Ralph Fiennes, Daniel Radcliffe
One of my students is currently changing the way I see Harry Potter. This is also good news for American high school students.
That’s because Katie Brown plans to become a teacher, and her senior project on Harry Potter is heightening her awareness of the growth process that teenagers go through. It is also giving her insight into why young people are so drawn to J. K. Rowling’s series. As a teacher, Katie will be able to draw on this knowledge when she teaches literature, using it to diagnose why students respond as they do to different stories, determine where they are in the maturation process, and suggest to them books that will further support them.
Drawing on the developmental psychology of Erik Erikson, Katie divides Harry’s growth process into three stages: Early Adolescence (Books 1-3), Middle Adolescence (Books 4-6), and Late Adolescence/Emerging Adulthood (Book 7). Harry’s quest is a fantastical version of the journey all adolescents must undergo, which is to achieve (in Erikson’s words) “a balanced and coherent sense of identity.”
Fantasy literature, Katie says, is particularly effective in capturing this adolescent drama. Here’s an excerpt from her project:
Fantasy narratives are often referred to as escapism narratives. The term escapism is tarred with a negative connotation—as if those who read fantasy only use it to escape their real lives. [But] realistic fiction may be too realistic and therefore overly stressful to the reader. By removing the real world from the situation, readers can negotiate issues which affect them in real life from a distance…[Fantasy literature, just like realistic fiction,] reflects back identities to readers, [but fantasy does it] in a way that makes it easier or at least more comfortable for readers to understand, helping them negotiate the process of forming identity in the real world.
The process of forming a balanced and coherent sense of identity is, of course, extremely difficult. Most if not all adolescents experience identity confusion or identify diffusion—which is to say an “incoherent, disjointed, or incomplete sense of one’s self.” Not all are successful in resolving their confusion.
Of the many dramas that adolescents confront, Katie has chosen to focus on separation from one’s family. If one does this in ways that are positive, one has a good chance of achieving integration. But one can also become locked into a negative relationship with one’s parents and forge a “negative identity” from which one never emerges.
What I find most exciting about Katie’s project is how she shows the Harry Potter series structured around a battle between successful and unsuccessful instances of family differentiation. The successful example, of course, is Harry. The unsuccessful is Voldemort. It’s as though Harry Potter shows us what we should and should not so if we want to become successful adults.
At the end of the semester, when Katie completes her senior project, I’ll let her share her ideas with you in her own words. Here, as a teaser, is a sampling of what she is discovering:
–It is no accident that Harry and Voldemort are connected in various ways and that their lives run in parallel. Voldemort represents a path that Harry could go, a failed development.
–“Voldemort” is French for “flight of death” and his existence is parasitical. Harry’s success on a quidditch broom, by contrast, points towards a strong sense of self.
–Voldemort is locked into a never-ending interior battle with his Muggle father, which results in a negative identity. Harry also has father issues but is able to move beyond them.
–Harry does so in a series of stages. Early on in his identity quest, he finds his resemblance to his father (which everyone remarks on) to be a source of strength, something positive on which he can begin to build his identity. Later, however, he must differentiate himself from his father (the period of disillusion) so that he can become his own person. In the end, when he has a solid sense of himself, he is able to see James in a more balanced way. He can also dispense with the Resurrection Stone, leaving the past behind.
–Voldemort, by contrast, is never able to step beyond into adulthood and is always, at his core, a whining baby (the King’s Cross scene in Book 7). Harry can see this dimension in Voldemort when he is secure in his new identity and so is able to regard Voldemort, not as some archetypal shadow, but as a suffering soul. In the final confrontation, he calls Voldemort “Tom Riddle,” his childhood name, and offers Voldemort a way out of his trapped sense of self.
–The death that Voldemort fears is the death of his old identity, a death that is necessary if one is to step into adulthood. He is so afraid of this death that he remains locked in identity diffusion. This diffusion is narratively symbolized by the seven horcruxes in which he deposits the fragments of his soul. (Of all Katie’s ideas, this is my favorite.)
–Harry, by contrast, has the courage to undergo this death, emerging as the adult who can save the world.
Katie’s project, which is exciting us both, provides another explanation as to why the Harry Potter series is so popular with teens. Although they aren’t consciously aware of it, they use it as a guidebook for the most important goal that life has assigned them. They are reading to grow up.
8 Comments
Great stuff, Robin! I’m looking forward to reading more of Katie’s work.
Hi Robin, this is a quite interesting and novel perspective of the series. So interesting that I may resume reading the rest of the books. I had stopped after the third one I think. It’s amazing the things that I learn from your blog. BTW, go Seahawks!
I love the last line in your post: “They are reading to grow up.” Indeed. This reminds me of Carol Jago’s writing about literature as windows and mirrors. Young people see themselves and the world in YA lit. Those who fail to realize this do a great disservice to students. This is one of my concerns w/ CCSS.
I’m curious whether this growing-up process is different for boys and girls? The ideal of having an idealized father that one wants to resemble is so different than having an idealized mother, at least up to this point: fathers are idealized for achieving great things in the world and having a fatherly sense of justice (if I remember my reading of Harry Potter Vol 1-4; I stopped after that). Mothers are idealized for being loving, kind, tender, and perhaps beautiful/attractive. Fathers get things done, hold one to high standards, live with honor; mothers comfort, love, support, attract, etc. The Harry Potter books seems to be quite a bit about growing up as a boy, but not nearly so much about growing up as a girl–unless there is more about Hermione’s journey later on. In the first four books, however, her challenge seems to be the female one of not trying too hard to be good, studious, rule-abiding, etc., and allowing herself to break rules more and to be less of a conventional achiever. I’d be very curious to know whether Katie thinks this is at all valid, and either way, to know what she thinks about the gender aspect of identity/growing up in the book. She sounds like such a thoughtful reader–I’d love to know more about what she thinks!
Katie sent me an e-mail response to Rachel’s comment, which I share with you here:
I agree that the one comment is really interesting, but I’m not dealing with gender differences in identity in this paper (that could be a whole other paper in itself!). I would say that since Harry is the main character, that the series as a whole deals more with male identity (which is why Harry relates and relies so much on his father–Erikson says that the same-sex parent is the most important for identity formation).
That said, I do think that if I was dealing with gender issues, I would say that the series does emphasize what the comment terms as feminine idealization. It’s when Harry moves past his father and becomes more like his mother that he succeeds:
–physical comparisons to his father stop in the last book, but not his physical comparisons to his mother;
–motherly love/ forgiveness and love in general are emphasized as the most powerful magic;
–Dumbledore comments more than once that Harry is more powerful than Voldemort because he understands and can feel love (like his mother);
–Harry shows compassion and forgiveness for Voldemort at the end (offers him a way out);
–Harry’s mother had forgiven James for being a bully (something Harry did not understand before he learned that your identity can change from when you are fifteen);
Harry doesn’t really defeat Voldemort (he throws a defense spell):Voldemort kills himself (by his own rebounding killing curse and inability to move on).
I do agree with the comment that there is more of a focus on the male journey than the feminine in the series.
Thanks so much for the opportunity to get this feedback. It’s really cool!
Katie
I’ve always meant to read Jago so will use this as a push, Glenda. Yes, it’s one of my concerns as well. Of course, I know it would take an ideal world for a teacher to have to time to know one’s students so well that one could devise individualized reading programs.
On an unrelated issue, have you read Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci series? Or Fire and Hemlock? She doesn’t quite describe her worlds as Rowling does, but her characters are the best-drawn in fantasy literature. What’s even more unusual is that they’re well-drawn children with complex characters (even Harry Potter isn’t very complex or interesting). I like the way DWJ writes Christopher Chant, Cat Chant and Polly Whittacker (even Tonino Montana is good).
This reminds me so much of my SMP last year, but much more refined and better organized in the breakdown of stages of development. I agree, the gendered breakdown of adolescent development would be fascinating but requires an entirely other project.
Katie, I applaud your work and hope I can get down to see your presentation. Robin wrote about mine here: http://www.betterlivingthroughbeowulf.com/?p=13378 Enjoy your last few months!