The orphan child is often written to be isolated, ultimately a character out of place in a trial-filled world through which they must navigate. One explanation of the common appearance of orphans in literature is that it reflects the high death rates of earlier centuries and that this mortality rate met at a conjuncture in time with the growth of children's literature to produce a large number of orphan protagonists. English and creative writing professor Laura Peters posits that, during the Victorian age, cultural systems and social constructions became reorganized to place the notion of family as a "building block" around which society was framed. As such, a variety of authors were drawn to writing on the topic of orphan-hood, as these parent-less children were on the outside of this newly fundamental social structure, thus constituting the potential for interesting and complex depictions of childhood. Orphans within literature symbolize, on a whole, detachment from both other people and the most fundamental social unit of a family; they are "the eternal Other" and categorized as outsiders seeking (or avoiding) incorporation into regular society. Although orphan children are often depicted as solitary and lonely, as to construct an empathetic character, many portrayals are also written with special powers they must use in order to achieve eventual social inclusion and happiness; in Harry Potter, the titular protagonist is an orphan oppressed by his relatives and social expectation whilst also being the "chosen one" tasked with combating the great evil within the series. The loss of an orphan's parents within literature is often depicted as a motivational trauma by which they are propelled to pursue their goal. Large amounts of academic writing on childhood are based upon the works of philosophers and historians such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Philippe Ariès. The work of the lattermost scholar, "Centuries of Childhood", is a widely cited text within spheres of child and literary studies, with scholars often discussing the ramifications of the distinctive separation of childhood and adulthood, or altogether rejecting Ariès' thesis. Ariès' proposition about the history of childhood has been rejected by some scholars on the basis that the idea was too quickly accepted into academic study without being comprehensively scrutinized and tested, thus becoming "dogma by dint of repetition". Instead of the brutal child-rearing practices and a supposed indifference parents felt toward children prior to the 16th century, scholar Stephen Wilson writes that children in pre-modern societies such as China, South India, and Europe were often nurtured during upbringing and grieved over upon death and were furthermore treated in a distinct fashion compared to adults.