H o w t o R e a d L i t e r a t u r e1 7 2external authority. This dark side of the patriarchal figure is associ-
ated in Freud’s thought with the threat of wounding and castration.
If Harry carries a literal scar on his forehead that links him to
Voldemort by a kind of psychical hotline, the rest of us may be said
to bear psychological scars with similar origins. Since Voldemort
wishes to claim Harry as his own, the hero becomes a battleground
between the forces of light and darkness. In fact, the story avoids
tragedy only by the skin of its teeth. Like many redemptive figures,
Harry must die himself if he is to restore life to others. Without his
own death, Voldemort cannot perish either. Yet children’s stories
are traditionally comic, lest toddlers are packed off to sleep quaking
with trauma, so the narrative musters an array of magical devices to
save Harry from this fate. Its closing words are the implicit last
words of all comedy: ‘All was well.’
What else might a literary critic discover in these tales? There is
a political dimension to them, as a fascistic elite of magicians
hostile to those of their kind with Muggle blood do battle with
more enlightened wizards. This raises some important questions.
How is one to be ‘other’ without feeling superior? How does a
minority differ from an elite? Can one be set apart from the mass
of men and women, as wizards and witches are from Muggles, yet
maintain some solidarity with them? There is an unspoken ques-
tion here concerning the relations between children and adults, of
which the magicians/Muggles relationship is a kind of allegory.
Children represent a kind of conundrum, being similar to adults
yet different. Like the inhabitants of Hogwarts, they live in a world
of their own, though one which overlaps with the adult sphere.
Their differences from grown- ups must be acknowledged if they
are to be valued for what they are, but not to the point where they
are treated as sinisterly ‘other’. This is a mistake that some Victorian