Irvine Valley College: Online Literature Study of the School of Humanities and Languages

Literature 110 - Popular Literature

Spring 2013 - Ticket #62740 // Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, MFA, Instructor

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, J. K. Rowling

Time Displacement

Magic allows for fantastic things to happen in the Fantasy World, and often the events of this world can be faintly visible in the Real World for those of us lucky readers who get a glimpse. It also lets the author play with time and history - characters, objects, and events from any time in history can be blended together in the Fantasy World. In some cases, time would seem to be circular or to stand still.

One example of time displacement is the short story (a fantasy) of Rip Van Winkle. Old Rip falls asleep and when he wakes up, twenty years have passed and the world is a far different place. In this case, it is hard to tell which is the magic world and which is the fantasy - but the issue of time compression gets clearer when we can look at very familiar versions of time displacement!

Rip Van Winkle asleep for 20 years!

Although the time displacement in *Wizard of Oz* is not so clearly delineated, we do have much the same phenomenon. Dorothy goes to Oz when the tornado begins - and she seems to be there for days or months - but when she returns to Kansas, the storm is just blowing off into the distance!

Another good example of Time Displacement is found in the *Chronicles of Narnia* - *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.* Although the characters live long and eventful lives in Narnia, in the end, they are brought back to reality as children, again.

In another favorite Fantasy Adventure *The Magic Bed-Knob or How to Become a Witch in 10 Easy Lessons* (a childhood favorite of mine that became the movie *Bed-knobs and Broomsticks*) - we have both the entry to the fantasy world with the magic bed-knob and also time displacement. In the book, the characters travel back in time to find the sorcerer. [Note, too, the similarity to a school for Wizards and How to Become a Witch!]

Cover for *The Magic Bed-Knob* by Mary Norton, 1943.

In *Harry Potter* the time displacement is everywhere - but it is much more ambiguous. First, we really don't know what year it is in the "Real" world - and, when we get to Hogwarts, we have a strange mix of very ancient and semi-contemporary. The school itself is modeled on the traditional British boarding school structure (the rules, the rituals) - and yet, the characters seem to exist in a kind of magical, mythical world in which all historical relevants co-exist. More than that, the objects of both worlds might come from almost any time period - and so we have strikingly modern elements existing alongside anachronistic relics from some magical past.

Thoroughly Modern Harry with the Goblet of Fire

The Quest

No fantasy story is complete without a Quest - whether it be for the Holy Grail, The Sorcerer's Stone, The Goblet of Fire, or . . . .as in *The Wizard of Oz* - several characters are on a quest: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion go on a quest for the way back to Kansas, brains, a heart, and courage respectively.

From Wiki - about Quests - In mythology and literature a quest — a journey towards a goal — serves as a plot device and (frequently) as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation^[1] and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and the overcoming of many obstacles, typically including much travel.

The hero normally aims to obtain something or someone by the quest, and with this object to return home.^[3] The object can be something new, that fulfills a lack in his life, or something that was stolen away from him. It can also be a lack in the life of, or something stolen from, someone with authority to dispatch him.^[4]

While the Quest is a straightforward motif, and is very much a part of the Harry Potter stories, it is interesting to note that Fantasy Fiction (as opposed to Folk Tale or Legend) often has a less-noticeably heroic hero!

The essential difference between the fairy tale hero and the fantasy protagonist is that the latter often lacks heroic features, can be scared and even reluctant to perform the task, and can sometimes fail. The final goal of fantasy is seldom marriage and enthronement; in contemporary philosophical and ethical fantasy it is most often a matter of spiritual maturation. Fantasy also allows much freedom and experimentation with gender transgression.

from fantasy literature and fairy tales

And we see this feature in Harry's character - although we, as readers, know he must eventually succeed, he is not hailed as the hero in early scenes. He can be frightened, make mistakes, and lose confidence. In this sense, he is a "Readable" Character" - one that his younger readers (and even older ones) might be able to identify with more solidly!

Cover for H.P. Lovecraft's *The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath* - 1970

The Combat Between Good and Evil

Finally, we have the staple motif of the Combat Between Good and Evil. "Good" and "Evil" can be defined in various ways in both Folk and Fantasy literature. The Bibilical story of Adam and Eve is probably the best-know good-and-evil story!

Essentially, in Fantasy Fiction - the good-evil axis is the same as the Clear-cut Value System that we have examined in other books!

One of the least satisfactory elements of the Potter series, critics have charged, is the depth of the moral universe. I am including here a contrast between *The Lord of the Rings* and *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone* because it clearly states the argument about the treatment of "good and evil" in these books. This piece, by Brian M. Carney, comes from the Center For Religious Studies. An interesting source - but who best to make the argument about ethics and morality? [Note that this was written in 2001!]

The Battle Between Good and Evil

The Battle of the Books - No contest. Tolkien runs rings around Potter

by Brian M. Carney (Opinion Journal, November 30, 2001)

Just when the menace of terrorism has darkened normal life and the guns of war have sounded, moviegoers on both sides of the Atlantic are turning out in huge numbers to see Harry Potter ride a broom across the silver screen and fight . . . evil.

The contest between good and evil, of course, has been a centerpiece of moral philosophy since at least Plato. In the "Republic," one of Socrates' interlocutors argues that "justice" is simply what benefits those in charge and that the happiest man will be the most perfectly evil one.

This is deep water, and it may be a lot to ask a writer of what are basically children's stories to delve into an age-old moral debate. But J.K. Rowling is writing in a tradition too, a literary one reaching back even further--of heroic sagas and mythic battles between the forces of light and of darkness. That tradition received its greatest 20th-century expression in the work of her compatriot, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, whose three-volume masterwork, "The Lord of the Rings," is about to open in movie theaters, too.

Thus Harry Potter and Frodo Baggins, Tolkien's protagonist, will soon battle not only evil but also each other for the hearts and minds of a generation. If there is any justice in the world, Frodo should win.

Yes, Tolkien's is the better story, but he deserves the laurel for another reason: He conceived of fantasy writing as a medium for moral thought experiments. "Harry Potter" may be entertaining, imaginative and wry. But it isn't challenging. Morally speaking, Harry's magical world is trite.

"Harry Potter and Philosopher's Stone," as the book was called in Britain--the U.S. marketers substituted "Sorcerer's Stone" in the title--is a classic struggle of Good vs. Evil. Harry, of course, is Good, and the wizard Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents, is Evil. Why is Voldemort evil? Well, he wants to "take over," we learn, and he kills people. Harry is good because he's nice, and we can't help sympathizing with him, since Voldemort killed his parents and all. This is very straightforward stuff, and there's little to argue with in it. But there's also little to argue for.

Tolkien's *Lord of the Rings*

Tolkien delves deeper. When Socrates wanted to examine whether the just or unjust man was happier, he employed a myth in which a man finds a ring that allows him to become invisible and so, if he chooses, to commit terrible crimes with impunity. Tolkien (belatedly) takes up Socrates' inquiry by attempting to show that the man who uses such a ring--even the good man--is worse off than he who would destroy it. In short, Tolkien is doubtful of man's ability to resist the temptation of absolute power. That is one of the great themes of the book.

Thus Tolkien's ring is most dangerous to its wisest and most powerful characters--princes and wizards who can be made to believe that they will wield absolute power benevolently. The wizard Saruman, a scholar and originally a good man, is corrupted by the ring. He starts out studying its history and eventually becomes obsessed with having it. In the end he is ruined, done in by the conceit that only he is wise enough to direct its powers toward the proper ends.

Another "good guy," the prince Boromir, underestimates the ring's dark temptations and argues that it should be used against the forces of evil; not to do so, he believes, is to accept defeat. He is wisely overruled, however, by others who decide that the ring must be brought straight to the heart of evil's domain and destroyed. Sauron, the Satanic figure who created the ring, never suspects the plan because he can't imagine that anyone would destroy something that could make its possessor all-powerful.

Even Frodo, the hobbit ring-bearer in Tolkien's tale, is not immune to the temptation to use the ring, and when the moment comes for him to destroy it, he cannot bring himself to cast it away.

This kind of moral complexity is simply absent from Ms. Rowling's books. Contrast Tolkien's careful use of the ring with Ms. Rowling's rather flip use of another great artifact of legend, the philosopher's stone. Alchemists believed the stone would turn lead into gold. As a bonus, it was also thought to confer eternal life. The conceit of "Harry Potter" is that such a stone has been made and the bad guy wants it.

This is a setup worthy of Tolkien; indeed, it mimics his tale in vital respects. But Ms. Rowling's story manages to bring to light none of the moral dilemmas--of mortality, wealth, power--that the existence of the stone naturally suggests. The reader simply accepts as given that both sides want it, no particular importance is assigned to its powers and Harry never shows any interest in using it. He merely wants to keep it away from the bad guy. Once that's accomplished, the stone drops out of the story, like a token at the end of some video game.

In Tolkien's world the temptation of evil is one that all, or nearly all, of his characters must confront. The argument of Tolkien's tale--controversial, to be sure--is that, while intentions matter, the way we act is far more important than why we act. His story, for all its narrative brio, presents a serious rebuttal to the idea that good ends justify using evil means.

That Tolkien, who wrote "The Lord of the Rings" during World War II and published it shortly after, saw this as a message for his times was made plain in his foreword to the second edition. When the books first came out, many advanced the theory that his tale of the good guys in the West battling aggressive evil in the East was a parable for the war. Tolkien savaged this analogy, implying that, by compromising with Stalin in Europe and using the atomic bomb against the Japanese, the Allies had failed to live up to the standards set by his best fictitious characters. In our world, Tolkien concluded, referring to the diminutive, earthy creatures at the center of his tale, "Hobbits . . . would not have survived even as slaves."

To mention the war, of course, is to remind ourselves that Tolkien was writing in perilous times, whereas Ms. Rowling's writing, begun while she was on the dole in Britain in the 1990s, reflects the greater comfort and apparent security of the pre-Sept. 11 world. But if the need to confront evil, or even to recognize it as such, could be ignored before, it cannot now. Just as the emergence of Nazism and Stalinism in the 1930s caught the West unawares, so too did the malevolence of Sept. 11. It is time to shake off our moral complacency.

"Harry Potter" will not help. For all its charms, it comes close to moral fatuousness by reducing good and evil to naughty and nice. Tolkien did much more--showing the ethical challenges we all face, as individuals and as nations. Unquestionably a writer for his times, Tolkien is also the better one for ours.

Continue to next page - to Unit 7c

More about *Harry Potter*

Patterned Structure

Reassuring Plot

Intimacy of Style and Tone

Return to Lecture Schedule

Fantasy:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: be sure to see J.K. Rowling's Official Website.

A favorite among fantasy fiction readers for years has been The Lord of the Rings - and the entire series by J.R.R. Tolkien. (Note, here, the similarity of naming of "JRR" and "JK" - just another of Rowling's "slant reverences"!)

C.S. Lewis blends fantasy and his own brand of Spiritual Humanism - many people are familiar with his Narnia series which has created a whole classic strain in fantasy literature.

I do realize that there are many other sub-genres in fantasy fiction - and I will leave it to the students who have particular expertise in this area to help me fill it in!

To see the amount of overlap in our "categories", we can take a good look at the 100 best Fantasy Fiction Books published by Fantasy 100: <http://fantasy100.sffjazz.com/>. On this list you will find not only Tolkien and Lewis, but others that we have in different categories such as Stephen King, Anne Rice (Interview with a Vampire), Bram Stoker (Dracula) [all in our Horror category], and Ursula K. LeGuin and Ray Bradbury (who we will find in our Science Fiction Category but also write Fantasy Fistion. There are some amazin authors here! Take a good look for your Research Paper!

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink: write to me with questions!

Marjorie Coverley Luesebrink, MFA, your Instructor, is a Professor of English in the School of Humanities and Languages, Irvine Valley College, Irvine, California.

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