Common Themes

When given the assignment to free write about choosing an intriguing theme, I chose to compare common themes found in Winters Bone and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  I found this a little easier to do now that I have a better understanding how to do a close read.  Learning how to do this has helped me to take more in as I read for pleasure and work related reading.

As I thought about it, I came up with a few common themes in both Winter's Bone and Harry Potter.  The first theme that comes to mind is close and distant family ties.  In Winter's Bone, Ree seems to have both close and distant family ties.  For example, she is very close to her siblings and her mother.  She works extremely hard to care for all of them.  She never gives up on saving their home and tells them she will not leave them.  The example of a distant family tie would be her father.  He is absent from their lives due to his substance abuse.  In Harry Potter, his close family tie was to his parents as it is apparent through out the book how much he loved and misses them.  The distant family tie is interesting in this book because physically he is close to his aunt, uncle, and cousin but he couldn't be more distant because of how he is treated by them.  They do not accept him and his room is a tiny area under the staircase isolated from the rest of the family.

The second common theme in both was friendship.  In Winter's Bone, Ree has only a very few people she can rely on and call a friend.  Sonya her neighbor, is always looking out for Ree and her family by offering to feed the animals, providing food, and comfort when Ree is beaten.  In Harry Potter, Harry is given the opportunity to leave his aunt and uncle's home to go to Hogwarts where he befriends Hermione and Ron.  The three of them become friends for life.