JK Rowling Vs Enid Blyton: Where are the Values?

Good values were a common thread that ran through all of Enid Blyton's works. In comparison, how sound are the values that JK Rowling's books propagate, asks Tony George Jacob.

Gnomes and elves, pixies and fairies, trolls and school-girls, adventurers and detectives- none of these is unfamiliar to a person brought up on a diet of the exhaustive repertoire of the works of Enid Blyton (Darryl Waters). 

However, today my spell-check gives me an error on the word ‘Blyton’ and suggests that I replace it with Blaydon, Bolton or Byron. “Sacrilege” you and I would say and promptly add the sacred word to the electronic dictionary. 

The common thread that ran through all the works of Blyton, whether it was about mischievous pupils at St. Claire’s or the adventurous Secret Seven or the innumerable fairytales, was that of good values. It was essential for all pixies to wash behind their ears, for all elves and girls to wear neat clothes, for all schoolchildren to respect their elders and for all characters to be truthful and honorable at all times. The characters who could not keep up with these standards were either the grumpy villains or the bad ones who lost out in the end. Another admirable characteristic was that of acceptance of anybody and everybody. Everyone had some goodness or the capacity to reform. Anyone could join the gang of the nice. Newcomers became friends and everyone made to feel comfortable unless they were determined to remain hostile. Change was inevitable and each influenced the other in a collective growth towards a responsible adulthood. We never saw any of the characters become adults, since all of them were at their oldest, adolescent. Nevertheless, we could easily surmise that our friendly characters were the kind that we would like to populate the world we inhabit and inherit.

We often hear that such pre-post modern values have no place in our lives- they are the remnant of a plundering colonial British era, who conveniently practiced Orwellian ‘double-think’ to justify the colonization and the cultural invasion while maintaining the honor among thieves. But I am convinced that if at anytime, it is this time that we need such values to guide us. Like a Blytonian optimist, I believe that there is still some relevance left in such values.

A few years ago, from the same country as Blyton, came a woman who spun similar tales of magic. However, her take on life was not the same as that of the woman whose works she might have devoured as a child.

JK Rowling (no spell check, mind you) wrote the Harry Potter series and has never stopped singing on her way to the bank ever since. She brought back the television-addicted children and adults to the bookstores and to the pleasure of reading fiction. She managed this by the sleight of her pen and some excellent stage management by her publishers. (A far cry from the days of Darryl Waters who had to assume a masculine pseudonym to get herself published and taken seriously). She has a good style of writing that keeps the reader gripped to her voluminous works.

The eventual triumph of good over evil seems to be a perfunctory termination to work, which seems to highlight that the end justifies the means. Yes, we live in the kaliyuga. Such seminal works reconfirm our belief that everything is wrong with the world and that there is very little hope, even in the world of magic.

The very beginning of a term at Hogwart’s is by sorting by a hat, supposedly capable of perceiving the basic personality of the person. This though is unchangeable, is reformable by the diligent training by teachers. Rowling does not believe in the concept of wet clay in the hands of a potter. A Slytherin student always remains a conniving, clever, deceptive and dislikeable person even at the end of the story. A Griffindor student remains the likeable student, always reliable. And so on with the less dwelt upon Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.
What is more, even the magic teachers are not above suspicion. Some of them seem to have the occupational hazard of becoming the slaves of evil. We have bad teachers at school, but at all times, they are teachers who are concerned about our well-being, not people who connive to have us destroyed.

On the home front, there are dirty and unkempt rooms and scruffy children with poor regard for their elders. At the dormitories, the magic slaves, who only wear a wrap, clean any spillage or untidiness. 

A sore point that I find is the class distinction. A poor wizard or witch could not afford a Nimbus 2000 that had the cutting edge for Quidditch, whereas the girls at Mallory or the Famous Five could not be bothered about the brand of their lacrosse sticks or their bicycles respectively. 

Even sexual distinction in that the girls are diligent students, who make notes all through the year for the boys, who would be fooling around until the last hour, and despite all odds do remarkably well in their examinations. This makes one believe that hard work at the last moment is enough and not the time tested and easier regular work, which also leaves enough time to play the fool.

The rulebooks always change and interpreted to suit ones end. Banishment depends on which clause the Ministry of Magic decides to look up. The prefects are less than perfect in their judgment of a situation, which may demand reduction of points from the scoreboard. House loyalties have a way to creep in the way of fairness.

The predominance of death and manifold tragedies as a theme makes one believe that Rowling has made a ‘Lord of the Flies’ in response to ‘The Coral Island’.

I like to believe that children learn many of the truths of the world, without recourse to subversion or perversion of values. Looking in the direction of the audio-visual media to inculcate values seems to have become a tall order. Nevertheless, if an author can wield influence over her readers enough to buy every product related to it, I am certain that such influence can instill good values in them. 

We are living in a dog-eat-dog world. We must not sentence our future generations to live the same. That would be showing true concern for our children rather than buying them the latest gizmo. Rowling could use her influence to be the light at the end of the tunnel.