Between Icon & Idol
Harry Potter & Imagination’s Symbolic Life
by S. M. Hutchens
J K. Rowling has, like C. S. Lewis in the Chronicles of Narnia, created an exciting story of redemption within the world of modern ugliness and alienation, a world in which a drab and common boy with dismal prospects is revealed as what he has in fact been from birth: someone who counts for something, whose well-intentioned labors count for good and are rewarded with appreciation, understanding, and the hope of greatness.
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S. M. Hutchens is a Touchstone senior editor.
more on imagination from the online archives
18.4—May 2005
The Idylls, Idols & Devils That Corrupt the Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian
11.5—September/October 1998
Speaking the Truths Only the Imagination May Grasp
An Essay on Myth & 'Real Life' by Stratford Caldecott
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more from the online archives
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on the Consequences of One Birth Before Roe v. Wade by Craig Kellogg Galer
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18.3—April 2005
on Being a Free Narnian & the Joy of Subordination by Donald T. Williams
