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HPfGU #41446

Official Philip Nel Question #10: Class

RE: Official Philip Nel Question #10: Class


Note: I've rearranged the text of Pip's message in this response in an attempt to make my reply somewhat less repetitive and more coherent. I have really tried not to do any damage to Pip's authorial intent in the process; if she feels that I have nonetheless somehow misrepresented her, then I offer my most sincere apologies.

About my class analysis of the HP books, which I likened in some ways to the works of Agatha Christie, Pip wrote:

This is an oversimplification of Christie. . . .It is also an oversimplification of JKR...

Yes, of course it is. But when we talk about class (or gender, for that matter) in either a series or an ouvre, then we are by necessity going to be speaking in terms of gestalt. Of course there are a few clever representatives of the lower classes to be found in Christie's eighty-some-odd novels. But her works are overwhelmingly dominated by the stock characters of the adenoidal housemaid, the unbelievably stupid "working girl" secretary, the mean-spirited gold-digger, the brutish slattern, and so on.

Similarly, when we talk about class in the works of JKR, we are going to be looking at the overall scope of the series, not evaluating each and every character to see whether the author's use of the stock in that particular case is justified or realistic, or whether it serves a useful narrative function. Of course stocks serve a useful narrative function! If they didn't, then writers wouldn't use them. But the particular types of stock and stereotype that authors do use, and the precise ways in which they use them, are significant. They affect the overall slant of the writing; they produce a gestalt impression in the mind of the reader. They convey meaning.

...since at the moment we have seen very little of the Wizarding World outside of Hogwarts.

Well, as I read it, that was rather the point that Eileen was making in post 37420: that Hogwarts exists to serve a specific segment of the wizarding world, one which does not include the working classes or the urban poor. We therefore only meet people from those backgrounds when we leave the milieu of Hogwarts.

Where cause and effect come into this equation, of course, is a matter of dispute. On the one hand, as Eileen wrote:

If some students are admitted from the wizarding lower classes, they must soon pick it [the proper accent] up. They would not, after a Hogwarts education, talk as the two learned custodians of the Knight Bus.

She then went on to speak of an "aristocracy of education." This is the same possibility, I think, that you yourself suggested here:

The problem with detecting working class students is, that an education beyond 18 in Britain (and in many ways Hogwarts has a 'university' ethos) dumps you firmly into the middle classes anyway, whether you have working class parents or not. Anyone who studies at Hogwarts is going to find themselves a middle-class wizard (and will probably be very nicely spoken, too, whether their mother takes the trolley up the Hogwarts Express or not ;-) ).

Agreed. This was the very possibility that I was trying to suggest when I expressed my doubts about JKR's claim in interview that Hogwarts is in fact the only school for magical students in the UK.

I wrote:

Indeed, there are things in the text itself which strongly suggest that Hogwarts is not in fact, as JKR has stated in interview, the only wizarding school in Great Britain. Hermione refers to it as the "best" school of its kind.

Pip:

"It's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard...(PS/SS p.79) - which implies more 'the best in the world' rather than 'the best in the UK'.

Well...it might. I find it rather ambiguous myself. Hermione immediately prefaces the statement with this expression of pleasure:

'Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard—'

Now, she could just be saying that she was "ever so pleased" to discover that she had magical talent at all—and then doubly pleased to learn that, because she is fortunate enough to live in the UK, she is therefore entitled to attend the very best school of witchcraft in the world.

She could. It's possible. To my mind, though, that line of dialogue seems to suggest that Hermione herself, at any rate, believes that there do exist other, less prestigious schools of witchcraft to which she might well have been relegated.

This touches on the possibility that you raise here:

Can Stan and Ernie do enough magic to become 'fully qualified wizards'? There's a huge difference between being musical enough to be taught an instrument and being musically talented enough to get into, say, Cheetham's School of Music (a specialist secondary school).

Yes, there is a difference, and here again, I think that we are compelled to consider the possibility that there do exist far less prestigious schools than Hogwarts in the UK, schools to which those not magically talented enough to attend Hogwarts, yet still too magically apt to be designated "Squibs," might be sent. This would be consistent with Neville's description of his family's joy to learn that he had indeed been deemed "magical enough" for Hogwarts.

So yes. There is certainly textual evidence to suggest that education—and thus social standing—within the wizarding world might be determined by innate magical talent, rather than by the class of ones parents.

On the other hand, as Eileen's message also points out, every single one of the wizard-born Hogwarts students whose parental occupation we actually know is the child of either a ministry official or an idle aristocrat. (Lucius Malfoy may also hold some form of government sinecure in addition to all of his, er, philanthropic and unpaid positions: I am told that the trading cards, which I myself have not seen, list some type of "underminister" position as his occupation.)

It is also implied that many of the children whose parents' jobs we don't know were acquainted with one another even before starting school, which rather suggests that their families moved in the same social strata.

Furthermore, we have never once heard even a first-year student at Hogwarts speak with the "wrong" sort of accent. The only Hogwarts-educated character we have ever heard speak "improperly" is Hagrid, who also, er, can't spell. I tend to agree with Eileen that this does not seem particularly believable, and that it can probably be read as comedic trope. If the children of the lower classes of the wizarding world are indeed assimilating, then either they're doing so awfully quickly, or JKR has simply never bothered to show us any evidence that they attend Hogwarts at all.

I wrote:

Only Muggle-born students, who are obviously a special case, have parents who do not come from the middle classes or above.

Pip asked:

How do you know this?

Er, because that's what's in the text. Because of all of the students whose parents' occupations we have been told, only the Muggle-born Creevey brothers and the Muggle-born Tom Riddle have parents who do not come from the middle classes or above. (Well...actually, I suppose that Riddle's father actually was wealthy, but for purposes of this discussion, I would consider the orphanage in which he was raised to serve the relevant "parental" function.)

I think that we may be talking past one another here. I am describing what the author has actually chosen to show us in the text. This is obviously not the same thing as what may be "true" in the fictive world as the author imagines it or, for that matter, as we the readers choose to imagine it. When we look at what's actually given us by the text, though, then so far this is simply the fact of the matter: no wizard-raised child at Hogwarts that we know of has a father who is not either independently wealthy or working in the civil service.

We haven't been introduced to a student with the signal that 'they were from a working class wizard family', no.

No, we haven't. This doesn't mean that they don't exist in the fictive world, of course. But it does mean that they do not exist in the text. And I do view that as significant. The author chooses what to focus on when she writes, and those choices in and of themselves convey meaning.

We've been introduced to the Weasley's, who have a good Hogwarts education but absolutely no money.

And who, it is strongly implied, have been having large families and strained resources, while nonetheless travelling in circles noticable to the likes of Lucius Malfoy, for more than one generation. "My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford." Lucius also takes Arthur to task for the "company he keeps." I read the Weasleys' social class to be coded as impoverished minor aristocracy, or at the very least as "impoverished but genteel."

Oh, and on the topic of aristocracy, in response to my description of the "peers are not to be trusted" attitude, Pip wrote:

Incidentally, I seem to have missed Lucius Malfoy's elevation to the peerage - when did it happen? :-)

It happened in analogy. ;-)

As far as I can tell, there is no "aristocracy" in the sense of an actual peerage in the wizarding world at all (although it would not surprise me in the least if we were to learn in future canon that there had been one once, but that at some point in history it had been dissolved). But we are naturally dealing with analogy and parallel whenever we talk about social class as reflected in the wizarding world, and it seems quite clear to me that Lucius Malfoy may be read as analagous to a member of that social class. I don't really think that we're ever going to see the Weasleys attend Mass either, but I do think that Richard Adams' reading of them as analogous to an old Anglo-Catholic family is perfectly defensible.

As someone from a working class background, my main interest is to ask 'would I have been admitted to Hogwarts if I had had magical abilities?' And the answer JKR gives me is 'yes'.

Okay. So your chief question, then, would be this: "Is the wizarding world's class system more of a meritocracy, or more of an aristocracy?" Would that be a fair assessment?

It's an interesting question in its own right, and for what it's worth, I'd say that it's impossible to say for sure at this point. As outlined above, I can see canonical support for either answer to that particular question. As JKR herself does seem fairly strongly committed to egalitarian principles, though, then I would say that the answer, in terms of how the author herself is imagining the system working, would indeed very likely be "yes."

In terms of what the text actually shows us, though? In those terms, the wizarding working classes are not represented at Hogwarts. They simply aren't.

Why should the books deal with the working classes!!!

There's no particular reason why they should. As, indeed, they don't, which was rather my point.

What particularly interests me about this in the context of the Nel discussion is what it reveals about the text's ambivalence, its inconsitency, when it comes to the subject of social class. What I perceive about this series is that it simply does not concern itself very much with the working classes. It concerns itself with a ruling elite. Even if that ruling elite for which Hogwarts is the appropriate educational preparation is a meritocracy of sorts, we are nonetheless never actually shown any signs of lower than middle class origins among its wizard-born student body. If such a population exists, then it is invisible to the reader. Members of the wizarding world's lower-than-middle-classes who are depicted in the text are only seen outside of Hogwarts, and outside of the circles in which Harry usually travels; they are unimportant characters, and they are roughly sketched as "stocks."

About those stocks...

Personally I don't much like Stan Shunpike - but I have met lads like him in real life. He's not unrealistic. Nor is the cheery trolley lady.

Well, most character stocks have their roots in real generalizations, don't they? Stereotypes don't come out of thin air.

And how do you know she regards the students as her 'betters' anyway?

I don't. In fact, as someone who works in a service profession myself, I feel virtually convinced that the lunch trolley witch wouldn't really regard the students on the Hogwarts Express as her "betters" at all. ;-)

Nor, for that matter, do I think that Harry and Ron view her as an inferior (although I'm almost certain that nasty class-conscious little Draco Malfoy would). They are children, and she is the friendly and kindly adult who brings the food 'round on the train, and from their perspective, that's probably about as far as they ever really think about her at all.

From a class perspective, though, she does occupy a lower social standing than they do. They are attending the school which churns out the ruling elite of the wizarding world. She's selling them snacks and sandwiches. Her role in the text, like the roles of the various shopkeepers of Diagon Alley, is merely to serve a function, and her descriptors—"plump," "cheerful," "smiling"—are just stock shorthand for the stereotypical plump and cheerful service woman who calls you "luv" or "dear" (or, in this country, "hon") when she brings you your tea.

There's nothing wrong with that at all, of course. It would be a very tedious series indeed if the reader were forced to learn all about the private lives of every single unimportant character who wandered on by. I was just pointing out the extent to which all of the members of a certain social class are sketched by type on route to making a rather larger point about the class focus of the series as a whole, and what assumptions that class focus serves to convey to readers of the work.

What makes this interesting, to my mind, is that the particular kinds of stocks which are being used are emblematic of a literary approach to social class that is strongly aligned with a certain set of values and mores and judgements, a certain way of viewing the world, and that it is a way of viewing the world that elsewhere in the text, JKR seems to be going very far out of her way to critique and even to deride.

So there is an inconsistency here, a "fault line," if you will. It is one of the points on which the text (or its author) comes across as ambivalent, or even as somewhat conflicted.

Textual "fault lines" of this sort tend to create tension in readers, tension which can manifest itself both positively or negatively. On the one hand, they can encourage "reader resistance," which is a term used to describe the phenomenon of readers deliberately choosing to interpret a text against the grain, so to speak -- reading in violation of what even they suspect to be the author's true intent (slash readings are a good example of this phenomenon).

On the other hand, tension also helps to fuel reader interest and emotional engagement. Your own emotional investment in the question of whether or not the wizarding world is at all meritocatic might serve as an example of this one. Honestly, if there were no tension or inconsistency implicit in the text on this point, then it is unlikely that so many of us would bother to spend so much time and energy debating the point. ;-) Books that cause no tension in their readers are usually pretty insipid. They don't encourage active reader engagement; because they inspire no anxiety, they inspire little in the way of irritation, but neither do they inspire much in the way of curiosity, of of love. They therefore don't tend to stand the test of time very well. Fiction with fault lines is fiction that breathes.

-----------

A few last words on some points on which I seem to have caused offense.

Perhaps you simply haven't met many small 'c' conservative, mddle class people, who nonetheless think that racism, classism, sexism are bad things, that there should be equal opportunity for all, and that it was a good day when they abolished the death penalty. However, they do exist.

Of course they do. As, I assure you, do a number of Guardian-reading "chattering classes" type people who nonetheless hold some astonishingly anti-egalitarian views.

But we're talking about broad general types here, and honestly now, did it really surprise you when Vernon Dursley started shooting his mouth off about how hanging's too good for people like that? I mean, did it take you aback? Did it strike you as in any way out of keeping for the (admittedly incredibly broadly caricatured) stereotype that the Dursleys represent? For that matter, were you shocked when Aunt Marge started drawing parallels between poor Harry and an sickly, ill-bred bulldog pup?

Because I have to tell you, I really wasn't gaping in the stunned amazement of a reader whose preconceptions had just been shattered when either of those things happened in the text. JKR does often go out of her way to mess with reader expectation by breaking type. But she's not done that (yet) with the Dursleys.

Could I point out that I find the very term 'lower classes' disdainful? It implies to me that I am some species of insect, or something equally lower than human. ;-) Presumably you are using it in an ironic sense? ;-)

I'm terribly sorry. I was speaking within the context of the very metaphor in which the term "middle class" is framed in the first place, a spatial metaphor which views the "middle" as sandwiched somewhere between the classes above it ("upper") and the classes below it ("lower").

Of course, it is rather a vile paradigm to begin with (and besides, the "middle class" isn't even in the middle at all, economically and statistically speaking). But the metaphor is rather difficult to avoid when one chooses to discuss class hierarchy. I absolutely do not believe that there is anything inferior or lowly about people who hold certain jobs, and I do regret it if I gave that impression.

Some of the comments made appear to imply a belief that someone with an apparently subservient job (the trolley lady) is automatically inferior to Hogwarts students - which may be the reader's interpretation of the text rather than the author's.

The author doesn't get to interpret the text. That's the reader's privilege. ;-)

I certainly don't think that a woman who sells food and beverages on a train is in any way inferior to a Hogwarts student, and I highly doubt that JKR does either -- not, at any rate, on any conscious level. I do think, though, that she has written a fiction that concerns itself primarily with the ruling elite of an imaginary culture, while simultaneously revealing a great deal of authorial ambivalence over to what extent that ruling elite is determined by rights of inheritance. I also think that she has chosen to make use of a number of stereotypes, stocks, and genre conventions which give tacit implicit approval to many of the very ideas and attitudes which she derides in more explicit ways. In short, I see a good deal of inconsistency, a good deal of ambivalence in this text, much of which seems to center around the issue of class.

For all we know the trolley lady could be a working-class research witch who does the six times yearly job for some extra cash to buy the rare herbs she needs. [grin]

Are you saying that if this were the case, then she would be in some way superior to an ordinary run-of-the-mill trolley lady who had no such intellectual ambitions? [exceptionally evil grin]

—Elkins, who must now run off to work to, er, serve her social betters.

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References:

deathtocapslock: HBP Chapter Ten

*Uh-oh. Settle in for the premiere episode of The Days of Our Dark Lord’s Lives.

*Ron can’t use the HBP book with Harry because he’d have to get Harry to keep reading out the instructions to him and that would look suspicious. Err…yeah, that’s it. Because it’s not like Harry could write stuff like “stir 7 times clockwise, once counter-clockwise” without being noticed. Or use magic to a) make the handwriting legible (you know that spell must exist) or b) copy the words from the book to Ron’s book in different handwriting (you know that spell exists too). Making Harry appear to be a gifted student requires a Trio team effort....