Official Philip Nel Question #10: Class

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 41403

An excellent essay by Elkins, one of her best, and deeply disturbing 
to me, a middle class English person who grew up believing that the 
ideal world represented in the Harry Potter series (and much other 
English fiction) was the real one.

Just a few minor comments.

> Richard Adams' excellent article, "Harry Potter and the Closet 
Conservative," 

I agree this is a good article, despite criticism by listies.  The 
point is not whether wizards can help their magic, but whether it is 
metaphor for something in real life.  It is almost unique among 
published articles critical of HP in that the author has evidently 
read all four books with a good deal of attention.  Even the 
criticism about Voldemort being more powerful is a matter of 
interpretation: he can now touch Harry, whereas was presumably 
thought to be mortal in his earlier time of power.  That the Malfoys' 
castle is not actually canon is something I have to pinch myself to 
remember: everything about them says their manor is a castle, 
probably as remote as Hogwarts.

>Dr. Nel's question was this:
>
>> Do the novels critique or sustain a class system? 
>
>The rub here, of course, is that they do both. On the one hand, 
through their depiction of the Dursleys, they explicitly critique the 
values of a very particular social group: conservative, middle class, 
flag-waving, insular, hopelessly nostalgic Tory Old England. 

I think possibly there is a difference between the Dursleys' Toryism 
and JKR's values.  Adams describes her as an old fashioned 'one-
nation' Tory, while (I think) the Dursleys are more in the mould of 
the modern Thatcherite.  The relevant distinction being, I think, 
that the former sees formal political obligations to the poor and 
weak, the latter doesn't (naturally I can't comment on the *personal* 
treatment of the poor and weak by people of Thatcherite persuasion - 
though I doubt the Dursleys are charitable in action or giving).  So 
JKR does have a place, albeit a restricted one, for Stan Shunpike: I 
think the Dursleys would quite happily do without him, not realising 
their economic dependence on him IRL.

>The working classes are simply not encompassed by the vision of the 
series as a whole. Only Muggle-born students, who are obviously a 
special case, have parents who do not come from the middle classes or 
above.

What about Neville?

>This is damning indeed, because within the strangely conservative 
middle class world view which really does often seem to me to be 
informing these books, good people are above all else *English* -- or 
perhaps, as this *is* JKR, we ought to say "British?" ;-)

Well, JKR is, despite residing for the moment in Scotland, English.

> Pettigrew was the real culprit -- and the narrative voice rather 
gives us the impression that the author believes that he really 
*does* "deserve to die."

I'd like to hear a bit more of the canon support for this view.  I 
would say that there is the possibility of conscious author 
manipulation in the Shrieking Shack scene - we are supposed to feel 
he deserves to die, to prepare the ground for Harry's mercy.  Of 
course, Harry doesn't ever pronounce that he deserves *not* to die, 
as his reasoning is based on preventing his father's friends from 
becoming killers.  Do you feel that the narrative voice in GOF 
supports this view?  I find it hard to tell, because of the *genre* 
expectation that he will go the way of Gollum and Grima, whatever I 
feel he might deserve.

I must emphasise, these are minor nitpicks.  Virtually everything 
that I have snipped, I not only agreed with, it was a revelation for 
me.  I had not heard of reader resistance or discontent until joining 
HPFGU.

David