PERSPECTIVES: Harry Potter and other orphans (08/07/05)

PERSPECTIVES

by Andrew Fedynsky

Harry Potter and other orphans

It was quiet as I drove my son, daughter and nephew back to the Pysanyi Kamin ("PK") Plast camp from "dozvillia" - free time. All three had their noses deep into Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Later, as Olesia and I walked the trail toward her barrack, we passed a father lugging a sack of clean laundry, his daughter walking beside him, expertly navigating the craggy, down-sloping trail while engrossed in the same book. Once in the barracks as I helped my own daughter put her things away, I noticed Harry Potter books lying on nearly other every bed.

Harry Potter, of course, tells the story of an adolescent orphan engaged in a battle against evil - a struggle he didn't choose and can't escape. Afflicted by atrocious stepparents, Harry discovers magical powers, which play a central role in his intrigues and adventures at Hogwarts Academy, where young witches and warlocks learn their ancient craft.

Since 2001 hundreds of millions of kids have been devouring every volume, now translated into dozens of languages including Viktor Morozov's Ukrainian version. Naturally, there's also a successful series of movies. As original as it is, Harry Potter fits into a rich genre of legend, literature and cinema featuring orphans as central figures.

Look no further than the Bible, where Moses' mother, to save his life, casts him adrift in a basket on the Nile. Finding him in the bulrushes, Pharaoh's daughter adopts the orphan as her own. Raised as an Egyptian, Moses goes on to discover his Jewish identity and using miraculous powers to part the Red Sea, leads his people out of slavery into the Promised Land.

Ancient Romans told the story of Romulus and Remus, twin sons of none other than Mars, the god or war. The infants are left out in the elements to die, only to have a she-wolf miraculously appear and suckle them until a shepherd discovers the boys and adopts them. The orphans go on to make history by founding the city of Rome.

Then there's King Arthur, another orphan. Starting with the magical ability to pull a sword from a stone, he organizes a nation and then, more than a thousand years later, provides inspiration for novels, epic poems, a Broadway musical and the administration of President John F. Kennedy. Moses, Romulus, Remus, King Arthur - stories born at the intersection of history and myth, at the crossroads of collective unconscious and popular culture.

Now ponder how many other stories begin with orphans: there's Cinderella, Heidi, Pollyanna, "Anne of Green Gables," "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms" and Dorothy in the "Wizard of Oz." And those are just the girls. The guys include Henry Fieldings' Tom Jones, Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Faulkner's Joe Christmas, Dickens' Oliver Twist, David Copperfield and Pip from "Great Expectations." In the comics there's Superman, Batman, Spiderman and Little Orphan Annie. In the movies, Walt Disney's Bambi becomes an orphan when a hunter kills his mother; Aladdin harnesses magical powers that make it possible for a "street rat" to marry the sultan's daughter.

George Lukas's "Star Wars" features two generations of orphans: Anakin Skywalker, who becomes the dreaded Darth Vader and his twin children, Luke and Leia, who become orphans when their mother dies in childbirth and Darth abandons them to pursue "the dark side." Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" was made into a film trilogy featuring the orphan, Frodo Baggins, who goes through hair-raising adventures to dispose of the magical ring that causes the world enormous grief. Now there's "A Series of Unfortunate Events," based on the books by Lemony Snicket, with the Baudelaire Orphans who lose their parents in a mysterious fire.

I was not an orphan, thank goodness, and, at best, I'm an amateur psychologist, so whatever insights I might have on the subject are based on my own childhood and from observation. Without a doubt, children thrive in an environment where their material needs are taken care of, where they get kisses for their boo-boos and parents tell them what's right and what's wrong. All the while, they push the envelope, yearning to be independent and free.

In my view, the orphan genre is attractive because kids can participate in the trials, adventures and more often than not, triumphs of children forced by circumstances to be on their own, all the while enjoying the comfort of the back seat of Tato's car or the shade of a tall tree, knowing that Mama's inside cooking dinner. Fortunately, many orphans have been blessed with wonderful adoptive parents who gave them what's essential. But not all.

Real life offers many inspiring stories of orphans - Alexander Hamilton, who became the architect of America's political economy and is now on the ten-dollar bill; Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's fast food restaurant; columnist Art Buchwald; novelist Leo Tolstoy.

Perhaps the most dramatic orphan story, nearly on a par with the Moses story, involves a serf who loses his parents at an early age and is raised by the village until his owner takes him in as a houseboy. Driven by genius, the boy steals paper and pencil to sketch and draw. Discovered by the master, who is impressed by the boy's talent, he is apprenticed in the imperial capital where artists and intellectuals are astonished by the young slave's talent and buy him his freedom. Instead of savoring his good fortune, he's embittered that he's free but nobody else. Tapping into mysterious powers, he writes exquisite poetry exhorting his illiterate countrymen to embrace one another, study, learn and rend the shackles that keep them enslaved. Arrested and exiled by the empire, the poet-artist continues to inspire, even after he dies and his language is banned. Generations later, he leads his people to freedom from the very empire that had enslaved him and everyone he knew.

The story of Ukraine's Taras Shevchenko is a great orphan story because it's so improbable and because it's true. It's worthy of books, movies, a Broadway musical, a student term paper. So go ahead and encourage your kids to read the wonderful literature based on the theme of orphans. But, while you're at it, get them a copy of the "Kobzar," along with a Ukrainian-English dictionary or a translation, and tell them why Shevchenko is every bit as special as Harry Potter. Both stories are true, to be sure, but Shevchenko's actually happened. Now that's magic.

Andrew Fedynsky's e-mail address is: [email protected].

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