Hermione and the Ragged Trousered House Elves

[arrowsmithbt]

No: HPFGUIDX 77086

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sylviablundell2001" <sylviablundell at a...> 
wrote:
> Has anyone out there read Robert Tressell's great book The Ragged 
> Trousered Philanthropists?  The attitude of the house elves is 
> precisely that of the working-class characters the hero, Frank Owen, 
> is trying to help.  Tressell calls them "philantropists" because they 
> are happy to give away the fruits of their labours to their "betters" 
> who are happy to exploit them. "House elves has no right to be 
> unhappy when there is work to be done and masters to be served" 
> forsooth!! Admitted Hermione goes about it in a rather ham-fisted 
> way, but I prefer her attitude to Ron's, who doesn't give a damn 
> about house-elves, so long as they get a decent breakfast on the 
> table at the right time.
> P.S. An earlier poster thought the book was about the nobility of the 
> working class.  It's nothing of the kind.  Say rather sheer 
> breathtaking stupidity and poverty of ambition.


The previous poster was me and I haven't taken any offence - I'm happy
for anyone to interpret any book the way they want to, it adds to the fun.
I first read it when I was 19 and idealistic; I read it again 35 years later
and found it unbearably trite and contrived. Tastes change and so do
critical standards. Tressell *was* a socialist activist and the book was
intended to be a polemic against exploitation and for the innate stiff-
upper-lip, bearing-up in difficult circumstances of the oppressed. It
was intended to help increase Trade Union activism. (This is from a
relative who talked to Tressell soon after it was published.)  

So far we've three Elves suffering from supposed ill-treatment (Dobby,
yes; Winky, maybe, though Crouch was involved in a cover-up, and
Winky was the fall-guy; and Kreacher who for whatever reason has 
been turned into a monster). 
Set against this are scores happily beavering away at Hogwarts and 
by implication, other establishments. Of the three Elves, two of them 
are unhappy (Winky and Kreacher), but only because they cannot do 
their duty as they see it.
Maybe there are parallels, but I think it's stretching it a bit.

Kneasy