Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc

Singer,
p. 20, remind one of Orwell’s socio-critical 1984 and the social engineering in form of the caste system 
of Huxley’s Brave New World.
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Nicholson, Slaves of the Mastery, p. 236. 

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seem bizarre at first sight and, as a consequence, is ridiculed by Harry and Ron, yet it 
underlines the significance of social injustice even in the wizarding world. On a larger scale, 
the evil wizard and tyrant Voldemort also operates with means of oppression but imposes his 
will through his reign of terror. Ignoring compassion and mercy, Voldemort does not shrink 
back from torture and murder. Rather, his cruelty gives him pleasure. Not only is the social 
criticism in Harry Potter directed against such despotic oppression but also against racism in 
any form. The latter is one of the central threads of criticism running through the series. It is 
not without reason that the fanaticism with which evil wizards persecute “impure” wizards 
and humans is alluding to the ethnic cleansing during the Nazi regime. Spinelessness and 
cowardice, best impersonated by the character Wormtail, are presented as despicable, whereas 
values like courage, protection of the weak, friendship, love and trust, impersonated by the 
positive main characters, are highly esteemed.
Likewise, Pullman’s metaphysical His Dark Materials trilogy criticises social 
injustices, despotism and cruelty. Comparable to a polyphonic canon, various social systems 
of the different worlds are presented. Through contrast and comparison their characteristics, 
advantages and disadvantages are illustrated. Examples are the sub-community of the children 
in Lyra’s Oxford, the children of Cittàgazze, the Lapland witches, the Gallivespians, the 
community of the armoured bears or the mulefa. Each group has their own social system, 
ranging from the bears’ Darwinistic survival of the fittest, the witches’ plurality of individuals 
against the background of a common mentality to the pacifistic ideal community of the 
mulefa. Against such a cross-section of the trilogy’s social landscape science and the Church 
are two “institutions” which, each in their own way, contrast with the various social systems. 
Representing and pursuing opposite views on the universes, their structure and purpose, both 
parties compete with each other to explain, to interpret and lastly to control phenomena. 
Whereas in His Dark Materials science is primarily interested in the research into nature’s 
scientific phenomena and their possible exploitation by society, the Church instrumentalises 
those phenomena in order to integrate them into its interpretation, i.e. doctrine, of the worlds. 
In Pullman’s trilogy Dust is the novels’ central phenomena that advances to the point at issue 
on which the opinions of science and Church are divided. On the scientific side, the 
mysterious characteristics, origin and purpose of Dust are explored independent of each other 
by Lord Asriel and Mary Malone, and on the side of the Church by Mrs Coulter. Whereas 
Lord Asriel is open-minded and inquisitive, Mary Malone first has to overcome her initial 
distrust and scepticism in view of the matter with the help of the mulefa before she can get 
truly involved in it. The side and the attitude of the Church are represented by Mrs Coulter. 

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With its unyielding dogmatism, this institution lays claim to exclusive truth whilst 
condemning wholesale the unknown and uncanny. By demonising any phenomenon which 
does not fit the concept or could entail unpleasant concessions, His Dark Materials’ Church
stirs up reminiscences of practices and attitudes of the Medieval Church.
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Since the 
complexity of Dust makes it elude exact definition, the Church at least tries to gain control 
over it by means of repression on the one hand and cruel experiments on the other in order to 
investigate its nature. As long as Dust remains mysterious, the Church declares it
equivalent 
to human sin. Due to this ignorance and fear Dust is rashly condemned as being something 
evil and therefore a danger to the people. In Pullman’s trilogy social criticism denounces such 
dogmatism. The hypocritical, censured control of society by the Church, against better 
judgement and under the cloak of spiritualism hardly manages to
disguise its power-politics 
and the wish for omnipotence.
In Tyler’s The Greenwich Chronicles, social criticism primarily attacks unjust and 
anti-social behaviour. The Wrecca’s version of a social system, a totalitarian reign of terror 
based on violence and oppression, serves as a negative example and is contrasted with the 
Guardians’ ideal democratic society by means of black and white extremes. The Wreccas’ 
way of life is presented as contemptible for several reasons. Not only does it not acknowledge 
the individual but it also denies the single Wreccas any rights or respect. Absolute power is 
given to a strong and despotic leader who then bullies his subjects as he sees fit until he is 
forced to abdicate by someone even stronger. Living underground in a filthy, smelly, 
unhealthy and dark environment and lacking any manners, the Wreccas resemble more sewer 
rats than anything else. With the Wreccas’ standards being that low,
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they represent the 
underprivileged extreme. The Guardians, by contrast, represent the other extreme. Living 
above ground in the bright, open space of Greenwich Park, they are clearly elevated. Clean, 
civilised and pacifistic, the Guardians value the rights of every individual. What is more, they 
practise equality and grant freedom to everyone. Encouraging learning and thus helping to 
unfurl skills and talents, the Guardians actively work on a harmonious coexistence in which 
values are created and respected. Contrasted to the Wreccas, the Guardians provide the very 
positive example of a model society.
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Pullman’s critical and offensive portrayal
of such an institution and its dogmatism, for which the Church 
serves as an example which could be replaced by some political parties, already provides sufficient material for 
a study in its own right.
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Visualised by their subterranean existence which can be compared to a vertical scale: The Guardians have a 
much higher standing.

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By means of such contrasts, albeit most of them not as black and white as in The 
Greenwich Chronicles
, current British fantasy novels for children discuss advantages and 
disadvantages of various social models. Through their physical or chronological distance
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to 
reality fantasy worlds and their societies permit and encourage direct comparisons between 
reality and fantasy. Positive as well as negative phenomena in this as well as in other worlds 
sharpen the awareness of social structures and problems and their implications for the 
members of the respective communities. At first glance, social criticism in fantasy novels for 
children may thus seem a strange since outspoken adult topic. However, all children are born 
into a social network and need to learn its rules so as to be able to meaningfully navigate in it. 
The process of learning about the social structures and their workability includes scrutinising 
the purpose of the system and the comparison to others in order to draw conclusions for one’s 
own society. With its other worlds, fantasy literature can go through manifold social forms. 
Thus providing new aspects and utopias, it can give impulses for possible changes for the 
better of existing societies.
Social criticism in current British fantasy novels for children constitutes one of the 
central points of formal innovations. This is not to say that novels like The Water-Babies or 
Alice in Wonderland
are far less sociocritical. Whereas their approach is characterised by 
allusions and irony, in The Water-Babies sometimes even by bitterness at existing conditions, 
nowadays social and increasingly ecological injustices are addressed far more directly and 
thus in a more offensive way. Both authors and readers are becoming more and more aware of 
the importance of balanced and just social structures for the welfare of the entire world.