Public School Series (was Inbreeding...)

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 176322

From: Mellanie Crowther <magpye29 at hotmail.com>
>I think it's sometimes hard for us in the States to understand 
>how pervasive an influence school is in British society. JKR 
>modeled Hogwarts after the British public (that would be private 
>to us here in the US) school system. The contacts one makes during 
>one's school career are far more lasting than here in the States, 
>where we have a more mobile, transient society.

Christopher Hitchens did an interesting review of DH in the New York Times Book Review (I THINK it was the August 12th issue). One thing he points out about the novels was one of the first observations I had about PS/SS (my first observation was, "why didn't the author just use the historic term "Philosopher's Stone"?); that it uses the template of the standard British public school story, with magic added. 

Back in the late 60's, I lived in the Netherlands (I was about 1st Year age back then). There was a bookstore on the corner which had a LOT of books in English; virtually all British publications. And I discovered the public school novel. Apparently, they were very popular around the Depression and the 2nd World War, although Tom Brown's Schooldays could technically be said to belong to the genre. They would generally follow a group of friends, who would have small problems to solve along the way, and a major problem to solve within the book. And there were standard types: the regular guy, who was often the leader, the athletic type, up for anything at any time but prone to taking action before thinking, the brain, the faithful but somewhat incompetent one,etc. The characters could be mixed (often the brain was the foolhardy one, putting his inventions into action with a few bugs still in the system). The problems the students had to solve were often school related; one I recall, for example, had the big problem being saving the school's rugby field (and the small problems often helped solve the big one; in this case, an old trunk accidentally bought at auction in an early chapter happened to contain the long-lost original copy of the school's lease of the field, and a good chunk of the novel was made up of attempts to PROVE it was the original copy). 

In any case, in the HP books, at least the first few, Harry was the regular guy, Hermione was the brain, Ron was the foolhardy one, and Neville was the incompetent but faithful one. Even side characters like Luna were straight out of the Public School novels (for those who managed to get through the Harry Potter novels without knowing what a public school is, it's a privately owned, generally boarding, school where students studied in classes, as differentiated from private tutoring. As Public Schools tended to be for parents who had money, they created a fantasy of upper class living to working class children; often one of the main characters was a scholarship student, so that the lower class kids could better identify with one of the characters). 

The system of prefects was initially a cost-cutting measure; jobs done by students means that you don't have to pay someone to do them. Somehow, it became a means of leadership. The only thing missing were the school bullies (believe me, Draco and crew have NOTHING on the school bullies from public school novels). 

But there is one big difference about Hogwarts: For the most part, it's the only wheel in town. Virtually everybody in the WW in Great Britain went to Hogwarts. Therefore, they are all connected.

Bart