The following is the fourth in a series of 7 articles focusing on a moment of rhetorical significance in each of the Harry Potter novels. This series evolved out of a paper presented at the 2018 Harry Potter Academic Conference.
By the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a student has been murdered and the most evil wizard of recent memory has mysteriously returned from the dead.
This presents Professor Dumbledore with quite a challenge. He has to console his students after the death of Cedric Diggory. And he must persuade the wizarding world to fight a battle with Lord Voldemort that they aren’t ready for. So what does “the greatest wizard of modern times” 1 do at this climactic moment? Well, he gives a speech.
Aristotle’s Three Divisions of Rhetoric
Aristotle once said, “Rhetoric is useful because things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites” 2. And clearly Dumbledore agrees, because although he has over a hundred years of magical study at his disposal, rhetoric is the magic he finds most useful in the face of Voldemort’s “gift for spreading discord and enmity” 3.
But not all rhetoric is useful in the same way. Aristotle gives us three divisions of rhetoric:
Political (or deliberative) rhetoric “urges us either to do or not to do something” and “aims at establishing the expediency or the harmfulness of a proposed course of action” 4. When we deliberate over what to do in the future, we engage in Political rhetoric. When the Sorting Hat laments splitting students into houses and warns the school to stay united in Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix, that was Political rhetoric.
Forensic rhetoric “either attacks or defends somebody”. And these speakers “aim at establishing the justice or injustice of some action”. For example, when Dumbledore defends Harry at his trial in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, he engages in Forensic rhetoric.
Ceremonial (or epideictic) rhetoric “either praises or censures somebody.… Those who praise or attack a man aim at proving him worthy of honour or the reverse”. Obituaries, best man speeches and especially eulogies all fall under the umbrella of Ceremonial rhetoric. And therefore, so does Dumbledore’s “Remember Cedric Diggory” speech.
Remember Cedric Diggory
Certainly, the first thing the headmaster of a school must do after a tragedy is address the death of a student. But Dumbledore does not only address the death of Cedric Diggory. Cedric receives a eulogy greater even than Dumbledore’s own two years later.
Dumbledore’s speech does everything good Ceremonial rhetoric should. According to Aristotle, “The usual subject for the introductions to speeches of display is some piece of praise or censure,” 5. And Dumbledore’s speech does just that with a toast to the “very fine person”, Cedric Diggory.
Beyond that, “In speeches of display we must make the hearer feel that the eulogy includes either himself or his family or his way of life or something or other of the kind.” 6 In his eulogy, Dumbledore says:
“Cedric was a person who exemplified many of the qualities that distinguish Hufflepuff House,” Dumbledore continued. “He was a good and loyal friend, a hard worker, he valued fair play. His death has affected you all, whether you knew him well or not.” 7
Dumbledore praises Cedric, proves him worthy of honor and allows the audience to connect their lives with his.
The Deliberative Eulogy
But Cedric’s eulogy goes beyond what a typical speech of display might. In the middle of his praise of Cedric, Dumbledore announces the controversial return of Lord Voldemort.
“The Triwizard Tournament’s aim was to further and promote magical understanding. In the light of what has happened — of Lord Voldemort’s return — such ties are more important than ever before…. Lord Voldemort’s gift for spreading discord and enmity is very great. We can fight it only by showing an equally strong bond of friendship and trust.”
And in this announcement, his rhetoric becomes Political. Although Aristotle makes the case that any speech might employ all three divisions at once, he also says that one usually outweighs the others.
But many situations do not so fit neatly into a single division and instead call for a blending of categories. This sharing of focus was explored by Kathleen Jamieson and Karlyn Campbell in 1984 when they said:
In certain settings, the need to reknit the community and to immortalize the deceased coalesce to produce an identifiable subform within the eulogy that an Aristotelian would recognize as deliberative: it defines policies in the future tense and engages its audience in appeals for action. 8
Political Rhetoric
Inserting politics into a eulogy is a tricky path to walk, though. Praising a beloved member of the community is one thing. But as Jamieson and Campbell note:
Because the eulogist is constrained by the need to memorialize the deceased and to reknit the community, she/he cannot propose policies inconsistent with those advocated by the deceased.
But Dumbledore walks this path well. As noted above, “Cedric was a person who exemplified many of the qualities that distinguish Hufflepuff House”. And as a Hufflepuff, his values are antithesis to Voldemort’s. Not to mention the fact that his death was at the hand of Voldemort himself.
Equally as important as any aspect is that a deliberative eulogy is eulogy first and political second. In a bad eulogy, “The elements of the attempted hybrid fail to fuse because the deliberative genre dominates the eulogy.” But in a proper hybrid:
deliberative appeals are subordinate to the eulogy, when they can be viewed as a memorial to the life of the deceased, when they are compatible with positions advocated by the eulogist, whose motives must not appear self-serving, and when advocacy will not divide the audience or community.
This is where Dumbledore succeeds. And where other might fail. Dumbledore’s speech blends memorial to Cedric with censure of Voldemort. But in the end, his call to action is simple: Remember Cedric Diggory.
“Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”
- Rowling, JK | Chapter 6: “The Journey from Platform Nine and Three-Quarters” | Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone | 1997
- Aristotle | Part 1 | Book 1 | Rhetoric | 350 BC
- Rowling, JK | Chapter 37: “The Beginning” | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | 2000
- Aristotle | Part 3 | Book 1 | Rhetoric | 350 BC
- Aristotle | Part 14 | Book 3 | Rhetoric | 350 BC
- ibid
- Rowling, JK | Chapter 37: “The Beginning” | Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | 2000
- Jamieson, Kathleen Hall & Campbell, Karlyn Kohrs | “Rhetorical hybrids: Fusions of generic elements” | Quarterly Journal of Speech | 1982