Reading Harry Potter Critically

Here’s my review of Harry Potter that I promised Channing for RaceWire’s round-up of the new movie…

Across cultures, fairy tales and myths are used to teach children the normative values of a society. Stories follow a similar template: the main character is a child that listeners can identify with. There are fantastical creatures, some good, others evil. There is a moral challenge of some sort, a test of a child’s adherence to values, which may threaten the sanctity of the world in an epic battle of good versus evil. Hansel and Gretel leave home and risk being dinner for a witch. The Little Red Riding Hood learns not to talk to strangers or grandmothers with big teeth. Poor, orphaned Cinderella can marry the prince, as long as the shoe fits.

Harry Potter is no different. But, it’s the values it preaches that begs for a closer look. This is the most popular book and movie series of our times, engaging both children and adults globally, and making J.K. Rowling a very rich lady. I’ve always been struck at how dark its view of childhood is, seen through Harry’s eyes. He is orphaned as a child, his parents killed by an evil wizard who threatens to bring the wizarding world into the Dark Side. His Muggle relatives—a delightful poke at the British bourgeoisie—force Harry to live in a crawl space under the stairs. This is the universal child of all fairy tales: unloved, alone, and neglected, but a true king/princess/wizard/genius hidden within.

Saved by Dumbledore and whisked away to Hogwarts, the world gets more menacing. Portals to the alternative universe are everywhere but hidden to humans. The wizarding world has odd creatures, magicians cloaked in dark shawls whispering incantations, and there’s always an edge of danger mixed in with the fantastical. Even at school, the castle is filled with hidden rooms, mirrors that show truths, memories captured in capsules, portraits that talk back, and staircases that constantly shift like an M. Escher print. The feasts of ice cream, cookies, and cake are grotesque, a childhood fantasy gone terribly wrong, and a stomachache soon to follow. In the forests, at the periphery of the school’s grounds, live giants, centaurs, and shadows of the evil Lord Voldemort.

So, there’s the genre of myths and cautionary tales that Harry Potter falls into. The other is boarding school narrative. These are coming of age stories, usually of an outsider plucked out of her surroundings (colony or poverty), and sent to the center of empire to be schooled to become imperial technocrats. I’m thinking about Gandhi traveling alone to England to study law, uncertain of his English, and ashamed to eat in the dining hall because he didn’t know how to use a knife and fork. What do the aspiring wizards at Hogwarts do upon graduation? I doubt it’s to return to the Muggle world to work as dentists. What order of wizardry are they employed to serve?