Introduction, 1 Space and Play: Space to Play, 2 Fantasy and the World Within, 3 School: Finding One’s Place in the World, 4 The Hero’s Quest: Stopping Places on the Quest, 5 Alchemy 6 The Theme of Death, Conclusion, Bibliography, Index
Biography
Mary Pyle is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist who graduated with her PhD in English Literature from Trinity College Dublin.
"This is an exciting and important contribution to our knowledge about the Harry Potter series and to the wider critical conversation about children’s literature. As a project that drew equally on the author’s professional expertise in psychoanalysis and her deep passion for children’s literature this is an interdisciplinary work and there is so much in it for both scholars of psychoanalysis and scholars of children’s literature to learn from and benefit from. It opens up whole new ways for these disciplines to speak to one another.
It demonstrates that there are complex unconscious reasons to read and re-read certain books, and tackles many of the difficult themes in the series, notably the central role of death, and shows that combining psychoanalysis with children’s literature offers us rich and innovative ways to understand and engage with these texts."
- Dr Jane Suzanne Carroll, Associate Professor in Children’s Literature, Trinity College Dublin.
