Wizards and wainscots: generic structures and genre themes in the Harry Potter series
2003; Mythopoeic Society; Volume: 24; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0146-9339
Autores Tópico(s)Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
ResumoTHE central theme of twentieth-century genre fantasy novel epitomised by J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of Rings is frequently described simply as conflict between Evil and Good. In The Comedy of Fantastic: Ecological Perspectives on Fantasy Novel, however, Don D. Elgin suggests that genre fantasy does not in fact deal with evil and good, at least as abstract moral concepts. Rather, it uses discrete theatre of Secondary World as a site for exploration, comparison and judgement of two opposing and mutually exclusive paradigms of imaginative response to environment within which human beings exist: one which constructs that environment as limiting and attempts to transcend its limits by gaining power over it, and one which attempts to adapt to existence within limitations environment imposes and thus to ensure survival. The Harry Potter series of children's/young adults' novels by J. K. Rowling is not genre high fantasy. It belongs to a sub-genre of fantasy which John Clute in The Encyclopedia of Fantasy labels fantasy; its precursors are texts such as Mary Norton's Borrowers tetralogy, Terry Pratchett's The Carpet People and Diana Wynne Jones' Power of Three. Within wainscot landscape of her series, however, Rowling constructs a complete genre fantasy scenario. The Harry Potter series features a conflict with a long history. It includes an antagonist (Lord Voldemort) making a second bid for power. He is opposed by a marginalised protagonist (Harry Potter), who is aided by a group of secondary heroes (Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley). A third party (Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts, Harry's school) to some extent stage-manages conflict between antagonist and protagonist(s) to achieve his own--positive--ends. The series' major narrative strand represents closing movement of long conflict. (1) As well as adding a complexity not often seen in wainscot fantasy to narrative of Harry Potter series, and tying it firmly to its generic roots, location of this high fantasy scenario within structure of a wainscot fantasy allows Rowling to expand genre fantasy's abstract exploration of imaginative paradigms into a more complex examination of positions those paradigms hold in modern Western cultures. Although wainscot fantasies are ostensibly set within Primary Reality, they focus on fantastic or undetected societies living in interstices of dominant (Clute and Grant 991). In wainscot fantasy a particular relationship exists between two cultures which share same physical space. The dominant culture--the culture text's readers are presumed to share--is mundane, large, and presumed to hold power over its environment, but is largely unaware of existence of wainscot culture. The wainscot culture is fantastic in some way, but also small (often literally tiny, but also in terms of numbers) and marginal, vulnerable to power dominant culture can exercise over its environment (which includes wainscot culture) and therefore fearful of attracting dominant culture's attention. Wainscot cultures tend to defend themselves against power of dominant culture by becoming invisible and very insular. Authors of wainscot fantasy frequently use (actual or feared) collision of a wainscot culture and a dominant culture as a vehicle for social critique. Mary Norton's tiny Borrowers' fearfully negotiating oversized world of Human Beans expresses the situation in any society which suppresses and stunts growth of human spirit; Norton's choice of adventurous adolescent girl Arrietty as her protagonist makes a more overt statement about position of women within both late nineteenth-century era in which Borrowers tetralogy is set, and post-World War Two era in which it was written (Swinfen 131). Michael de Larrabeiti's Borribles trilogy can be read as, among other things, a response to real-world implications of Thatcher-style politics. …
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