Develop a response to Maria Tatar’s claim in “No More Adventures in Wonderland
Develop a response to Maria Tatar’s claim in “No More Adventures in Wonderland”
that the “savagery we offer children today” through popular culture is more
unforgiving than it once was” by presenting a comparative analysis of some of the
themes in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of
Azkhaban (domination, identity, community, nation, aggression, non-violence, etc).
Beyond merely testing Tatar’s hypothesis that these films represent a decisive shift
toward narratives that depict children "struggling to survive," assess the validity of
Tatar’s position in relationship to the argument put forth by the hosts of the podcast
Witch, Please! Marcelle Kosman and Hannah McGregor argue that “narratives of loss,
suffering and redemption” do not threaten the “imaginative worlds” of children’s
culture or the sense of “enchantment” these worlds inspire; instead, these more
macabre films offer children a reflection and representation of their experience of
negative emotional states: alienation, precarity, intimidation, competition, and so on.