Lord Voldemort e Adolf Hitler: retratos do mal

Abstract

This work is inserted in the English Literatura area of the twentieth and twenty-first century, and aims to conduct a study of the “Harry Potter” books series, comparing the character Lord Voldemort to the German dictator Adolf Hitler, known for his role in the World War II, taking as its starting point the evil caused by them, as well as the similarities and differences between the prevailing anti-semitic policy in the Third Reich and the belief in the superiority of pure-blood wizards in the literary works. To achieve our objective, besides theoretical aspects from literary studies, the following biographies about Adolf Hitler will be studied: "The Hitler of History" by John Lukacs (1998), "Hitler" (1976) by Joachim Fest, and also "Mein Kampf" (2001), written by the dictator, which will provide theoretical background on the study about the historical figure. Also, we will use theoretical studies on the literary character, and theories concerning the source of evil according to St. Augustine's and the subsequent considerations of Boethius, as well as the theory of the philosopher Hannah Arendt. Apart from the similarities between their ideologies and its relation with racial purity questions, both characters had similarities between their relation with their father figure. We also recognized the resemblance between the manifestation of evil of them.