For Immediate Release
Contact: Alisa Giardinelli610.690.5717 October 29, 2001[email protected]www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News
Harry Potter Is Male Cinderella, Says Swarthmore College English ProfessorAdds Book Contains Valuable Lessons Despite Its Flaws
The title character of the novel and new movie Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone represents a male Cinderella who conveys timeless lessons that also reflect contemporary values, says a Swarthmore College English professor.
"Like Cinderella, Harry is abused, dressed in rags, and treated like a servant in his home," says Raima Evan, who devotes a week to Harry Potter in her popular class titled "Fairy Tales and Magic Fictions." "To claim his rightful place in the world, he has to get out of the home to discover someone to appreciate him for who he is. It isn't about falling in love, but acquiring friends and parental figures, which is part of the coming of age story. And that's the structure we find in less familiar Cinderella stories, like the one by the brothers Grimm."
According to Evan, Harry's coming of age, as in all good fairy tales, reveals the cultural pressures and values of our time. First, author J.K. Rowling reinforces the importance of friendship and cooperation. "Harry can't get to the sorcerer's stone alone," she says. "He and his friends take turns solving problems to do it."
In addition, Evan says Rowling, through her treatment of the Dursleys, makes fun of materialism and the desire for extravagant personal possessions. "In the book, what you have and how you're dressed say nothing about your value as a person," she says.
On a deeper level, Evan says the book shows the importance of the invisible things in people's lives that sustain them. "Harry's strength is not in the spells he learns," she says. "He's protected at the very end by this invisible mark he carries, which is his mother's love for him. It's not a new idea, but it's a very beautiful moment when he realizes his most powerful magic is something he didn't know he had."
According to Evan, Harry feels family-less, like Cinderella, and he learns that his family and his family's love for him are what he truly desires. "So the book also shows that what you really desire is not necessarily what you can see," she says. "What's most valuable is what's in your heart. This emotional and even spiritual component is very meaningful."
However, Evan says the book has serious shortcomings, most notably concerning issues of race and gender. "Rowling tries to address racial tensions, but she doesn't really rise to the occasion," Evan says. "Instead, with devices like the 'sorting hat,' the book reinforces the idea that some people are innately better than others. And for all its attempts to be inclusive, all the major characters, and the only people not made fun of, are white boys and men. The novel really fails in its handling of racial and gender differences."
Still, Evan says the Harry Potter books reinforce basic questions of good and evil in their own contemporary way -- like any good fairy tale. "In fairy tales, there's always a place to insert ourselves," she says. "They are products of a particular writer's point of view, and the transformations undergone by the main characters reveal the cultural pressures and values of their time."
According to Evan, Harry Potter is not great literature. "But it is charming and fun," she says. "And it's a great read. But as I tell my students, it's important to look critically at what is popular."
Although trained in modern drama and contemporary women playwrights, Dr. Evan became interested in fairy tales and their history when she began reading them to her children. She first began teaching at Swarthmore in 1993.
Located near Philadelphia, Swarthmore is a highly selective liberal arts college with an enrollment of 1,450. Swarthmore is consistently ranked among the top liberal arts colleges in the country.
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