Good and Evil and Children’s Stories
I haven’t seen The Hunger Games. It disturbs me that a story about children forced to fight to the death has become, overnight, one of the largest grossing movies ever.
But I’m a wuss. I have to admit that I didn’t even make it through the Harry Potter series. I read the first book pretty much in one sitting. But something about it didn’t feel right to me.
As I child, I read magic books by the score. E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Patricia McKillip and, of course, C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. One thing I learned from them all was that magic has rules. Break the rules and you get in trouble.
Look at what happens to Edmund in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. He eats the forbidden food, he becomes corrupted, betrays his fellows, and generally wreaks havoc. And his crime has consequences and must be paid for. That’s an important message for kids to learn.
In Harry Potter, kids break the rules. But crime and consequences seem to operate in a fairly random way in the world of Hogwarts.
And who would want to be good, anyway, when evil is so much more compelling? In the Narnia series, the top guy is a powerful, loving lion named Aslan. In The Lord of the Rings series, the wizard Gandalf is always watching out for the underdog. In The Riddlemaster Trilogy, the harpist Deth’s seeming betrayal is revealed in the end as a profound act of love.
In Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, we have a professor named Dumbledore who doesn’t seem to know what is going on in his own school. That’s a role model?
As adults, we know that our perceptions and decisions are often compromised. But in order to successfully negotiate the moral complications of the adult world, we need to grow up with a clear sense of right and wrong. That’s what fairy tales are for.
I didn’t understand what J. K. Rowlins was after. Why was she giving children such a confusing message? Why was she suggesting that something powerful like magic could be manipulated for no good reason without clear consequences?
Then, a couple of years ago, I heard J. K. Rowlins speak at a Harvard Commencement. I was prepared to not like her. But I did. And I found her personal story compelling.
For a couple of years, J. K. Rowlins worked for Amnesty International. Her job was to read the letters of the prisoners. She spent hours every day codifying the narratives of people undergoing unspeakable horrors all over the globe.
As she spoke about her experiences at Amnesty International, I began to feel the exact atmosphere of the Harry Potter books – that sense that something dark was always and ever underneath, and that the light was not something that could ever be counted on. Those thousands of pages were built on the pain and horror that it was J. K. Rowlins’ job to voyeuristically experience, five days a week, eight hours a day.
Writing is a good way to process horror, and authors have done this throughout the ages. But this does not belong in children’s books. As adults, we have a responsibility to children - to model the good, to teach them how to be good. I’m not talking about how to get good grades and good jobs and appear successful in the world. I’m talking about knowing what is wrong and right, about choosing to do the right thing.
C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were writing in the aftermath of World War II. They were consciously constructing a mythology for the children who had seen things that children should not see – a way to look at the darkness and see it balanced by light. Their goal was to give children a way to go on, to be good, to choose life.
I will go see Hunger Games, I think. From the trailer I watched, it seemed that the adult models were mostly hopeless and that the kids had to take the world into their own hands. Considering the current state of the world – and the current state of the children’s books - that would not be a surprising message.
I’ll let you know what I find out.
Rick Townsend Watertown Apr 18, 2012
There are many who discount your definition of good - who would call you naive and bigoted for daring to propose that Aslan or Gandalf are somehow better than Dumbledore, or the adults in The Hunger Games. After all - who are we to judge?
This perplexing condition gained particular influence during an only-slightly-obstructed 3-decade run from 1970-2000. In order for there to be Good with a capital “G,” there must be Truth with a capital “T.” This “smalling of the T” (and the “G”) should come as no surprise.
Thank you for this articulate defense of Good, Eve.