Harry Potter and the Uses of Enchantment
By Marilyn Green Faulkner

In the summer of 1999 we were on family vacation when I noticed a small review in the back of Time Magazine for a book about a boy named Harry Potter. I was intrigued, both by the subject and the author's rags-to-riches story, and I picked up the book to read aloud to our youngest child, then an avid reader of eight.

Well, by the time we finished the first chapter, Blake and I were hooked. Our standard twenty minutes per night of reading aloud were forgotten, and instead each night we read until my voice gave out. As the book grew more frightening we had to give up reading at night or Blake couldn't sleep, so we read early in the morning until the pressures of the impending day bore down upon us and we were forced to quit.

We told everyone about Harry, and soon realized that we were just a tiny part of a huge groundswell that propelled the Harry Potter series into one of the most amazing phenomena in literary history.

Now it is the summer of 2007, and the other night I gave my tall, lanky sixteen-year old Blake a ride over to Barnes and Noble to attend a midnight celebration and buy the seventh and last volume in the Harry Potter series. As a confirmed bibliophile, it made my heart leap with joy to see a couple of hundred people standing in line to buy a book!

J.K. Rowling has helped bring reading back to the video game generation, and for this mothers and fathers everywhere will be forever grateful. Children, like Blake, whose entire reading lives have been bounded by these novels, feel a great sense of sadness as they reach the last volume.

“I can hardly stand to begin,” Blake explained when I asked about the first chapter, “because this is the last Potter book I will ever look forward to reading.”

Telling a Tale

There are some good reasons why Harry Potter has bewitched a generation of readers and their parents. First and foremost is the writing, for J.K. Rowling has a wonderful talent for telling a tale. She is funny without being silly and never maudlin. Her characters, from the disgusting Dursleys to the loveable giant Hagrid to the sage Dumbledore, come to life as distinct individuals.

Rowling has the Dickensian knack of marking characters with identifying patterns of speech and mannerisms that keep them separate and memorable, even with a long wait between volumes. Harry Potter himself is as endearing a character as I have ever encountered in literature, and he has the complexity of personality to carry the series without exhausting our interest.

Like David Copperfield or Huck Finn, we want to spend time with Harry, to watch him grow and learn, and even to watch him make mistakes. A creation like that is rare in literature, and always an event to be celebrated.

Beyond good writing, Rowling has tapped into a powerful medium in Harry Potter, one that was also understood by George Lucas when he created the Star Wars series: the mythical, magical element in the stories has a magnetic effect on children.

The first chapter of the first volume is titled, "The Boy Who Lived." That remarkable title alone illustrates the subtle genius at work in these books. Without reading a word of the chapter we know we will meet a boy of destiny, someone whose life has been threatened and who, for some special reason, has survived.

This story of a chosen, orphaned child raised in the home of his comically stupid and stubborn relatives combines the elements of humor and pathos in a way that completely engages the emotions of both parents and children right from the start. Then, when Harry goes to Hogwarts' school for wizards, the intellect and the imagination become involved as well, for the place is full of mysteries and riddles, literary allusions and magical illusions. It is no wonder that millions are entranced by Harry's world. It is so much more interesting than our own!

Great Examples of Children’s Lit

Though every volume of the Potter series cannot qualify as a “great book,” the first and last volumes are, in my opinion, two of the greatest examples of children’s literature in print. The last volume does a remarkable job of tying up hundreds of loose ends left dangling throughout the series.

Rowling has described her saga as one great novel in seven parts, a story that she envisioned as a whole and which has always been moving in a definite direction. This story did not evolve randomly; it is a complete creation of a gifted author, and this is obvious in the final segment. Though she lacks the artistry of a Dickens or the subtlety of Twain, Rowling possesses something special as an author; she instinctively understands the need of a child in this media-saturated age to wonder, to imagine, and to believe in an unseen world.

Wary of Wizards

But (though endlessly fascinating) Harry’s world is, after all, a world of witchcraft. Many people of faith are understandably wary of the occult. Should we be reading to our children about werewolves and wizards? Have years of obsession with Harry Potter corrupted them in some way?

Some thoughts about the function of fairy tales and fantastic fables may be helpful as we reflect on the effect of this series in the lives of our children.

Many years ago, as I was beginning to raise our five children, I began for the first time to pay attention to the rather alarming nature of fairy tales. Like many parents I was concerned about which types of books and programs to share with small children, and, convinced that peace in the world must begin in the home, I vowed that there would be no toy guns in the house and no violent programs on our television. (This was, of course, before I learned that children could make weapons out of anything from paper clips to celery sticks.)

As I began to read stories to my children, the violent content of nearly every traditional fairy tale and legend alarmed me, and I wondered why parents everywhere were telling and reading stories about wicked witches, villainous step-parents, ghouls, goblins, and other threatening beasts.

I found some insight into this question in a volume titled The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, a landmark study by the child psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim. He asserts that violent, frightening tales that include magic and mystery are not harmful to children, but instead allow them to experience, in a manageable form, the terrors and confusion of real life, while enjoying a triumphant resolution to conflict through the actions of the hero of the tale.

Empowering Tales

Like Travers' Mary Poppins and Dahl's Willy Wonka, the saintly wizard Dumbledore teaches children to behave better than the adults around them through a magical perspective on life. Without the element of magic the fairy tale becomes just another story. It is the magical element that brings the tale into a deeper realm of the imagination. In a magical world there may be evil, but there is also power available to overcome that evil.

This is the reason why, though they are frightening, little children beg to hear these stories. It is because they are frightening that they are also empowering.

C.S. Lewis understood this principle and used it to create his wonderful series, The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis was writing a Christian allegory for children, and for this reason it would seem that everyone would approve of the Chronicles, but this is not the case. Because the books are full of witches and magical creatures, those who fear any mention of such matters reject them, along with The Wizard of Oz, T.H. White's The Once and Future King (on which Disney's movie The Sword in the Stone is based), and all of Tolkein's Hobbit series.

Even a cursory perusal of children's classics shows that magic is an important element in children's literature. If we reject literature because it is magical, we may reject that very element within it that engages the whole child. I suspect that the interest all children have in the magical is connected to their spiritual development. Rather than fear and avoid the magical, we can use it to help the child develop a believing heart.

Certainly in the minds of young children there is little difference between God, Santa Claus and Merlin the Magician. As an adult we can use the mythical to move toward the truly spiritual, helping our children mature spiritually by understanding the qualities in mythical figures that point us toward the source of all good.

The most important use of magical stories, in my opinion, is the empowerment of the child. Fables are evil when they are used to discredit faith and destroy hope in the future. Tolkien wrote that four elements were necessary in any good tale: fantasy, recovery, escape, and consolation. Without a detailed explanation of these elements it is enough to say that the great tales of fantasy include magical elements, terrifying losses and obstacles, recovery and escapes, and a satisfying resolution through moral action.

All of the great fantasy books I have listed include these elements, including Harry Potter. Crucial to such tales is the happy ending, what Tolkien called, the "sudden, joyous turn," which leaves the reader hopeful about the world and his or her place in it.

In each volume, Harry and his friends face seemingly insurmountable obstacles and emerge victorious. Though Voldemort may rise again, Harry and his friends will be ready for him, and so will we. It is this resolution which justifies the presence of evil elements in the tale. As Blake (after two solid days of reading) reached the end of the last volume and handed it to me he said, “Get ready to be happy.” I was delighted to know that Rowling was true to the calling of a great storyteller. She had brought her heroes, and her readers, safely home.

Good Messages

There are so many good messages in these books that those few that are negative can be dealt with through discussion. Rowling is no saint, no prophet; she is merely an author of children’s books. Like any author, she has a worldview that may not exactly coincide with our own. Through the years, however, these books have offered a starting point for great conversations, and I recommend that parents use the remarkable interest in these books to their advantage.

Talk with your child about the why of the story: Why does Harry need to act in certain ways? What allegiance, if any, does he owe his relatives? Which of the characters we encounter will turn out to be the "bad guy," and what qualities contribute to his or her downfall? As long as we are talking as we go, imparting our worldview and our chosen perspective, a trip to Hogwarts can be a wonderful experience to share with a child.

One of the many insights to be gained from these books is the deceptive nature of evil, and how each of us may, unwittingly, advance the cause of evil through our pride or our ignorance. Blake and I were intrigued in the second volume when the innocent little sister of Harry's best friend was drawn into Voldemort's nefarious scheme to rule the world. Ginny Weasley finds a fascinating diary that writes back to her when she writes in it. The diary serves as a conduit for the evil Lord Voldemort to emerge anew, and Ginny is horrified to learn at last that she has been his agent.

As the story reaches its dramatic climax Rowling softens the lesson with her characteristic humor. Ginny confesses that she has been writing in a diary that writes back to her and is reprimanded by her father: "Ginny!" said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. "Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain?" (Chamber of Secrets, p. 329)

The Weasley family is a fine example of a large, happy family with strong moral values, and Rowling's message is clear here: good parents will guide us the right way. Cloaking it in such humorous magical garb makes the message easier to swallow. Certain characters emerge as villains through their pride, vanity or a lust for power. Others emerge as heroes through humility, curiosity, courage and integrity.

Rowling's vision is of a world where goodness will triumph and evil will be overcome, often by the weak and simple. That is a hopeful vision in any age.

The Harry Potter books started off scary, and got scarier as Harry got older. The same may be said of the world around us. Every parent wishes to shield the child from the terrifying and horrible realities of life, yet children are aware of these realities from an early age.

Many things frighten them and nearly everything is confusing. What they need is confidence that their fears can be overcome and adults will help them find the right way. In Bettelheim's words: "fairy tales are loved by the child because — despite all the angry anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content — these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own." (Enchantment, p. 123)

J.K. Rowling has given us, through the Harry Potter series, another vehicle to help children come to grips with a frightening world and to visualize their ability to overcome the evil and embrace the good. For this reason, as well as for hundreds of happy hours shared with my son, I am an enthusiastic fan.