Myth in a Myth: A Cross- Cultural Analysis

Harshada Deokar

TYBA, 2022-23

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Cultures are ways of life that we create around our basic needs and functions as humans. Our belief systems, social norms, practices of clothing, cuisines, artforms, entertainment, etc, are collective patterns that we share within our communities. In an attempt to understand the role of cultures, Levi Strauss, a French anthropologist, says that all cultures use the same basic categories and systems of organisation to make sense of the human experience. We build these structures in order to understand and interpret our experiences; language being one such common and important structure. Linguistic discourses like legends, folklores, and myths are thus, rich in cultural history and serve to legitimise as well as propagate cultural structures. If we take a deeper look at the composition of cultural myths, we will find common themes like creation of humanity, natural disasters, supernatural beings and even apocalyptic ‘end of the world’ stories running across all of them– naturally, such phenomena were universal and created uncertainty which was usually quelled by these shared cultural narratives.

The confusion and uncertainty that my teenage self once faced made me, and several others, reach out to the fictional world of myths most popular during our time– the wizarding world of Harry Potter. The wizarding world of Harry Potter was introduced to us at a time when magic as a phenomenon was scorned at; the book series was even banned in some places due to its promotion of occult and witchcraft based activities. But even today, these books can be credited with continuing to help young teenagers make sense of the world around them; they dabble in the themes of love, loss, family, good and evil, while teaching children to be imaginative and hopeful through the miracles of magic. While the mysteries of the wizarding world harbour endless myths, I will be decoding a particular story called the ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’ (a myth inside a myth, if you may) through the course of this article.

 

 "There were once three brothers who were travelling along a lonely, winding road at twilight--"  - Hermione Granger reading the story aloud in 'The Deathly Hallows'.

The Tale of the Three Brothers takes us into the lives of a trio of wizards who try to evade Death with their learnedness in magic; the first two succumb to their own flaws, and only the humble, third brother manages to escape him. Thus, the myth is built around the idea of evasion of death through knowledge, wisdom and ultimately, humility. The importance of the cultural context of the reader becomes very apparent here– the concept of escaping death makes little sense in the Indian context because we see the phenomenon of death as an integral part of life; the Hindu belief in the ‘cycle of rebirth’ ensures that death is seen more as a next step than an end to a journey, while moksha or salvation is the ultimate goal.

 

The importance of the Deathly Hallows would never be socially constructed in such a culture because becoming the ‘master of death’ through the possession of the Deathly Hallows would only mean getting stuck in the cycle of rebirth and straying away from the ultimate goal. Thus, we can see the validity in the claims of Roland Barthes, when he talks about myths as an ideology that is socially constructed by reference to familiar, everyday experiences (Robinson, 2012).  

The meanings of such familiar experiences and objects too, do not get constructed on their own. Saussure was of the view that words do not simply refer to the objects that they denote; they need to be understood as a system of relationships between the ‘signifier’ and the ‘signified.’ A single word too, consists of a ‘signifier’ and a ‘signified.’ The signified is the concept/object to which the signifier refers, whereas the signifier is the ‘sound image’ (Saussure, 1916). A four-legged feline would only remain a mental image without significant meaning, without the presence of the word assigned to it, which is the ‘signifier’ ‘cat.’ Thus the signifier and the signified gain meaning only in relation to one another (Mambrol, 2020).  

The most important ‘signified’ in the myth, i.e., the Deathly Hallows (made to help one conquer death) would not make sense to an outsider, unfamiliar with the Harry Potter universe because they do not have a signifier to represent these objects and understand them. They would look meaningless or even like objects of voodoo or witchcraft, especially considering the negative connotations surrounding magic in the UK, where the story was originally written. Thus, the gap between the signified and the signifier, along with differences in interpretations, could result in such wide differences in the meaning and role of an object or concept in a cultural setting. These differences in interpretation may be culturally determined, but the structure that they follow is universal (Cuff et al., 2015). The human mind perceives difference most readily in terms of opposites, which structuralists call ‘binary oppositions’. Objects gain meaning by stating what they are not and how they are different from another object. 

The perceptions of the book series itself fall in this binary structure where some are of the opinion that by introducing the threat of a dark wizard, the books “promote through their characters, love, bravery, self- reliance, the importance of family, and tolerance of those different from us” (Foster, 2001). Thus, the graphic evil characters and scenes portrayed in Rowling's books, in many ways confront children with a strong moral drive (Woodrum, n.d.). Likewise, parents have also boycotted the books for promoting rebellion in children through the adventures of the protagonist along with fostering anti-Christian sentiments— Barthes’ social construction of the meaning of myths clearly holds great value here.

Looking specifically at the myth of the Three Brothers, we see a clear idea of the opposing forces of good and evil, life and death and also nature and culture. The myth comes with its own set of teachings for the readers within the Harry Potter universe and for us– it reminds us of our limits and boundaries as humans while cautioning us against meddling into the workings of nature as we see in the discussion below:

 “Halfway through the bridge, a hooded figure stood before them. The figure was the enraged spirit of Death, cheated of his due..”

An anthropocentric view of the world

The contrast of nature vs culture, clearly representative of our reality too, is a recurrent theme throughout the myth. The three brothers representing culture, equipped with their knowledge of the magical arts, hold a rather anthropocentric view of the world; they stray from the path set for them by Death by building a bridge and saving themselves. The elder brothers regard themselves with such a high view that they ask for rewards that completely go against the natural order of the universe, in an attempt to become invincible and even recall a dead person to humiliate Death further. But nature has its ways and Death too, finds a way of getting back at them for their misplaced arrogance.

“The third and youngest brother, who was the most humble and wise, did not trust Death and asked for something to enable him to go forth without Death being able to follow. A reluctant Death, most unwillingly, handed over his own invisibility cloak.”

Evasion of death

The anxiety and fear surrounding death may be a universal phenomenon, but every culture has a different way of making sense of it, and myths play a central role in this process. The cultural context of Europe, with the religious beliefs of Christianity, look at death essentially as an inevitable end and as something to conquer, which gets reflected through the attitude of the characters towards death. The language used to narrate the story hints at their attempts to evade, outsmart, deceive, and even humiliate death as a way of coping with it and proving their own superiority.

 "Death searched for the youngest brother as years passed but never succeeded. It was only when the third brother reached a great age, he took off the Cloak of Invisibility and gave it to his son. "Greeting Death as an old friend, they departed this life as equals."

The dichotomy of good vs. evil

Certain qualities like greed, arrogance, the need for everlasting power associated with the eldest brother, and the attributes of being cunning and deceptive given to Death, are clearly portrayed as evil. Knowledge and learnedness among the three brothers is a celebrated quality. The attribute of humility is greatly upheld through the example of the third brother, who even manages to dodge death (temporarily) with his wisdom and modesty.

The Tale of the Three Brothers may be a myth situated in a fictional world, but it teaches us the role of myths as active agents of cultural socialisation– they often have similar themes but are largely rooted in a culture’s specific context and are interpreted accordingly too, thus leaving room for misconceptions. Analysing such myths lets us delve deeper into societal structures and consequently the workings of the human mind too; we understand how meaning gets created in everyday interactions and passed down through linguistic discourses.  

References

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Movieclips. (2014). The Tale of the Three Brothers. YouTube. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://youtu.be/aJSh1zkPEvc.  

Robinson, A. (2012, January 11). An A to Z of theory Roland Barthes and semiotics. Ceasefire Magazine. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/in-theory-barthes-1/ 

Rowling, J. (2007, July 21). “The Tale of the Three Brothers” from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (pp. 405-423). Scholastic Corporation.

Woodrum, E. (n.d.) “The Harry Potter Controversy.” Available at: https://library.ecu.edu/wp-content/pv-uploads/sites/242/2017/06/2004-Keats-Sparrow-Award-Winner-%E2%80%8B-Honorable-Mention.-The-Harry-Potter-Controversy.pdf.