interrogate Draco, discovering that Draco’s father told him little about the Chamber's previous opening, and that it occurred fifty years ago. Meanwhile, "Moaning" Myrtle Warren, a ghost that haunts a girls' bathroom provides a new clue, in the form of a diary deposited in her stall. The diary belonged to Tom Riddle, a student who witnessed a fellow student’s death when the Chamber was opened. Harry magically communicates with Riddle using the diary; Riddle claims Rubeus Hagrid, gamekeeper for Hogwarts, was to blame. When Hermione is attacked next, alongside a Ravenclaw prefect, the school is put on lockdown, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Hagrid are forced to leave.
Following instructions Hagrid had left, Harry and Ron follow spiders into the Forbidden Forest. They find a massive Acromantula named Aragog, a monster blamed for the attacks fifty years before. Aragog denies its involvement, and tells them that spiders fear the real monster. Although Aragog attempts to feed Harry and Ron to its progeny, Arthur's Ford Anglia arrives and helps the boys escape. Visiting Hermione, they discover that she had deduced the monster's identity prior to her attack. The monster is a basilisk that kills with a stare, feared by spiders. From Aragog's hints, Harry deduces that Myrtle was the student killed in the original attack. When Ginny is taken into the Chamber, Harry and Ron discover that the entrance to it is in Myrtle's bathroom. Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the Chamber. The dunderheaded professor, who confesses he is a fraud, attempts to erase the boys’ memories with Ron’s damaged wand, but instead erases his own and causes a rockfall separating Ron and Harry.
Harry enters the Chamber of Secrets alone to find Ginny unconscious and Tom Riddle, who claims to be a memory preserved in his diary. Riddle claims to be the Heir of Slytherin; furthermore, his full name, Tom Marvolo Riddle, can be made into the anagram "I am Lord Voldemort". He had opened the Chamber before and framed Hagrid. By possessing Ginny through his diary, Riddle has been continuing what he started, and unleashes the basilisk against Harry. Harry shows loyalty to Dumbledore in this ordeal, which summons Dumbledore's phoenix Fawkes, who arrives with the Sorting Hat. Fawkes blinds the basilisk, allowing Harry to pull the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and slay the creature, although he is poisoned in the process. As Riddle taunts the dying Harry, Fawkes' tears heal him, and he uses a basilisk fang to stab Riddle's diary. Both the diary and Riddle are destroyed, and Ginny is restored.
Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Lockhart return to the main castle and reunite with McGonagall, Dumbledore, and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Ginny is reprieved by Dumbledore, who shows interest in the diary. Lucius Malfoy bursts in, furious about Dumbledore's return. He is accompanied by Dobby, who is the Malfoys' servant. Harry realizes that the diary had been in the Malfoys’ possession. To ensure the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius, a follower of Voldemort, had slipped the diary into Ginny's cauldron when they met in Diagon Alley. Harry hides a sock in the diary and returns it to Lucius. By discarding the sock, which Dobby catches, Lucius unintentionally frees the house-elf from the Malfoys’ service. Lucius attacks Harry in revenge, but Dobby saves him. The petrified students are cured, Gryffindor wins the house cup again, Harry and Ron receive special awards, exams are cancelled, Hagrid returns, Lockhart is discharged, and Harry returns to Privet Drive in high spirits.

Publication and reception

Development

Rowling found it difficult to finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because she was afraid it would not live up to the expectations raised by Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. After delivering the manuscript to Bloomsbury on schedule, she took it back for six weeks of revision.
In early drafts of the book, the ghost Nearly Headless Nick sang a self-composed song explaining his condition and the circumstances of his unknown death. This was cut because the book's editor did not care for the poem, which has been subsequently published as an extra on J. K. Rowling's official website. The family background of Dean Thomas was removed because Rowling and her publishers considered it an "unnecessary digression," and she considered Neville Longbottom's own journey of discovery "more important to the central plot."

Publication

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was published in the UK on 2 July 1998 and in the US on 2 June 1999. It immediately took first place in UK bestseller lists, displacing popular authors such as John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and Terry Pratchett and making Rowling the first author to win the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year for two years in succession. In June 1999, it went straight to the top of three US bestseller lists, including inThe New York Times.
First edition printings had several errors, which were fixed in subsequent reprints. Initially, Dumbledore said Voldemort was the last remaining ancestor of Salazar Slytherin instead of his descendant. Gilderoy Lockhart's book on werewolves is entitled Weekends with Werewolves at one point and Wanderings with Werewolves later in the book.

Critical response

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was met with near-universal acclaim. In The Times, Deborah Loudon described it as a children's book that would be "re-read into adulthood" and highlighted its "strong plots, engaging characters, excellent jokes and a moral message which flows naturally from the story". Fantasy author Charles de Lint agreed, and considered the second Harry Potter book to be just as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a rare achievement among series of books. Thomas Wagner regarded the plot as very similar to that of the first book, based on searching for a secret hidden under the school. However, he enjoyed the parody of celebrities and their fans that centres round Gilderoy Lockhart, and approved of the book's handling of racism. Tammy Nezol found the book more disturbing than its predecessor, particularly in the rash behaviour of Harry and his friends after Harry withholds information from Dumbledore, and in the human-like behaviour of the mandragoras used to make a potion that cures petrification. Nevertheless, she considered the second story as enjoyable as the first.
Mary Stuart thought the final conflict with Tom Riddle in the Chamber was almost as scary as in some of Stephen King's works, and perhaps too strong for young or timid children. She commented that "there are enough surprises and imaginative details thrown in as would normally fill five lesser books." Like other reviewers, she thought the book would give pleasure to both children and adult readers. According to Philip Nel, the early reviews gave unalloyed praise while the later ones included some criticisms, although they still agreed that the book was outstanding.
Writing after all seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a deus ex machina: he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry and Ginny.

Awards and honours

Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was the recipient of several awards. The American Library Association listed the novel among its 2000 Notable Children's Books,
as well as its Best Books for Young Adults. In 1999, Booklist named Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as one of its Editors' Choices, and as one of its Top Ten Fantasy Novels for Youth. The Cooperative Children's Book Center made the novel a CCBC Choice of 2000 in the "Fiction for Children" category. The novel also won Children's Book of the Year British Book Award, and was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian Children's Award and the 1998 Carnegie Award.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize 1998 Gold Medal in the 9–11 years division. Rowling also won two other Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The Scottish Arts Council awarded their first ever Children’s Book Award to the novel in 1999, and it was also awarded Whitaker's Platinum Book Award in 2001. In 2003, the novel was listed at number 23 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.

Main themes

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets continues to examine what makes a person who he or she is, which began in the first book. As well as maintaining that Harry's identity is shaped by his decisions rather than any aspect of his birth, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets provides contrasting characters who try to conceal their true personalities: as Tammy Nezol puts it, Gilderoy Lockhart "lacks any real identity" because he is nothing more than a charming liar. Riddle also complicates Harry's struggle to understand himself by pointing out the similarities between the two: "both half-bloods, orphans raised by Muggles, probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin."
Opposition to class, death and its impacts, experiencing adolescence, sacrifice, love, friendship, loyalty, prejudice, and racism are constant themes of the series. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry's consideration and respect for others extends to the lowly, non-human Dobby and the ghost Nearly Headless Nick. According to Marguerite Krause, achievements in the novel depend more on ingenuity and hard work than on natural talents.
Edward Duffy, associate professor at Marquette University, says that one of the central characters of Chamber of Secrets is Tom Riddle's enchanted diary, which takes control of Ginny Weasley – just as Riddle planned. Duffy suggests Rowling intended this as a warning against passively consuming information from sources that have their own agendas. Although Bronwyn Williams and Amy Zenger regard the diary as more like an instant messaging or chat room system, they agree about the dangers of relying too much on the written word, which can camouflage the author, and they highlight a comical example, Lockhart's self-promoting books.
Immorality and the portrayal of authority as negative are significant themes in the novel. Marguerite Krause states there are few absolute moral rules in Harry Potter's world, for example Harry prefers to tell the truth, but lies whenever he considers it necessary – very like his enemy Draco Malfoy. At the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Dumbledore retracts his promise to punish Harry, Ron, and Hermione if they break any more school rules – after Professor McGonagall estimates they have broken over 100 – and lavishly rewards them for ending the threat from the Chamber of Secrets. Krause further states that authority figures and political institutions receive little respect from Rowling. William MacNeil of Griffith University, Queensland, Australia states that the Minister for Magic is presented as a mediocrity. In his article "Harry Potter and the Secular City", Ken Jacobson suggests the Ministry as a whole is portrayed as a tangle of bureaucratic empires, saying that "Ministry officials busy themselves with minutiae and coin politically correct euphemisms like 'non-magical community' and 'memory modification'."
This novel implies it begins in 1992: the cake for Nearly-Headless Nick's 500th deathday party bears the words "Sir Nicholas De Mimsy Porpington died 31 October 1492".

Connection to ''Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince''

Chamber of Secrets has many links with the sixth book of the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In fact, Half-Blood Prince was the working title of Chamber of Secrets and Rowling says she originally intended to present some "crucial pieces of information" in the second book, but ultimately felt "this information's proper home was book six". Some objects that play significant roles in Half-Blood Prince first appear in Chamber of Secrets: the Hand of Glory and the opal necklace that are on sale in Borgin and Burkes; a Vanishing Cabinet in Hogwarts that is damaged by Peeves the Poltergeist; and Tom Riddle's diary, which is later shown to be a Horcrux. Additionally, these two novels are the ones with the most focus on Harry's relationship with Ginny Weasley.

Adaptations

Film

The film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was released in 2002. Chris Columbus directed the film, and the screenplay was written by Steve Kloves. It became the third film to exceed $600 million in international box office sales, preceded by Titanic, released in 1997, and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, released in 2001. The film was nominated for a Saturn Award for the Best Fantasy Film, According to Metacritic, the film version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets received "generally favourable reviews" with an average score of 63%, and another aggregator, Rotten Tomatoes, gave it a score of 82%.

Video games

Five unique video games by different developers were released between 2002 and 2003 by Electronic Arts, loosely based on the book:
DeveloperRelease datePlatformGenreGameRankingsMetacriticNotes
KnowWonder14 November 2002Microsoft WindowsAdventure/puzzle71.46%77/100
Argonaut14 November 2002PlayStationAction-adventure70.50%74/100
Griptonite14 November 2002Game Boy ColorRole-playing game77.33%
Eurocom14 November 2002Game Boy AdvanceAction puzzle73.44%76/100
Eurocom14 November 2002GameCubeAction-adventure73.29%77/100
Eurocom14 November 2002PlayStation 2Action-adventure70.44%71/100
Eurocom14 November 2002XboxAction-adventure74.58%77/100
Aspyr10 April 2003Mac OS XAdventure/puzzlePort of Windows version