Abstract

Complex representations of identity abound in children or youth’s fantasy literature, particularly in texts that employ the shape-shifting motif. In two of the most studied youth’s fantasy literature texts, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Sword in the Stone, Ursula K. Le Guin and T. H. White link shape-shifting to the identity and development of their protagonists. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series also serves as an excellent case study, and her use of the motif, and its connected themes of identity and the development of the hero, places her within the tradition epitomized by White and Le Guin. The third installment of Rowling’s series, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, foregrounds theriomorphic (that is, human to animal) shape-shifting through its focus on Animagi and the werewolf figure Remus Lupin. This paper considers Rowling's texts a part of what Giselle Liza Anatol identifies as “this generation’s most formative narratives,” not only because they represent identity in varied and contradictory terms, but also because they “reflect and/or comment upon the cultural assumptions and ideological tensions of contemporary society” (xv).