Post-Fairy Tales as Allegory of Modernity——On Harry Potter

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Paper abstract

Why does Harry Potter, which uses traditional paper media as the carrier, achieve unprecedented communication achievements in today's post-industrial society where electronic media is extremely strong? In the face of this cultural phenomenon worthy of exploration, it is difficult to make convincing criticism if we regard "children" and "adults", "children's literature" and "adult literature" as binary opposition categories.

"Harry Potter" escapes the norms of some critics' dualism, and becomes a sliding between two "literary genres" that seem to have a clear reference to what "adults" should not read and "children" should not read. Heterogeneous texts have the power to break the boundaries between "adult publications" and "children's publications" and win a huge space for communication in the "post-literary era". "Fairy tale" is an alternative to romantic ideological deduction practice and a supplement to "children's literature" lacking in origin. It is a design of modernity in which "adults" are present and "children" are absent. The death-themed books "Harry Potter" are "post-fairy tales" that came into being in the social changes of "childhood disappearing" caused by electronic media.

The key word "technology" in modern society and "death", which the author Rowling called the "theme" of the whole book, is the binary opposition of "children's literature"/"adult literature" that "Harry Potter" leverages fortified. The modern establishment of , opens the "Archimedes fulcrum" of the deep space for writing "harsh truth" and "discussing good and evil". The magical world created by the "post-fairy tale" of "Harry Potter" is not a "pure land" conceived by modern "adults" to confirm themselves, seek shelter, and obtain comfort, nor is it a binary opposition to the modern world. "The mysterious world of primitive thinking" is also different from the purely overhead "Second World" of Tolkien's fantasy, but a simulation world of magical alienation/technological demonization that bridges and confuses boundaries. It is through the careful sculpting of such a fantasy-like self-similar "hyperreality" that Rowling writes the "harsh reality" she experiences in the world of modernity, this "exploring the goodness of death that contains pain and grief". A Tale of Evil" is a modernity fable that reflects on modernity within the framework of modernity.

Under the domination of modernity technology, "conquering death" and "giving death" constitute a unity of opposites in "Death's Flight"/"Voldemort", leading to the disaster of "collective death", which is the disaster of "Harry · Porter, an allegory of modernity, is an examination of the latent possibility of modernity. The ultimate redemption from death to resurrection accomplished by Harry Potter, who "was to die", is a kind of messianic comfort. The "post-fairy tale" of Harry Potter is an allegory of the grief and catastrophe that modern technology can lead to; however, the "true fairy tale" denies the ultimate total failure, ending with a miraculous reversal It brings the joy of redemption and restores the psychological balance of modern society.

"Harry Potter" embodies the author Rowling's desire to resist technological totalitarianism with "love"—a kind of transcendental authentic emotion and moral responsibility; however, this resistance to technological totalitarianism is faced with An inescapable double dilemma. The basic paradox of modernity lies in the paradox between the modernity of technological systems and the modernity of human liberation. The paradoxical "Harry Potter" and "Harry Potter" phenomenon are exactly the symbols A vivid allegory of a paradox.

Key words "Harry Potter"; fairy tale; children's literature; modernity; technology; death

content

one. Introduction: The Paradoxical "Harry Potter Phenomenon"

two. Complement and Substitution: The Trick of Conversion from 'Fairy Tales' to 'Children's Literature'

three. Submerging the establishment: a "post-fairy tale" facing the "death of childhood"

Four. Magic: A rebellion against technology, or an emulation of technology?

five. Voldemort: "Conquering Death" and the Hidden Concerns of Modernity

six. Harry Potter: "To Die" and the Messianicness of Fairy Tales

seven. Conclusion: The ideal of transcending technology and its dilemma

one. The "Harry Potter" Phenomenon

The "Harry Potter" series of novels, which have been translated into more than 70 languages, published in more than 200 countries and regions, and sold more than 400 million copies worldwide, can be said to be the spread of today's post-industrial society. It is one of the literary works with the most extensive coverage, the highest commercial achievements and the greatest social sensation. In this era, which literary critics such as Hillis Miller have pessimistically identified as "technological change and the consequent development of new media are killing literature in the modern sense"[1], there has been a By far the most "selling" literary work in the world's printing and publishing history, this rather paradoxical cultural phenomenon has not only won loud applause, but also caused huge controversy.

The controversy and criticism of "Harry Potter" mainly come from two aspects: some cultural elites and some children's educators.

On the one hand, some well-known cultural figures accused "Harry Potter" of not having "classic" quality at all with an elitism attitude, attributed the popularity of "Harry Potter" to commercial operation, and expressed their interest in contemporary The reader's aesthetic concerns. For example, the defender of the "Western canon" and literary critic Harold Bloom attacked "Harry Potter" in the Wall Street Journal, arguing that "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" Unimaginative, clichés everywhere” and called the “Harry Potter phenomenon” a “shameful, ignorant cultural trend”[2]; by William Safire, editor of The New York Times said that "Harry Potter" is just a simple "children's book" and that "adults" reading it is a waste of time; literary critic Philip Hensher further raised the point of "cultural naivety", In his article in The Independent, he pointed out that with regard to the "Harry Potter phenomenon", "what we need to worry about is the infantization of adult culture, where people lose their sense of the true canon."[ 3].

On the other hand, many parents and children's educators believe that the style of "Harry Potter" is too "dark", and there are many "cruel" and "horror" content that should not appear in "children's books". Therefore, Opposes the collection of "Harry Potter" in school libraries, and even proposes to prohibit children from reading it; according to the information released by the American Library Association, from 2000 to 2005, critics tried more than 3,000 times to "Harry Potter" " series was "off the shelf" from schools and public libraries. Tan Sun Defen, Director of Children's Behavior Education of the Education Department of the Hong Kong International Children's Missionary Group, once wrote an article stating that "Harry Potter" "depicts the forces of the dark world too clearly... Revenge and death are expressed very realistically... Is there any difference?" Content suitable for Christians, and even less suitable for children... However, the story is so attractive that even an adult like me wants to follow it... After reading it, I feel terrified..." The responsible educator told parents, The teacher issued a warning: "This is the so-called 'children's book', can children be restrained and clearly distinguish between reality and fantasy?... Think about it, as a parent, should you let your children read hateful, What about 'children's books' of violence, death, and ghosts?...A good-looking novel is not necessarily a suitable 'children's book', and parents and teachers must think twice."[4] This doctor of education's point of view is very representative Sex, the 25th American "Banned Books Week" (Banned Books Week)[5] listed Rowling as one of the "Top 10 Disgusting Writers", her "crime" is to promote "devilism", which may be harmful to teenagers Bad influence on readers.

In the juxtaposition of the above two criticisms, a paradoxical situation emerges: on the one hand, many cultural elites think that Harry Potter is a "children's book", so "adults" read it It is a symptom of "cultural infantile disease"; on the other hand, many children's parents, teachers, and children's education experts pointed out that the theme of "Harry Potter" is "too mature for children". • Potter" is "not suitable for children to read"; under the pressure of these two criticisms, "Harry Potter" seems to be in a rather awkward position, it should be abandoned by "adults", and must be blocked from the reading vision of "children"; however, it is this homeless orphan-like "Harry Potter" that is in this "post-literary era" where text reading is reduced and withered.[6 ], provoking a reading frenzy among "children" and "adults" around the world, so much so that scholar Katherine Grimes exclaimed: "Harry Potter is unique because it simultaneously Attracts children, adolescents and adults” [7].

Why does Harry Potter, which uses traditional paper media as the carrier, achieve unprecedented communication achievements in this post-industrial society where electronic media is extremely strong? [8] In the face of this cultural phenomenon worthy of exploration, the above-mentioned two simplistic deprecations obviously lost their convincing critical power in the conflict. Those cultural elites who are worried about the "childishness" represented by the "Harry Potter" craze themselves are not necessarily so rigorous and profound, and most of them do not actually take it seriously. Having read the text of "Harry Potter", Harold Bloom admitted that he had only read the first book of "Harry Potter", and Henschel had only read only the first three books. To denounce the "Harry Potter phenomenon" with the usual elitist disdain for best-selling books, without giving the text of the Harry Potter texts the subject it deserves. In contrast, the author believes that the judgments made on the basis of their own reading feelings by those engaged in educational practice who "see after" and call for "banning" "Harry Potter" are more closely related. A certain textual quality of Harry Potter; although their claims have proven to be too conservative and narrow in reality, their views are not uninspiring for our thinking.

The dilemma of these two kinds of self-talking and contradictory criticisms, which are helpless in the face of the literary scene, stems from the fact that critics regard "children" and "adults", "children's literature" and "adult literature" as binary opposition. However, Harry Potter escapes the norm of critics' dualism, and thus becomes a slippage between two "literary genres" that "adults" should not read and "children" should not read. Heterogeneous texts between the , in the "post-literature era" to win the energy of huge communication space.

The introduction of Derrida's "law of types" and Foucault's "genealogy" can help to further explain this phenomenon. Derrida points out: "Perhaps the confusion of the whole question of genres arises from the fact that a genre is subdivided into two genres, that is, the two genres can neither be completely separated nor have to be separated. Thus, they form a kind of A deformed duality: one does not belong to the other, yet one equally provides a citation for the other so that it appears in that side's narrative."[9] As two literary genres separate from each other, "the child The relationship between "literature" and "adult literature" is actually intersecting and interpenetrating. If we explore the history of the so-called "children's books", we will find that "children" and "adults", "children's literature" and "adult literature" do not have a fixed "essence", "their essences are constructed in an alien form” [10].

two. Complement and Substitution: The Trick of Conversion from 'Fairy Tales' to 'Children's Literature'

There is such a universal understanding about the genre attribution of "Harry Potter": "From a stylistic point of view, the 'Harry Potter' series is a typical modern superhuman long fairy tale... …has various aesthetic elements of fairy tale literature: the theme is the oldest fairy tale theme in the West, that is, the story about wizards and sorcery; the character image adopts the prototype of the traditional Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale 'The Ugly Duckling', that is, the struggle and growth of individual life: the theme It is an ever-new contest between justice and evil in the creation of world fairy tales. The struggle of evil forces represented..." [11] "Harry Potter" is a "fairy tale", which is basically a general consensus among literary recipients/consumers, publishing marketers, and literary researchers. In the common sense system of modern people, "fairy tale" is the most important and typical genre of "children's literature". The common sense of "Fairy tale ∈ Children's Literature" is a romantic misreading and a "design of modernity", in which there are some subtle transitions.

The "fairy tale" in Chinese originates from Japanese[12], and its meaning is "children's story" when it is translated. As a stylistic concept of "translated modernity", the "fairy tale" in Chinese originated from It has been closely associated with the group "children" as an object since the very day. However, it is worth noting and clarifying that, influenced by Japanese, the connotation of "fairy tale" in Chinese is much smaller than the corresponding words in English and German. The concept of "fairy tale" in the context of "post-discovery modernity" in the East actually has a certain degree of dislocation with the corresponding concept in the West. The Japanese "fairy tale" is translated from "fairy tale" in English, and the literal translation of "fairy tale" should be "elf tale", from the French word "conte de fées" "fairy" refers to elves, fairies The natural images that are "pan-spirited" by the ancestors often appear in folklore such as monsters, monsters and so on. In the opinion of American folklorist Stie Thompson, the German word "Märchen" is more accurate for defining the connotation of "fairy tale", because it contains "continuous motifs or episodes of stories" to some extent [13] ]the meaning of. Folklorist Jack Zipes (Jack Zipes) further investigated the etymology of "Märchen" and found that its root "Märe" originally meant "news, gossip"[14].

"Fairy tales" were originally not specially created for "children", but were "continuous motifs", "interlude stories", "messages, gossips" that were passed down orally among the people. French folklorist Paul Delarue used Arnay and Thompson's "Index of World Folktale Types" to categorize about 10,000 French and former French folktales, and sorted them out in France and even in France. Folklore background and oral history of those fairy tales that are well known in Europe. The "original" "fairy tales" told by the illiterate country people around the fire, including the "Rapunzel" who lured the prince up to the castle with her hair, killed her ex-wives and killed them. The corpse of the "Bluebeard" hung on the wall, the "Little Red Riding Hood" who ate grandmother's flesh and drank grandmother's blood, including sex, cannibalism, rape, incest, feces, peeing, sodomy, deceiving the devil, fooling God, etc. Of course, these "fairy tales" are not made for "children" in the modern sense, but tell "the peasants what the world looks like and provide them with strategies for life" [15].

In his famous book Centuries of childhood: a social history of family life, French historian Philippe Ariès argued with a rigorous yearbook style and detailed historical data. The concept of "child" in the "modern" sense did not exist until the end of the Middle Ages. This has a profound relationship with the information dissemination environment at that time. In the term of communication scientist Eric Havelock, pre-modern society was in a state of "Craft Literacy" as opposed to "Social Literacy", that is, the ability to read Owned only by a privileged class - a few priests, monks. The "artisan literacy culture" has led to all important social exchanges being conducted through face-to-face oral communication. Oral language has become the main carrier of information dissemination, and the mastery of oral language hardly requires any special learning and training. The pre-modern "artisan literacy culture" and "public oral culture" caused the young and the elderly to be confused in the scope of action, information acquisition channels, communication methods, and behavior styles, which in turn resulted in the absence of children in pre-modern society. The concept of growth and development, nor the concept that learning requires necessary prerequisites and step-by-step, nor the concept that school education is preparation for entering the adult world. In pre-modern society, "children" were treated as "miniature adults", and the "speciality" of children, which was highly concerned by "modern views on children", was seriously neglected, so naturally there was no special for children. Written "Children's Literature"/"Fairy Tale".

The "children's literature essence theory" that "children's literature is children's literature, and adult literature is adult literature"[16] is a product of modernity, and the occurrence of "children's literature" is based on the cognition of "children's discoveries". prerequisite. So, how are "children" "discovered"? Tracing the "essence" of "constructed from alien forms", we will find that "children", "essentially", are the "imagination" and "invention" of modern civilization, and are the "design of modernity". part.

"Children" are created as others whose subjectivity is established by "adults". First there is the concept of "adulthood", and those who are expelled from the "adult world" become "children", who are "placed" "In another life stage, form of existence, "childhood." How did the concept of "adulthood" come about? This is closely related to the revolutionary changes in the information dissemination environment.

From about the 15th century to the 17th century, Western Europe had and made full use of movable type printing, and Western European communication technology received a significant update. Harold Innis' communication theory believes that changes in communication technology will produce three major changes: changes in the structure of people's interests - the objects people think about - changes in the type of symbols - the tools people use for thinking activities - — changes in the nature of the community—where ideas arise—changes. The invention and full utilization of printing can be said to be one of the most significant and far-reaching technological changes in the history of world communication.

The appearance of printed matter enables people to solidify their own voice into a certain form, so as to break through the time and space limitation of "here and now" of speech flow, and it becomes possible to achieve widespread and long-term dissemination. In pre-modern society, due to the constraints of information, traffic and other conditions, the space of social activities was dominated by "presence", that is, dominated by regional activities, which made people's reflection on actions have to "common with the community." The integration of time-space organization”, such a regional limitation that includes the integration of time and space, makes the process of history a kind of repetition, and daily life is expressed as a traditional “periodic” routine activity. The development and application of printing technology has transformed the dominant culture in the Western cultural context from "oral culture" to "written culture", and written culture separates time and space, "expands the scope of time-space extension, and produces a kind of A mode of thinking about the past, present and future, according to which the reflective transformation of knowledge is separated from the established tradition." "Reflection" has different characteristics, jumping out of the constraints of time and space, and thus has a profound impact on social behavior and social behavior. Practice new understandings and transformations. The reproduction of the social system, that is, its reconstruction and change, is based on "reflection", which means that "thoughts and actions are always in a continuous process of mutual reflection", while "modernity" , which is "constructed in the process of people's reflective use of knowledge."[17]

The linear organization of text materials in printed matter and the abstract nature of text symbols make a brand new symbolic environment established. The ideological publicity promoted the prosperity of science and culture and the development of the Enlightenment movement. "Rationality" is the basic element and symbolic symbol of "modernity". From Kant's three major criticisms to Hegel's spiritual phenomenology, a "modernity logic" centered on "rationality" is constructed: reason is shared by all people, it constitutes the basis of scientific cognition and moral behavior, and constitutes The source of the value concept also constitutes the driving force of social progress; the development of civilization is a process of rationalization, and rationality is the standard for judging the value of things.

The application of printing technology and the dissemination of printed matter have changed the whole world. It has brought unprecedented development in the field of human thought, unprecedented growth of human knowledge and a new way for human beings to obtain information, and has participated in the formation of a highly rational and institutionalized society. , has also resulted in the emergence of such a new situation: the native language listening and speaking ability that can only be formed naturally can no longer meet the requirements of the new information dissemination environment for people. Only those with special qualities can adapt to this new communication environment, new culture and new society. This "special ability" mainly refers to literacy, reading ability, abstract thinking ability, logical reasoning ability, etc. This "special quality" mainly refers to reason, "independent personality"/"subjectivity", "self-control"/ "Protestant ethics", etc., and these abilities and qualities are not acquired by human beings only by innate instinct. Their formation requires long-term study and training. Therefore, those who are considered to be able to truly adapt to the new communication environment are often at a certain age. over age. In this case, a new concept of "people" is formed - that is, the concept of "adult", that is, those who have the qualities and abilities to adapt to the new communication environment, they have a common characteristic , that is, there is a certain age, and the stage of life they are in is named "adulthood".

"Modernity" is an "(unfinished) design", "subjectivity is the principle of modernity"[18], and the principle of subjectivity constitutes the principle of modernity's self-validation. The concept of "child" came into being just as the "adult" established the other of self-subjectivity. "Children" is used by modern subjects to refer to those who do not have enough abilities and qualities required by the new society, and the stage of life in which "children" live is named "childhood". The essence of the concept of "child" is constructed by modern subjects, and its definition and maintenance requires a certain discourse mechanism to rationalize and express it, and the modern discourse practice of constructing "child" is the child The "children's discovery" that literary essentialists love to talk about.

The "(discovery) of the child" originated in the Renaissance and consolidated in the Enlightenment. In the Renaissance, two sets of discourses on children's discipline, which were controlled by adults, emerged. One was the knowledge of paediatrics and etiquette, which was mainly produced for adults; the other was "for children". The "Children's Books" produced. The "World Illustrated" published by the Czech educator Komenius in 1658 is considered to be the symbol of the birth of "professional children's books". Adults, children's books should also be different from adult books" viewpoints and demands, making the creation of children's books a conscious behavior, and consciously and a large number of children's books publishing activities began to appear.

The "modern view of children" that truly enables the rational subject to complete self-presentation was established in the Enlightenment, among which the theories put forward by the two "educators" Locke and Rousseau had the most far-reaching influence. the two sides of the constructive discourse.

Locke strongly called for attention to the "education" of children in his "Educational Talk" published in 1693. He regarded children as "precious resources" and believed that education should promote children's intellectual development and self-control ability, and establish children's intellectual development. Shame and reason. Locke compares the mind of a child to a "blank writing board". In Locke's view, the "blank writing board" of the child's mind should be "mature" by adding appropriate content to the education of adults.

After development and evolution, Locke's "view of children" has formed a knowledge pedigree about "children" that reflects the mainstream ideology of capitalist society. This knowledge contains an educational motive with a strong social utilitarian purpose, and the "child" is seen as an intrinsically deficient unfinished individual. "Childhood" is constructed as a logical developmental process of teleology over time, a process of "becoming", whose final goal is to have mature rationality of "adult" standard to meet the requirements of society.

Locke's thought provided an epistemological basis for the government and society to attach importance to children's education, and had a profound impact on the social agreement to ensure that "children" received "school education" in "childhood". Western European capitalist civilization created modern schools for the "education" of "children", and the new school system gradually replaced and transformed the apprenticeship system in the Middle Ages and the church school system that guaranteed theological authority. "Children" spend their "childhood" mainly in school and are isolated from the "world of adults", receiving special printed materials for different learning stages according to different ages. In schools, "children" gradually learn and master modern symbols and professional skills under the supervision of "adults", and take being able to integrate into the modern social system and become a part of the modernity system after "adults". educational goals. At the same time, the "modern family" has gradually formed. Since "children" are required to receive long-term planned education, parents are endowed with various new responsibilities of education and guardianship, which further consolidates the need for "children" to be isolated, protected, Guided positioning. With organized compulsory education institutions and stable modern families as the core, modern society has formed a monitoring system based on information control in which "adults" govern "children".

On the other hand, Rousseau put forward a view of children that is usually highly summarized by scholars as "child-centered". Rousseau clearly stated in his educational masterpiece "Emile": "In the order of all things, human beings have their place, and in the order of life, childhood has its place: adults should be regarded as adults, and adults should be regarded as adults. The child is regarded as a child."[19] Rousseau agreed with Locke's judgment that children lack reason, and also agreed with the purpose of modern education in the context of the rationalist Enlightenment: "We are born weak, so we need strength; we are born with nothing, So help is needed; we are born foolish, so we need judgment. What we do not have when we are born, what we need when we grow up, are all given to us by education"—"a good Excellent performance in education is to create a rational person" [20]. Rousseau's "negative education method" further strengthened the particularity of "children", especially the physical and mental characteristics of lack of "knowledge" and "reason", and strengthened the staged requirements of "education". Stages of "education" make very different provisions. The completion of Rousseau's "child-centered" naturalistic education is the same as Locke's, or even a step further: in the name of "nature", under careful protection and strict periodic restrictions, children are shaped to obey the "social contract". ", a modern subject with fully developed "rationality" and "virtue" with "free" will.

The second half of the nineteenth century to the first half of the twentieth century was the "golden age" of "children", driven by the Romantic and Humanitarian movements deeply influenced by Rousseau. The decrees of European governments to "protect children" have been fully passed and implemented, the "child welfare" system has been greatly improved, various institutions to protect "children's rights" have been established, the legal marriage age of citizens has been raised, and national compulsory education has been fully popularized in Western European countries. , factories that use child labor are strictly banned. The modern definitions of "child" and "childhood" have never been more practical. The "children" of the bourgeoisie in the developed western capitalist countries wear their own clothes, play their own games, read their own literature, and basically have a comfortable and comfortable "childhood" imagined in theory.

"Children's literature" is generated in such a social context. Since, "Children are completely different people from adults, children and adults are the two poles of life, children and adults are different races, thinker Rousseau, educator Montessori, children's literature theorist Pol Azar and Lilian Smith said. Children are the owners of special cultures, and there are many fundamental differences between children and adults in terms of existence, values ​​and attitudes towards life." Then, there should be "children's literature" "created for children" "established" in a distinction rather than a connection with adult literature. "What is the fundamental difference between children's literature and adult literature? Quite simply, children's literature is children's literature, while adult literature is adult literature."[21] As a corollary to "modern views on children", just like "children" and " Just as "childhood" was separated out and accepted isolation, "children's literature" was also separated from the literary community, and appeared in the process of literary history as an "independent" literary genre.

The cultural logic of "the essence of children's literature" seems to be self-evident. However, the main body of the advocacy, creation, production, dissemination and even consumption of "children's literature" are "adults", and the expelled "children" who are passively accepted are always in a state of absence and silence. Is there really a "children's literature" that is fundamentally different from "adult literature"? Just go after the "origin" of "children's literature" in Western Europe, and you can find the tricks of modification and replacement hidden in it.

"Children's literature", as a cultural production derived from "modern views on children", is behind the operation of the two sets of knowledge pedigrees about the "child"/"adult" binary opposition initiated by Locke and Rousseau. In 1747, John Newbury, a British publisher who was deeply influenced by John Locke, founded the world's first publishing company specializing in "children's books" in London with the "Bible and the Sun" as a sign. The establishment of the publishing house, Newbury Publishing Company, is considered to be the beginning of the publishing business of "children's literature". From the signboard of the publishing house, we can see that the purpose of this "children's literature production" is the Puritan ethics of modern rational subjects and the enlightenment spirit of "giving light" (enlighten). Locke's concept is actually an attempt to "produce" a certain form of subjectivity in "children" and suppress the possibility of other forms; while the evaluation criteria for "maturity" and "childishness" are entirely based on concepts. Constructors are based on the self-identification of modern rational subjects by adults. The "children's literature" derived from this concept requires artistic creation to serve the purpose of education and to strengthen moral preaching and knowledge instillation. And the "tradition" of such "children's literature" that appeals to "lessons" can be traced back to the "fairy tales" (Fairy Tale) made by ladies in Western Europe from the 16th to the 18th centuries for educated readers. Process and rewrite the "messages and gossips" passed down orally among the people, and fix them into written texts, the most famous of which is the 1697 1697, which is highly praised and important in various classic children's literature history works. Published The Mother Goose Tales, also known as Tales of the Past with Moral Lessons, by Charles Petrault. However, a careful historical examination of this so-called collection of fairy tales depicting a woman sitting beside a stove drawing a thread and telling stories to "children" on the cover of the first edition reveals, "The fact that On the other hand, these 'children's classics' are embellished and satirical fables, whose lines are closely tied to the events of 17th-century French court, society, and the politics of sex in high society."[22]

In the nineteenth century, Rousseau's ideas of "child-based" and "naturalism" were one-sidedly deduced and used by the romantic trend of thought. Becoming a powerful symbol when Romantic poets and Victorian novelists critiqued the consequences of large-scale industrial production, the "special" of "child" and "childhood" was given to Romantics with a certain ideological purpose. sanctify. The historical role of classic children's literature history on "romanticism" is naturally full of praise and praise, and the greatest contribution of romanticism to "children's literature" in terms of creative performance is the emergence of a large number of "fairy tales" in the German romantic literature trend. , especially "Grimm's Fairy Tales - Stories for Children and Families", which was listed as a "World Cultural Heritage" on June 21, 2005 "An epoch-making compilation [23]. However, the Brothers Grimm did not edit and publish "Grimm's Fairy Tales" "for children" at first, they were engaged in collecting, The work of sorting out the German folktales they call "natural assets". In the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812, the Brothers Grimm proudly declared that they had published the collection in a "natural", "untouched" look, and in the first edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales they did. There are many contents that involve torture, sex, and incest. But after that, the Grimms' cold reception in academia and popularity in the book market led them to turn their focus to editing storybooks suitable for children and parents. The "original" folk tales have been largely edited according to the aesthetic taste and value standards of the emerging Victorian family/middle-class "nuclear family"[24]. They published the second edition of "Grimm's Fairy Tales" in 1819. In the preface of the book, it is written: "In this new edition, we will prudently delete all words that are not suitable for children to read."[25] The edited "Grimm's Fairy Tales" has become a "landmark in the history of children's literature". "The canon of "Grimm's Fairy Tales", and the narrative routine used in "Grimm's Fairy Tales" that begins with "a long time ago" and ends with "they lived happily ever after" has become a classic narrative paradigm in the history of children's literature.

The adapted "fairy tale" becomes a substitute for the practice of romantic ideological deduction and a supplement to the "children's literature" lacking in origin, a modern design in which "adults" are present and "children" are absent.

three. Submerging the establishment: a "post-fairy tale" facing the "death of childhood"

No matter how the "child" is regarded as "specially" and praised with enthusiasm, it is always constructed as the other who establishes the self-subjectivity of the "adult" in the design of modernity. Clarifying the boundaries between "adult" and "child", "adult" and "childhood" has become an important task for "adults" to grasp their own subjectivity. The appearance of the initial distinguishing features of "adult" and "child" is based on the "knowledge hierarchy" created by the complex and abstract new symbolic environment. "Meta opposition" must create new knowledge gaps and cultural gaps. No matter how the "child-centered" concept and the romantic trend of thought emphasize the inherent quality of "children", they mainly define them from the perspectives of "what children are not" and "what children cannot do". The history of "children" in modern society Process is always defined as an "exclusive" problem. "Children" are not "adults", so they are not allowed access to things that are regulated as exclusive to "adults", things that "adults" think only they can understand or control. Rousseau emphasized the need to "build a wall around the child's soul as early as possible" in the opening chapter of "Emile" [26]. When "adults" expel "children" from the "adult world", they deliberately create some "cultural secrets that only belong to adults", and "adults" will follow the plan (in Rousseau's words, according to "the course of nature") These "secrets" are told at what they deem "appropriate", and knowing them is often seen as a sign that a person has passed the "childhood" stage and is finally "adult". Discovering differences - opposing thinking - making differences - confirming discovery, this becomes a cycle in the historical construction process of "children", which leads to the amplification and confusion of "differences", and makes the "special" nature of "children" become modern society. A "self-evident" "common sense".

The "adults" who have the right to construct "different cultures", out of self-identification needs and anxiety, and out of idealized imagination of their own experiences under the influence of narcissism complex, tend to consciously or unintentionally in modern design. "Childhood" is likened to a special time and space like the "Garden of Eden", and "children's literature"/"fairy tales" are used as an art form with special norms to describe and reproduce the "Garden of Eden". Therefore, in the theoretical assumption, it is created for "special" "children", but in fact it inevitably projects the desire and anxiety of the main "adult" who is always "present". Literature", as Cao Wenxuan put it, has become "a very restrictive concept". "Although it has not made very quantitative regulations, after word of mouth and pen, a consensus without words has been reached. When the four words 'children's literature' are mentioned, we will immediately enter In a special context, you will feel that there is a guiding system about language, about themes, about how to deal with the reality of life." "Children's literature actually has to hide. things." "Children's literature is a pure land" - this is what children's literature creators and children's literature theorists often proudly declare, "This conclusion contains two meanings: children's literature is not a mess of words; everything that children's literature expresses Also clean."[27]

And death is a "taboo" that this "pure land" must strictly conceal. "As with those taboos related to excretion, incest, menstrual blood, and obscenity, the taboos involving corpses and murder have never lacked universal attention."[28] Although throughout the history of human literature and art, modern Negative imagery in sexual contexts is associated with categories, and is at the same time the death of the existential premise of life-consciousness and self-consciousness. As far as adult literature and adult art are concerned", because "for children", "death", "after all, has a great distance from their life and psychology". [29] For example, Kenneth Grahame, the author of the "Children's Literature" classic "The Wind in the Willows", believes that the subject of "death" is not suitable for "children" to read, so he is writing for "children" In the selection of poetry collections, all poems written up to "death" are excluded. [30]

However, in today's society, the rational order of modernity of "child-adult" and "child-adult" which is the basis of this "exclusion" activity is losing control and tends to collapse. As Anthony Giddens points out in The Consequences of Modernity, modernity is constructed in (and through) the reflexive use of knowledge, and the so-called knowledge of necessity It's really just a misunderstanding. A major source of power of modernity is its "reflexivity", which is fundamentally expressed as "knowledge production", especially the production of systematic knowledge about social life, which constitutes the essential factor of the reproduction of modern social systems. In other words, the reason why modernity has today's status is the product of human's understanding of society; human beings have created today's modern society according to their own expectations and ideas. "Children" is an important "knowledge" produced by modernity, and "childhood" is a social system constructed by people "embedding" this knowledge (concepts, theories, discoveries) into society. However, due to the uncertainty of human knowledge and the resulting unpredictability of social development, the resulting "all aspects" of human activities do not follow a predetermined process, and the "contingency" that "all activities" may have As a result, modernity is a society full of "risks". The "late modernity" society we live in today is a world full of dislocations, a world out of control, a world where the "consequences of modernity" have become more dramatic and pervasive than ever. And the "death of childhood"[31] is a vision of the "risk of modernity".

The "Death of Childhood" is a dialectical reversal movement. The power of capital and technology, which has been continuously strengthened in the process of "modernization", begins to corrode and dissolve the "children" and "adults" that they have previously produced in the late stage of modernity. Symbolic pattern of binary opposition. In the second half of the 20th century, the rapid development of science and technology brought a brand new information communication media to human society. , "childhood" and "adulthood" "meta-narrative", under the impact of emerging media disintegration and decline.

In the text of "Harry Potter", there is such a vivid and ironic description of Harry Potter's cousin Dudley Dursley, from which we can glimpse the emerging media's impact on the modern sense of "children". ” and the occupation and erosion of “childhood”:

He had never seen anything as bad as today in his life. He was very hungry; he also missed five TV shows he wanted to watch; he had never been in a situation like today, sitting in front of a computer all day to fry aliens...[32]

They were watching a brand new TV, a gift for Dudley to welcome him home for the summer, and Dudley had been complaining loudly that the refrigerator in the living room was too far from the TV. For most of the summer, Dudley spent most of the summer soaking in the kitchen, his greedy little glasses staring at the TV screen, his five-tiered jaw twitching as he ate constantly. [33]

The new media that comprehensively transforms contemporary human society and seriously disintegrates the meta-narratives about "children" and "adults" are "electronic media" represented by "television" mentioned many times in the quotation.

The electronic media with images as the dominant symbols has eliminated the original intellectual barriers for "children" to understand "adult secrets", destroyed the "knowledge/information hierarchy" that created differences, and caused "adult secrets" to become unrecognizable in front of children. All in all.

Taking the most representative TV as an example, TV is a visual medium that uses images as the main carrier to spread information. In the printing age/“the age of childhood”, the main way for people to obtain information is text reading, which requires mastering special logic, rhetoric, typesetting, traditional rules of material organization and the establishment of a rational-centered subject consciousness; “children” and The modern limit of "adult" is usually defined as around the age of 18, because modern knowledge generally assumes that one does not systematically acquire the modern nation-state language community and the modes of communication based on it until the age of 18. And the acceptance of images requires little learning. Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that today's children have begun to systematically pay attention to watching TV when they are 36 months old: they have their favorite programs, they can sing commercial songs, and they will want to watch TV commercials. to the product. Television has greatly simplified the way "children" access information, making it extremely easy for them to access information. These characteristics of TV, combined with the widespread popularity of TV and its strong position in today's cultural industry, make TV one of the most important channels for children to obtain information. Moreover, TV does not separate audiences. The idea of ​​TV is to provide everyone with the same information at the same time. Its production and dissemination methods and content expressions are not exclusive. It is aimed at both "adults" and "children". In addition, as a transnational capitalist media that pursues ratings and interests, the economic logic of TV not only does not tend to retain information, but drives the continuous creation of "gimmicks" and "watches" by "exposing secrets".

Electronic media and the social changes it induces have made the information acquisition channels, daily sensory experience, life entertainment and even aesthetic tastes that were significantly different between "children" and "adults" become increasingly homogenized, greatly blurring the difference between "children" and "adults". The boundaries between "adult", "childhood" and "adulthood", the cultural meaning and social existence of "childhood" and "childhood" have suffered a huge impact and disintegration.

For the "children" who have been concealed by "adults" for a long time in the name of "protection", electronic media has opened up a path to the "backstage" of "adults", so that "children" can seem to be "immersed" Generally appearing in the life scenes of "adults", adults can no longer "keep secrets", and through electronic media, "children" can easily watch the violence, sex, anxiety, hypocrisy, copper smell, poverty and the "adult world". Hunger, abuse and killing, war and destruction... When the "children" taste the fresh fruits of the "adult" tree with the sign "Minors are not allowed to touch", they also lose the gift of "adult". Their "Garden of Eden".

The "post-fairy tale" after "Paradise Lost" is no longer (probably) the "Pure Land". In a famous post "Leaving the Fairy Twelve Seconds" widely circulated on the Internet, the author Emerald expressed such reading feelings, which resonated with the recipients of "Harry Potter":

Why does this all happen in a romantic fairy tale. This is supposed to be a place without any real filth, this is supposed to have the freedom of the sky and the sea. The once dream world has torn off that layer of colorful tissue paper. We are painfully surprised to see that there is cunning, flattery, cunning, darkness, too much ignorance, and unscrupulous means to achieve ends. . This makes us feel scared, feel the loss of broken dreams, the cruelty of reality... we still see the same reality, and in the end there is nowhere to escape. Suddenly waking up from a colorful dream, we screamed in pain... Is it like stepping down the stairs and falling into deep disappointment? Then after going through a long fall process, I had to admit the reality and fell to the ground, my heart was like a piece of glass, and there was a crackling sound. No no no no, such fairy tales do not count! [34]

The misalignment between the "law of literary genre" and the actual text leads to the failure of reading expectations regulated by the "metanarrative" of the binary opposition of "children" and "adults", which violently impacts the reading experience of readers. However, in a certain sense, such (post) fairy tales that "do not count" and "fairy tales" are actually to dispel the cover of fairy tales that have been hijacked by "children's literature" for a long time, or it can be said that they are ghostly authentic fairy tales. spiritualism.

The writing of Rowling's escape from literary genre rules makes Harry Potter homeless in the modern literary criticism of the binary opposition of "children" and "adults", "children's literature" and "adult literature" orphans, which has caused great controversy. However, in my opinion, this kind of writing is a reminder of the possibility of (post) fairy tales having a therapeutic effect in a society of "late modernity".

Foucault's investigation of "neuropathy" profoundly pointed out that "neurosis" is the result of the division between "children" and "adults", and the product of "childhood" that is isolated and protected:

Regression to childhood, though manifested in neurosis, is but a result. Childhood-like behavior is a field of escape for the patient, and the following conditions must be met for the reproduction of such behavior and for treating it as an irreversible pathological condition. First, society sets a certain distance between the individual and the past and present, so that people cannot and must not jump over this distance. Secondly, when the past is dominated by culture, only the method of intentional examination and coercion makes the past disappear. Our culture does have such characteristics. In the 18th century, envisioned by Rousseau and Pestallozzi, it was to follow the principles of pedagogy in line with the development of the child to create a world suitable for the scale of the child. Therefore, allowing to create a non-realistic, abstract and primitive environment around children that has absolutely nothing to do with the world of adults, modern pedagogy has developed with the indisputable desire to protect children from participating in the contradictions and entanglements of adults. This has made the distance between human childhood and adulthood ever-increasing. The contradiction between childhood and real life should be the most important entanglement, but in order to avoid all kinds of entanglements in the above-mentioned way, children are in danger of encountering such big entanglements. Furthermore, the various contradictions inherent in the culture are not directly reflected in the educational system, but are indirectly reflected through various myths. Such a myth absolves and justifies its culture of sin and idealizes it in a fantasy unity. Furthermore, a society dreams of its golden age in pedagogy (we only need to look at the pedagogy of Plato, Rousseau; the Durkheim Republic, the naturalism of pedagogy of the Weimar Republic to understand). A little reflection on the above makes it clear that stubbornness or regression to infancy is only possible in a certain culture. In addition, we will also understand that when the experience of liquidating the past and assimilating the past into the present is not allowed by the existing social form, this kind of stubbornness or regression to infancy will occur accordingly. The neurosis caused by regression is not a manifestation of the neurotic character of childhood, but a denunciation of what the institutions of childhood have made man uncivilized. The background of this neurotic pathology is the entanglement inherent in a society, the contradiction between the form of early childhood education and the living conditions of adults. The society hides its own dreams in the early childhood education, while the reality and misery of the society can be seen in the life of adults. [35]

Foucault's genealogical investigation of "scientific discourse" suggests that it is not "childhood" trauma that produces "neuropathy", but the establishment of modernity about "children" and "adults" that laid the foundation for the birth of modern psychoanalysis. Base.

And "literature", the "organization" that Derrida called "strange establishment", has the possibility of surpassing the "organization":

The space of literature is not only an institutional fiction, but also a fictional institution that in principle allows people to tell everything. To tell everything, it is undoubtedly necessary to bring all the characters together by means of explanation, to summarize by means of formalization. But to tell everything is at the same time to escape the prohibition, to free oneself in all areas where the law can make law. Literary law tends in principle to ignore law or cancel law, so it allows one to think about the nature of law in the experience of 'telling everything'. Literature is an establishment that tends to drown establishments. [36]

"Harry Potter" pierces the modern "law" of the binary opposition between "children" and "adults" by escaping the prohibition and transgressing the boundaries, so as to bridge the schizophrenia of modern people and treat modern people. The possibility of sexual "neuropathy".

"Harry Potter" is a set of "books" that its author Rowling called "mainly about death"[37]. Fairy tale", which is given by history and the self-consciousness of the writing subject. This work, which is generally classified as a "fairy tale" by literary critics according to the "law" of "literary genre", does not conceal the "death" motif that is forbidden by the "law" of "children's literature". "The writing of "Children's Literature History"/"Fairy Tales" has reached an unprecedented level of "classic works". According to Rowling herself, "death" is the "theme" of the seven books. When parents asked Rowling whether such a topic was suitable for children to read, Rowling replied that she had always written according to her original vision, regardless of whether children read it or not, "They contain pain and A tale of good and evil in a tragic death," and her aim was to "write these harsh realities as she saw them, not to make anyone's child feel protected."[38]

And the key word of modern society "technology" and the "death" that Rowling called the "theme" of the whole book is the joint of her leveraging the fortified modern establishment of "children's literature" and "adult literature", opening the "writing" Harsh Reality" and "Archimedes' Pivot" in the deep space of "Exploring Good and Evil".

Four. Magic: A rebellion against technology, or an emulation of technology?

In the second part of this article, the author quoted the comments of children's literature critic Wang Quangen as an example of "Harry Potter" being classified as a "fairy tale" in the book publishing industry and literary criticism circles. This article by Wang Quangen, published in the "Children's Book Tan" section of "China Book Review", carried out "Harry Potter", the text that created "the reading myth in the Internet age", "as a children's literature" "Double Interpretation" of "Harry Potter" and "Harry Potter as Witchcraft Thinking and Postmodernity" can be said to represent a more positive and comprehensive view of Harry Potter in the current literary criticism circle. mainstream interpretation.

But the author believes that Wang Quangen's judgment on "Harry Potter" "sticking to the 'child-oriented' writing position" is not valid, which has been discussed in the first three parts of this article; Before discussing the connection between "death" and "technology", it is necessary to critically analyze the "second interpretation" of "Harry Potter" made by Wang Quangen citing literary anthropologist Ye Shuxian.

Ye Shuxian believes that the book "Harry Potter" "can obtain a thorough theoretical grasp only if it is restored to the context of the radical folk movement that rebelled against modernity"[39], and "Harry Potter" reflects The revival of Celtic culture in the world is the result of the "New Age" cultural root-seeking trend. According to Ye Shuxian, "The so-called 'new era' refers to the advent of a completely different post-Christian era, an era that runs counter to capitalist modernity in pursuit of material prosperity, rebels against Christian values ​​and opposes official ideology , is also an era in which spirituality dominates, and its important symbol is the full revival of non-Christian culture, that is, Eastern religions, primitive religions and folk traditions. Related to this is the reconstruction of the relationship between man and nature, ecologicalism The great union with feminism, etc." Therefore, the sensation of "Harry Potter" "is not only a success of literature and art, but also an important signal that marks the cultural conflict and cultural trend in the new century" [40], "she used Its unique way of thinking and perception from folk and non-academic schools challenges the modernity of Muggles and rebels against the modern style of existence dominated by technological rationality” [41].

Ye Shuxian made a background excavation of the "Harry Potter phenomenon", and his "cultural interpretation" tried to "enable people to pass through the fog of media hype and understand the background behind this postmodern literary phenomenon from a certain perspective. have a keen insight into the value conflicts and cultural trends” [42]. However, the author believes that this so-called "insight" is actually a misunderstanding. Ye Shuxian believes, "In "Harry Potter", the opposition between the pagan goddess and the Christian God is roughly insinuated as two different worlds... The opposition between the magical world and the Muggle world... The female author from the folk uses her Alternative thinking paints us a very vivid and ironic picture, that is, the modernity of 'Muggles'... In Rowling's pen, the binary opposition between the wizarding world and the real world is so vividly expressed as beauty and Ugly, Good and Evil"[43]; "A boy who escaped from a dark destiny in a cupboard, uses his adventures to prove the value of two different worlds, expressing his interest in Christianity and modernity. It represents the rejection of the real world, and the yearning for the mysterious world of primitive thinking.”[44] The author believes that Ye Shuxian’s interpretation is thematically first, and is divorced from the actual text.

Ye Shuxian's cultural interpretation should be based on Northrop Frye's theory. According to Frye, there is a "non-displaced myth in literature, usually involving gods or demons, and presenting as two opposing worlds of complete metaphorical identity, one with a desire for one and one with a dislike for the other." [45] The difference between the world in which people actually live and the other world in which they expect to live has gradually developed into an opposing view in mythology, dividing reality into two diametrically opposed realms—heaven with hell. While "legendary tendency" and "'realism' tendency" are the "displacement" of myth, the "opposition" of "heaven and hell" in "myth" is the "prototype" of those "double worlds" in literary works.

Using Frye's terminology, the "Eden"-like "pure land" constructed by modern "children's literature"/"fairy tales" can be said to be the displacement of the "paradise" prototype in the inference practice of "'adult' ideology" . But the "magic world" in "Harry Potter" is by no means a "dualistic" "diametrically opposed" that forms "beauty and ugliness", "good and evil" with the "Muggle world"/real world. "Paradise" of opposites. The "Magic World" is full of "dirty" "reality", any reader who has been given a modern "children's literature" view by history and who reads "Harry Potter" seriously will have what Emeran said. The kind of reading experience of "what you see is still the same reality, and ultimately there is nowhere to escape". The "Magic World" is no more "beautiful", "good", or "higher" than the "Muggle World". The most extreme "evil" presented in the text - Voldemort - exists in the "Magic World" world".

JRR Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel Tolkien) once proposed a concept of "the Second World" (the Secondary World) similar to the "opposite world theory". Tolkien believed that "the Primary World" is the world created by God, that is, the world in our daily life; and people are not satisfied with the constraints of the first world, and use a kind of God-given kind he calls "" The power of quasi-creation, using "fantasy" to create a "second world".

But Rowling's "Magic World" and Tolkien's fully self-contained "Second World"/"Middle Earth" in his "The Lord of the Rings" not the same. Tolkien's "Middle-earth" and "First World" are in completely different time and space dimensions. It has a history, geography, and civilization that is completely different from "First World" and lives in "Middle-earth" time and space. species even have their own self-contained language that does not exist in the "first world", in the text of "Lord of the Rings" only the "second world" is present, and the "first world" is always present absent. Rowling's "Magic World" is in the same space-time dimension as the "First World", and there is no isolated boundary. The locations of the Leaky Cauldron, Grimmauld Place, and St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Injuries and Injuries are on the streets of London. , it's just that some people "see" and some people "seem" and "can't see"; in the text of "Harry Potter", everyone, whether "wizard" or "muggle", is It is just that some beings are "ignored" or even "ignored" by other beings living together in the same open time and space. Canadian scholar Julia Saric has conducted a comparative study on the difference between the "Witching World" of "Harry Potter" and the "Middle-earth" of "Lord of the Rings", and he believes that Rowling's fantasy form is similar to Thor's Jin's creation of an "alternative world" is different from that of a "domesticated fantasy", that is, "magicification of what we are familiar with"[46]. American scholar Steven Barfield analyzed and compared "Harry Potter" with the three schools of fantasy theories of Tolkien, Tzvetan Todorov and Rosemary Jackson, and believed that "Harry Potter" Potter is different from any of them, and named the fantasy form of Harry Potter as "Satirical Fantasy", that is, the work "points to the defects of the real world in the form of parody"[47] . In the author's opinion, their exposition of Harry Potter's breakthrough of the classic fantasy paradigm represented by Tolkien is more insightful.

Jean Baudrillard made the following judgment on today's "postmodern" society: "We are in a situation where 'consumption' controls the whole life."[48] He believes that "consumption" is the ideology of today's society, "Consumption logic" is manifested as a "symbolic operation", and the operation of symbols by the high-tech media technology system creates a surreal and "simulated" symbolic world. This is an "Age of Simulation", marked by the "disappearance of all referents" and their "artificial resurrection in the semiotic system"[49], where "simulation" produces a "Hyperreality" ), which is a kind of "reality" careful

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