centered idea —for the benefit of children. Child empowerment is not to
dictate children but to give children opportunities to discover and explore their own selves.
d. Silencing and inherent silence
Speaking for children means that someone tries to silence them. In fact, adults speak for children. Nodelman 1992:
30 states that “we produce a children’s literature that is almost totally silent on the subject of sexuality,
presumably in order to allow ourselves to believe that children are innocent as we claim
—that their lives are devoid of sexuality”. It proves that adults try to make limitation on which subject should be discussed and applied in the
stories of children’s literature. It shows that adults want to keep children silent
in certain subjects. Child empowerment tries to encourage children to be able to speak, criticize, decide and act by their own. They have not only weakness
but also strength.
e. Power and domination
Knowledge especially “knowledge of „childhood’ Nodelman, 1992:31”
becomes adult’s source of power to justify their doing in order to dominate
children consciously and unconsciously. Children’s literature may be
classified as the subtle way for adult to dominate children. They try to shape children with lower-position and passive fictional characters which they create
in the stories. Child empowerment in children’s literature gives children power
and control to influence the others including adults.
C. The Previous Studies
There are some relevant previous researches which have been done before this research on
Child Empowerment
in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone under the same topic of child empowerment, children’s
literature andor the same novel. Those researches are explained below. The first research which is under the same topic
refers to Afdina Afitri’s Empowerment of Children in Edith Nesbit’s The Railway Children which was
done in 2004. Afitri’s research aims to identify the child empowerment and
describe the kinds of empowerment in the novel. In addition, Afitri’s research
is focused on the main character s’ characterization: thought, action and
feeling, and other characters’ and the author’s comment dedicated to the main
characters in order to analyze the child empowerment in the novel. The second research which is done under the same novel refers to Anthony
Lenn ard’s
Harry Potter and the Quest for Values: How the Boy Wizard Can Assist Young People in Making Choices
which was done in 2007
.
Lennard’s research analyses the Harry Potter series. It focuses on Harry Potter as the
main character in order to assist young readers to feel the aspects in the novel such as choices, power and thinking skills, and influence them to be useful
contributors of the modern world. In addition, Lennard’s research is done to
argue the use of these novels for promoting Christian values and to understand
