Magic as Metaphors for the Imagination and Creativity of Children in Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone - Research Paper Example

Magic as Metaphors for the Imagination, Creativity, and Empowerment of Children in Rowling’s (1997) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Homeless, despite living in a house with his relatives, and having special abilities which the majority do not appreciate, Harry Potter’s predicament of loneliness and weirdness has attracted many children who feel the same way. Joanne Kathleen Rowling, better known as J.K. Rowling, created the famous character of Harry, an 11-year old orphan with wizardry skills and a legendary lightning-bolt scar in his forehead, who experiences an amazing adventure with his friends. Harry’s journey towards social acceptance, friendship, identity-development and the (first) defeat of Voldemort, the symbol of evil, stand for familiar themes that child readers may find exciting and relevant. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (hereinafter called Harry Potter or this novel), or basically the whole series, became a commercial success. Researchers, however, debate on whether HPSS has any literary value at all for children (Anatol, 2003, p. xvii). The paper explores the role of magic in children’s literature through this novel and determines if it is healthy for children to get lost in a magical world. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Rowling (1997) uses magic to embody the metaphors of imagination, creativity, and empowerment that children can relate to as part of their characteristics, needs, and experiences. Getting lost in a magical world is healthy for children if it helps them stimulate their imagination and creativity, makes them feel empowered in a world that is full of uncertainty and change, and prepares them for their transition to adolescence. Rowling (1997) uses magic in children’s literature to embody the metaphor of imagination that children may find important as part of their natural characteristic and regular experiences. Children usually have active imagination that is boundless in characters, stories, and settings. In the real world, they might lose their imagination when society teaches them to be “real,” i.e. practical-minded and not imaginative. Harry Potter, however, celebrates children’s imagination through engaging them in a world of make-believe. Harry’s first bountiful Christmas at Hogwarts (Rowling, 1997, p. 203), for example, stimulates their imagination by illustrating what other people’s Christmas is like. Magic becomes the totem for going outside ordinary experiences. Furthermore, magic is metaphor for power that can help children escape their fears of the adult world. Children can use their imagination to flee their fears because, in their minds, they are as strong and free as Harry Potter. Black (2003) studied the appeal of Harry Potter to children and understood that imagination plays a large part in it. She noted that Rowling (1997) did not intend to substitute witchcraft for Christianity as a source of strength and hope, but to affirm magic as a metaphor for a powerful life. Black (2003) argued that Bettelheim (1976) is right when he said that children who read fantasy stories are often aware that they “speak to [them] in the language of symbols and not that of everyday reality” (p. 62), and that they understand that these stories “happen as inner experience and personal development; that [fantasy] tales depict in imaginary and symbolic form the essential steps in growing up and achieving an independent existence” (p. 73 as cited in Bettelheim, 1976, p. 239). They are growing up and becoming more independent through their active imagination that can facilitate feelings and behaviors of empowerment in real life. Besides imagination, the magic in Harry Potter demonstrates the characteristic of, or at times, need for creativity among children, that they need to resolve their issues and problems. Beach and Willner (2002) conducted a survey on how Harry Potter affected children readers. They learned that children are attracted to the book’s ability to show creativity in children’s lives through reading about how Harry becomes victorious in his own real-life and magic-life problems (Beach & Willner, 2002, p. 104). Magic is a metaphor for creativity because it can do anything. An illustration is the first time that Harry finds the mirror of Erised. He sees his family through it, and he feels a “powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness” (Rowling, 1997, p. 209). This scene shows how magic helps people find the power of creativity in finding ways to cope with sadness, including traumatic events. Magic makes children feel the boundlessness of their ideas that can help them resolve their own issues too, or to find ways in how to manage them with the help of other people. Furthermore, Harry Potter demonstrates that magic is a metaphor for creativity that children can tap during times of conflict. Ron uses magic, for instance, to save Hermione from the troll (Rowling, 1997, p. 176). Fred and George also use magic to defeat boredom and to improve control over their lives. Magic represents creativity in facing challenges. Children can learn how to be creative in school and family work through the creativity of magic in this novel. Magic embodies the power of creativity that resides in children, the power that they may use in helping them understand and resolve issues. Apart from creativity, magic in Harry Potter stands as a metaphor for empowerment, and this is one of the healthy benefits of reading about magical worlds, the ability to feel powerful in dealing with changes and setbacks in life. Magic gives power literally to wizards, but it is not power without responsibility and reasonability. Hogwarts does not allow their student wizards to use magic in the real world. It shows that magic is not power to be abused against those who are literally powerless, but a responsibility that must be exercised with logic and self-restraint. Furthermore, Harry Potter depicts that magic empowers through having control of one’s mind. Chappell (2008) discussed resistance and agency in this novel. He asserted that Harry Potter helps children cope with external changes and controls from social institutions by finding ways of developing their agency that helps them grow as individuals and as meaningful members of their society, and it begins with the control of one’s mind. Harry already informs Professor McGonagall that someone is going to steal the Sorcerer’s Stone but she does not want to believe it is possible. Harry does not limit himself to thinking that he is just a child who cannot do anything. Instead, he breaks rules (i.e. wandering around the palace outside school hours and activities) to defeat evil. Whitney, Vozzola, and Hofmann (2005) studied the impact of education, expertise, and gender on how young and old readers understand the themes and characters of Harry Potter. They learned that the youth see the moral message of courage and friendship from this novel (Whitney et al., 2005, p. 13). Children feel empowered from developing courage in the same way that Harry and his friends did. They may feel less fearful of the challenges of and sadness in real life through identifying with strong characters in Harry Potter. Furthermore, aside from magic as a metaphor for empowerment, getting lost in a magical world is healthy for children if it helps them stimulate their imagination and creativity that arouse their confidence and self-image. Beach and Willner (2002) stressed that magic is healthy for kids because they feel more confident through the magic that they access vicariously through Harry Potter. As they read how Harry beats his opponents, not violently, but through proving his worth in Hogwarts, they can feel his magic as theirs too. They may feel more confident by realizing their power inside themselves. In addition, magic can improve self-image. Beach and Willner (2002) stated that they liked Harry Potter because it illustrated children as human beings who are mature enough to deserve trust and respect (p. 105). Dumbledore, for instance, answers Harry’s questions after he defeats Quirrell (Rowling, 1997, p. 299). He tells the truth that he knows Harry can believe in and learn from. Beach and Willner (2002) added that children liked reading Harry Potter because it was a literally and figuratively big book that makes them feel “important” (p. 105). Harry Potter can enhance children readers’ sense of self and confidence through magic that makes them creative and that feeds their imagination. Besides improving self-confidence, the magic in this novel makes children feel empowered in a world that is full of uncertainty and change. Anatol (2003) asserted that Harry Potter made children feel powerful through magic. Magic becomes a tool for facing one’s greatest fears as Harry and other students had done with their boggarts (Anatol, 2003, p. xi). Their ability to fight their boggarts refers to the magic of courage in dealing with fears in real life too. Children can find magic as an important tool in believing that they too can be courageous and that they can defeat their fears in life. Magic may improve their ability to think that the world may be changing and troubles may come along the way, but they have the power to vanquish them through confidence and hope. Furthermore, Chappell (2008) talked about the resistance of kids against injustices. Harry Potter and his friends, with the guidance of adults, and sometimes, even without them, make decisions to fight for what they think is right. They face numerous ideals to stop Quirrell from stealing the Sorcerer’s Stone and giving full life and powers to Voldemort again, but they do not give up. They use their strengths and talents, as well as creativity and imagination, to help one another stop Voldemort’s plans. Harry Potter uses magic to build the power inside children that shapes the strength needed to forge ahead. Finally, magic in Harry Potter may prepare children for their transition to adolescence. Damour (2003) believed that children read Harry Potter because they can relate with its characters’ life stage experiences and dilemmas. It has stories that “speak to the dynamic and unconscious conflicts, fears, and wishes that arise when children set their sights on becoming adults” (Damour, 2003, p. 15). Harry’s parents died when he was a kid and he did not have good role models for growing up with the Dursleys as his family. He feels lonely and disempowered as a child. His life in Hogwarts that is filled with magic becomes his way of learning what it takes to be prepared for adolescence. Children may relate to the feelings of hopelessness and powerless, or the feeling that no one understands them. This novel, however, shows them that other children are going through the same experiences and that they are finding healthy ways of dealing with them. It illustrates values of teamwork and risk-taking only when absolutely needed that these children may find applicable in their own lives. Furthermore, magic in Harry Potter allows readers to question rules and systems. Some scholars do not like Harry Potter precisely because it seems to advocate rule breaking and rebellion, but these are not malevolent actions. Chappell (2008) argued that Harry Potter shows the making of independent child heroes. He stated: “Harry and his friends are ‘heroes’ in the sense… [that] they are also builders of context, awakening their fellow students (and readers) to the network of ideologies in which they navigate” (Chappell, 2008, p. 292). Harry Potter demonstrates that children can make sense of the world through recreating it. They can break rules if they are unjust or to change the world. Harry Potter uses the idea that magic is about the power of social transformation if children can believe that society can evolve because it is made of people who can also change and who can change its rules and systems. Magic is not literally as it is, but the power to become a new person in a new world that they can shape through individual and collective efforts. Getting lost in a magical world does not necessarily mean forgetting about the real world, but rather, it becomes a journey to finding oneself, so that these children might be stronger and for them to never be easily lost again in the real world’s uncertainties and indifferences to their life-stage issues. Magic is a metaphor for imagination, creativity, and empowerment that are connected to each other in helping children understand and have greater control of their worlds. Instead of feeling helpless, magic through literature may engage their confidence and self-image and develop strong identities that are prepared for more challenges in adolescent years ahead. The magic of Harry Potter is the magic inside children, waiting to be nourished through fantasy books that improve moral reasoning and courage and through adults who give time and support for these kids. The magic of Harry Potter is in children finding themselves as children enjoying their imagination and as independent moral people who are soon to be adolescents. References Anatol, G.L. (2003). Introduction. In Reading Harry Potter: Critical essays (pp. ix-xxv). Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. Beach, S.A., & Willner, E.H. (2002). The power of Harry: The impact of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books on young readers. World Literature Today, 76(12), 102-106. Black, S. (2003). The magic of Harry Potter: Symbols and heroes of fantasy. Children's Literature in Education, 34(3), 237-247. Chappell, D. (2008). Sneaking out after dark: Resistance, agency, and the postmodern child in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Children's Literature in Education, 39(4), 281-293. DOI: 10.1007/s10583-007-9060-6. Damour, L. (2003). Harry Potter and the magical looking glass: Reading the secret life of the preadolescent. In G.L. Anatol (Ed.), Reading Harry Potter: Critical essays (pp. 15-24). Connecticut: Praeger Publishers. Rowling, J.K. (1997). Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone. New York: Scholastic Inc. Whitney, M.P., Vozzola, E.C., & Hofmann, J. (2005). Children’s moral reading of Harry Potter. Journal of Research in Character Education, 3(1), 1-24. Read More