J.K. ROWLINGS HARRY POTTER SERIES FANTASY FOR CHILDREN AND NOTHING MORE essays

J.K. ROWLING'S HARRY POTTER SERIES FANTASY FOR CHILDREN AND NOTHING MORE essays Within the last eight years or so, the literary works of J.K. Rowling, in particular her highly popular series of dark fantasy novels centered on the character of Harry Potter, has generated a great amount of social controversy based on her use of sorcery and occultism in order to relate the fantastic adventures of Harry, an up-and-coming wizard and practitioner of the so-called "black arts." Not surprisingly, the most vocal opponents to Rowling's Harry Potter series can be found within the religious community which has viewed Rowling's works with much suspicion, due to what they see as a blatant attempt by Rowling to introduce impressionable young people to the arts and practice of magic, sorcery, witchcraft and occultism via the actions and predicaments of Harry Potter. However, this viewpoint, taken predominately by the Christian community, is based on the traditional ideals of organized religion which for centuries has attempted, without much success, to turn people away from any literary work that goes against the teachings and ideals of Christian thought and Fantastic literature, as represented in Rowling's Harry Potter series, is one of the most compelling of all literary genres, for as E.F. Bleiler points out, "the essence of the fantastic generally demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from everyday life" (12). For many readers, dark fantasy is the type of tale which is totally irrelevant to the real world, and, for the most part, deals with magic and the supernatural. Unlike science fiction, it is not based on scientific research but pure imagination and requires the reader to totally suspend his/her disbelief. In addition, most fantastic magic and the supernatural which tends to inform the reader that the events The plotlines in most fantast...