19th-century Mores (yay!)

[mary_j_59]

Travis Prinzi got back to me with a very nice note last night, so all systems are go! He and I disagree strongly on (1) theology and (2) the way we see the "Potter books", but he liked my paper, anyway. :) It may still need a little editing, but I do think it makes sense.

Here goes:
Author mary-j-59
Title J.K. Rowling and the mores of the 19th century
Genre essay, about 3,000 words. G-rated
Credits Thanks to Bohemianspirit, Raisin-gal, and Cardigrl, whose posts and the resulting discussions inspired me, Travis Prinzi for allowing me to quote, and my sister for her comments and encouragement. The essay follows the cut:

J.K.Rowling and the Mores of the 19th Century

Back when I thought the Harry Potter books might be classics in the making, I used to describe them as Dickensian. I had several features of the books in mind when using that term. For one thing, like Dickens, Rowling seems to borrow plot elements from many other sources. For another, she is fond of satire. Third, she tends to write her characters, initially, as caricatures who gradually develop some depth. Then, like Dickens, she attempts to comment critically on society. Although these books aren't quite the classics I was hoping and expecting they would be, I do think the adjective "Dickensian" could still be applied to them. This brief essay is an attempt to explain why Rowling's novels are especially reminiscent of 19th century British literature.

1. Shoemaker, stick to your last; weaver, stick to your loom.
It's puzzled many readers - especially Slytherin fans and those, like Jodel at the Red Hen website, attempting to find a coherent message in the books, that ambition is seen as the salient quality for Slytherin house - and therefore as bad. After all, we are told repeatedly in the text, Slytherin is the house that produces Dark Wizards, and also followers of Voldemort, a pureblood supremacist. As Jodel said, what has ambition got to do with pureblood prejudice? I, and many others, added: why is it bad to be ambitious? Doesn't it depend what you're ambitious for?

Yes, exactly. Ambition in general may or may not be wrong in the Potterverse - and pureblood prejudice would be quite likely in a conservative house like Hufflepuff - or, for that matter, Gryffindor - rather than in a set of movers, shakers and social climbers like the Slytherins. But that is the point. Slytherins are social climbers. And, in the classic 19th century British novel, social ambition is always a mark of potential evil. Even a humane reformer like Dickens was not terribly concerned with allowing people to better their stations in life. In Hard Times, the so-called self-made man Josiah Bounderby in fact has a loving mother - from a humble background - and it's a mark of his poor character that he denies her very existence for most of the novel, and then is humiliated by her in the end. In Great Expectations, young Pip, trying to make a place for himself as a wealthy man in London society, is embarrassed by his humble brother-in-law, Joe Gargery the blacksmith. We readers are meant to cringe at Pip's treatment of Joe, just as Pip (eventually) does himself. Pip, being a good young man, corrects his error and reconciles with Joe - especially after he discovers that his good fortune isn't the gift of an upper-class person, but rather his reward for kindness to a convicted thief. Bounderby, lacking Pip's basic decency, simply gets his comeuppance. In both cases, though, it's quite clear that ambition led these characters astray, damaging their moral character and making them cause pain to family members. In general, people born to a certain station in life should stay there. It's possible to improve one's lot to an extent - for example, the young pickpocket Charlie, who reforms, gets his own barrow and lives a happy life as a small businessman - but trying to leave one's social class altogether is the mark of a bad character.

There is, of course, a reason for that. To allow people to move from one social class to another would have required a pretty radical change in 19th-century British society. For if some can climb, others can fall. This brings me to cardigrl's fascinating comment on James Potter and the Gryffindors in the Potterverse. Yes, Voldemort is evil; yes, they are good and right to fight him - but part of what they are fighting to preserve is the status quo. And a little social climber like Severus Snape, who aspires far beyond his station, must be put down. It is not insignificant, I think, that James Potter and Sirius Black are both members of the social elite - independently wealthy purebloods, and, in Black's case, from a very old family. And they, of course, are the "good guys".

2. What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh.
As I said above, James Potter and Sirius Black are members of the social elite in the Wizarding World. Severus Snape, in contrast, is a social climber, and that is part of what's the matter with him. We do not, however, meet his parents, so we can't tell what problems they might have bequeathed to him. But we do know Tom Riddle's, and also Harry Potter's, and the contrast is instructive. For the first few books, readers tend to idolize James and Lily Potter, rather as Harry does himself. If their images are rather tarnished by the end of Deathly Hallows, it remains true that there was apparently no coercion in their relationship, that they married for love, and that they died to defend their son from the evil man who wanted to kill him. Harry is constantly compared to both his parents, but especially to his father, throughout the books.

Tom Riddle, in contrast, is a child of deception and coercion. His mother uses a love potion on his father, who abandons her, leaving her alone and impoverished in London. Unlike James Potter, Tom Riddle, senior, neither wants nor protects his son. In interviews, Rowling has said that Tom Riddle, junior, is monstrous because his parents did not love or want him, even before his birth. That is a harsh message indeed, but there is more. Riddle actually resembles his parents, as Harry does his. Merope Gaunt, his mother, seems merely pitiable, but she is skilled and ruthless enough to brew a love potion to enchant her child's father. Tom Riddle, senior, is shown to be rather cruel and self-absorbed. Tom, junior, has all of his parents' failings, with a few more added. The idea that a child is always a copy of his parents can also be found quite frequently in 19th century British literature. One classic novel that clearly influenced Rowling is Wuthering Heights; Severus and Lily, and their relationship, bear some resemblance to that of Heathcliff and Cathy, the doomed lovers in that book. Heathcliff is an orphan and a foundling with a retentive memory and a vengeful nature, and he plans to use his own son as an instrument of vengeance on those who wronged him in the past. Here, he talks to the narrator, the servant woman Nelly, about his plans and his disappointment in the boy:

Don't you think Hindley would be proud of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine - - But there's this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver. Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first-rate qualities, and they are lost - (Wuthering Heights, page 183)

There are several remarkable things about this speech, but the thing that struck me most strongly, even when I first read it as a child, is Heathcliff's self-loathing and his contempt for his own son. Hareton, the son of the landowner and the rightful heir, is gold. Heathcliff's son - and, by extension, Heathcliff himself -are tin. Here we see several 19th century mores at once: the idea that ambition is likely to lead to evil, and that the poor should not aspire to the higher social classes. But most of all, we see expressed the idea that a child inherits his moral character from his parents. Heathcliff's son, Linton, is pitiable, but also contemptible: he is a sadist, a physical coward, sickly, weak and lazy. Hareton, in contrast, is physically strong, has a good mind, and is grateful to those who have shown him any kindness. He is rather better than his parents, so that one might actually wonder where he got his good characteristics: His mother was a fool and his father a violent alcoholic who abused him, as well as Heathcliff. But he is, of course, of higher social status than Heathcliff, so it stands to reason - at least, in the world of 19th century literature - that he would have a better character than the child of a foundling.

The unfortunate Linton Heathcliff brings out yet another point we see in the history of Tom Riddle. Hareton is a wanted child, conceived by parents who loved each other and born early in their marriage. Linton's mother, Isabella, flees her husband in fear and anger, and keeps her son from his father whom she considers a brute. Heathcliff, for his part, has no interest in his son and does not inquire after him for ten years, only meeting the boy when he is nearly 12. The child who is loved and wanted has a good character; the child whose father rejects him is warped. Isn't this very similar to the stories of Harry Potter and Tom Riddle?

3. Ooh, those awful foreigners! (and the White Man's burden)
Heathcliff has another disadvantage, which his son presumably inherits. He is not a native Englishman*. Here is our first glimpse of him:

. . . over Miss Cathy's head, I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough both to walk and talk -- indeed, its face looked older than Catherine's -- yet, when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. (Wuthering Heights, page 37)

He is constantly referred to, throughout the novel, as a "gypsy" and an interloper, and his violent, vengeful and passionate nature seems both foreign and, in some ways, inferior to the "Christian", British temperament. This, too, is a common trope in 19th-century British literature. Emily Bronte's sister Charlotte, in her novel Villette, contrasts the amorality of the Catholic Belgian girls to the Protestant (and very British) rectitude of her heroine. Similarly, in Jane Eyre, Jane's courage, loyalty and highly ethical nature are contrasted to the insane and violent Bertha, Mr. Rochester's first wife - who, significantly, is of mixed race and exotic in appearance. And Mr. Rochester's ward, Jane's pupil Adele, is the child of a French courtesan and, though a sweet-natured little girl, is overly concerned with dress and appearance and seems to lack depth of character and feeling.

We see these same prejudices carried unexamined into the Harry Potter books. For one thing, Severus Snape's rather foreign appearance (very dark hair and eyes, oily, a sallow complexion and a long nose) are repeatedly emphasized. Of course, Snape is the head ot Slytherin house, and that house has a foreign taint; while all the other founders of Hogwarts have good Anglo Saxon names, Salazar Slytherin shares a Christian name with a Portuguese dictator. Naturally, Slytherin must be the “evil” house. Then there are the foreign students who participate in the tournament in GOF. Viktor Krum is a sports hero, to be sure, and he has the guts to go against his headmaster and take the Muggleborn Hermione to the Yule ball. He is a good foreigner. Nevertheless - even though he dates her - he cannot manage to pronounce Hermione's name correctly, and he plays no significant part in the battle against Voldemort. Fleur Delacour, the other foreign student we meet, comes across as stereotypically vain and self-absorbed when we first meet her. This impression is somewhat corrected in later books, especially HBP, but I'd suggest that is because she loves and marries an Englishman, and is therefore assimilated as an English housewife. More on this later.

But there are other stereotypes in the books far more offensive than these. The goblins are the most blatant example. They are physically small, dark of hair and eyes, clannish, and long-nosed; what's more, they control all the money. Worse yet, they have no compunction about "cheating" humans, and have, it seems, started several wars. This picture of the goblins combines several of the worst anti-Semitic stereotypes. As other commentators have pointed out, the giants and centaurs also fit a couple of typical 19th century stereotypes - those of "savage" or "natural" man. The centaurs are the noble savages; the giants are the brutes who must be tamed or controlled - or, if it is impossible to tame or control them, exterminated for the safety of civilized people. If that sounds harsh, it does fit the picture we are given in the book, where Grawp, Hagrid's brother, never learns to speak in words of more than two syllables and constantly mispronounces the few words he knows - as well as being mindlessly violent when we first encounter him. Some of his interactions with Hermione are reminiscent of King Kong with the human woman he loves - but King Kong himself is a projection of "savage" human characteristics.

All this is quite troubling in a series of books that overtly attempt to celebrate tolerance and diversity. Cardigrl and Bohemianspirit have gone into greater detail about the types of racism and prejudice found in Wizarding society itself; if you have not read their essays, I would encourage you to do so; I've linked to them below. But, to me, the most troubling, and perhaps the most classically 19th-century racial attitude that finds its way into the books is the extremely patronizing attitude towards Muggles. Wizards - even good, Muggle-loving wizards like Arthur Weasley; even Muggleborns like Hermione Granger - feel absolutely no compunction about manipulating, lying to, and brainwashing Muggles for their own good. Arthur routinely obliviates Muggles as part of his job, and Hermione alters her parents' memories and sends them to Australia to protect them from Voldemort - apparently without ever asking their opinions, although she is their child. And Arthur actually speaks of Muggles as if they were children. "Bless them, they'll go to any lengths to ignore magic, even if it's staring them in the face. . ." (COS, page 38). In an essay on his "Hog’s Head" website, Travis Prinzi defines this attitude as "dysconscious racism", and points to the casually racist comments of Molly and Ron Weasley as examples. To me, what Arthur says in the quote above is just as clearly racist. His attitude, and the general Wizarding attitude toward both Muggles and other magical races, reminds me of Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden", the full text of which can be found at the Fordham website here: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html.
Inferior races - like Muggles or house elves or goblins or giants - must be ruled for their own benefit, to protect them from themselves. If they object, they must be disciplined -- possibly by violence, or even by war. As the Fordham site explains, Kipling wrote this poem in response to the American invasion of the Philippines. His intent was clearly to praise the American action, not to criticize it. In the end, Rowling does not criticize the dysconscious racism of the Wizarding World, either. Her heroes are still showing, and acting on, this type of prejudice in the epilogue to the last book in the series. (And also in the recently-written prequel. Lying to Muggles and holding them up as figures of fun just doesn't seem to be a problem to Rowling.)

4.A Woman's Place is in the Home (and, motherhood is powerful)
There is one more very typical 19th-century trope that finds its way into Rowling's work. This is her picture of the ideal family, and the woman's place within it. In a way, these books can be read as an extended paean to motherhood, with Lily Potter and Molly Weasley as idealized mothers. Lily, of course, dies to save her child, and Molly becomes a second mother - and eventually, a mother-in-law- to Harry. Molly is quite intolerant of Muggles -- the first words we hear from her are a criticism of the number of Muggles at King's Cross, a Muggle railway station -- and frustrated by her husband's fascination with Muggle gadgets. She is a very energetic person, skilled at cookery and other household spells, and tends to be overwhelming in her affection for Harry, even while she ignores her own son, Ron. It's significant that her sons seem more fearful of her than they are of their father and that Arthur, too, seems to be somewhat in awe of her and her temper. She does not hesitate to discipline her children physically, and she home schools all seven of them before they begin Hogwarts. Because of this, some Christians have been persuaded that Rowling is showing Christian family values in her depiction of the Weasley clan.

But is she really? Or is she merely depicting a conservative, old-fashioned British family of high class but little wealth? With their constant concerns for money, (shown especially by Ron and Percy, but also by the twins and Molly herself), their genteel poverty (they never want for anything the children really need, though Ron's desires get neglected), their family relationship to the wealthy, pureblood Black family, and Arthur's eccentricity, they remind me strongly of the Bennett family in Pride and Prejudice. But, while Jane Austen clearly means us to see Mrs. Bennett and Mr. Bennett critically, Rowling truly seems to idolize the Weasleys, and especially Molly. Why else does her hero so long to join this family? And why else is Mrs. Weasley allowed to be a heroine of sorts, killing Bellatrix LeStrange in defense of her daughter Ginny?

This last point strikes me as particularly significant. The wife and mother of seven children gets to destroy the married woman who has refused motherhood. Similarly, Narcissa Malfoy finds the courage to first disobey and then lie to Voldemort in defense of her son. Even poor Merope Gaunt manages to get herself to an orphanage, get her child born, and name him, before she dies. In the Potterverse, mother love is always good and powerful, and nontraditional roles for women do not exist.

5.Summing Up: Harry Potter as Oliver Twist?
Merope Gaunt's story reminds me strongly of another 19th-century British novel, Oliver Twist. Indeed, the Harry Potter novels are like Oliver Twist in some key ways. Oliver's mother also dies giving birth to him, like Tom Riddle's mother Merope Gaunt. But this brings me full circle, to the heritability of character. Oliver, though raised in dire circumstances and never treated with affection, is naturally good. This would seem to be because his parents - both of whom were well-to-do -- were basically good people, In short, Oliver shares his mother's temperament. He has a half-brother, Monks, who attempts to destroy him throughout the book; Monks' goal is to take Oliver's inheritance for himself. And he is the son of a nasty mother. The virtuous orphan, in the end, comes in to his inheritance and lives happily ever after, while his enemies are punished.

This is exactly what we see in Harry Potter. Harry, though raised without love or even basic decent care from the age of 15 months, has an unbroken spirit - like Oliver. He is basically good - like Oliver. Like Oliver, he reacts with fury to hearing his dead parents spoken of slightingly, and his rage causes him to run away. Tom Riddle in contrast is like Monks - born evil, and wishing the innocent young boy nothing but harm.

In Oliver Twist, we also see something very like Rowling's view on womanhood and motherhood. Women are always seen in relationship, never by themselves. They are wives and mothers, maiden aunts, sisters, servants. The one woman who acts on her own and goes against her particular society - the prostitute, Nancy, who speaks out to help Oliver - is as a result beaten to death by her lover. It may be significant that Dickens himself often energetically acted out the scene of Nancy's murder in public readings.

And then, of course, there is Fagin the Jew. He is a fence, a corrupter of youth, a manipulator who incites Bill Sykes to Nancy's murder, a miser, and a cruel man who delights in the misfortunes of the thieves he's outlived. He is dirty and a physical coward, but he is also quick-witted, articulate and very cunning. Finally, with his stringy red hair, large nose, and bent posture, he is physically ugly. Here we have the evil foreigner in spades. In fact, some modern readers are so troubled by the anti-Semitic stereotypes in the depiction of Fagin that they object to children reading this book.

Summing up, we see in Oliver Twist that some people are born virtuous, and remain virtuous regardless of the pressures or troubles they face. These people are normally from families of some means, and loving parents. Other people are born evil, and do wrong even if given opportunities for a good life. These people are normally of degenerate stock. Women are the heart of the home, and are most fulfilled when supporting men or children. Foreigners are likely to be morally and physically inferior to English people. As I have noted before, every one of these ideas can also be found in the Harry Potter books.

But Dickens, Austen, Kipling and the Brontes were writing from within a particular society at a particular time, so it is very natural that they would express its mores in their stories. Rowling is a postmodern, 21st century author. From interviews and news accounts I have read, it would seem that she is politically rather liberal; she worked for Amnesty International, according to her recent speech at Harvard, and is opposed to the death penalty. So how could she have written a series of books full of such deterministic, even racist and sexist, opinions?

A few commentators, such as Daniel Hemmens, have surmised that Rowling is expressing her own misunderstanding of Calvinist doctrine in the novels. That is possible, but, even if it turns out to be correct, I don't believe it explains all the contradictions I've pointed to in Rowling's works. I and a few other people have mentioned that Rowling seems to be a very good observer; she can build up believable characters when she describes them from the outside, but she renders them unbelievable when explaining their motives. A case in point is Harry in OOTP. I found the boy very sympathetic in this book; he was in a constant rage, but that -- to me -- read as a clear sign of the depression he was finally starting to feel at all he had endured. He was 15 years old, and had witnessed a friend's murder and nearly been murdered himself; he was isolated and overwhelmed, Why wouldn't he be angry? But Rowling has said in interviews that his rage in this book is not his own, but rather the work of the horcrux within him. She writes a believable boy, but then ascribes unbelievable motives to him. And this, I think, is a result of being a good observer of appearance and actions, but failing -- perhaps -- to look again at the characters she has set down and think about how they come across on the page. For she has said that she does not reread nor rewrite her books.

It is possible that she has done something similar with the 19th century literature she clearly loves, and was as clearly influenced by. As Jodel has said on the Red Hen website, we should bear in mind that Rowling is still a young writer; this series as a whole is her first published story. It is natural for a young writer to imitate stories she or he admires, right down to borrowing situations and characters, as she seems to have borrowed aspects of Heathcliff when writing Severus Snape, or Oliver Twist when writing Harry.

But she does not rewrite, and therefore does not actually see what the situations and characters she has set down imply. In her collected letters, The Habit of Being, the great American writer Flannery O'Connor has this to say on rewriting: "I am a great hand at rewriting myself. It takes a long time to make a thing like this (a short story) work. Looks simple but is not." (The Habit of Being, p 84) Later on, she explains that she finds rewriting necessary because she discovers what she has to say on a subject by writing a story - but then has to look again at the story to see what she has said. O'Connor found rewriting to be the most essential part of writing; she felt a young writer could not rewrite often enough. For, as the above quote implies, only by rereading and rewriting - by looking hard and critically at what you have done -- can you discover if it is what you truly meant to do.

Because Rowling does not rewrite, she could incorporate racist, 19th- century attitudes into a work in which racism is supposed to be the greatest evil. Because she does not rewrite, she could write contradictory scenes involving coercion and torture -- which she initially condemns, but then excuses when her heroes engage in these activities. Because she does not rewrite, she could set up a world in which slavery is justified and some races are truly inferior to others. In the end, I think, many of the problems I have with the morality she presents in her books may have nothing at all to do with any message she intended to convey, and everything to do with her ambition and relative inexperience as a writer.


Mary Johnson, June, 2008.
* Note: Some years back, I read a fascinating essay asserting that Heathcliff was actually native Irish. I am afraid I haven't since been able to track it down, but it made a great deal of sense to me; the essayist pointed out that, in the 19th century, the native Catholic Irish were referred to as "white niggers." There is also an Irish folk song, "I am stretched on your grave", which seems to tell the Heathcliff and Cathy story point for point. Given Severus Snape's appearance, social class, apparent geographic origin (a mill town in the north of England), sense of humor, and his mother's name, some Irish descent seems likely for him as well.

Informal list of sources: (Copyrights and editions to be given where works are cited:)
Books cited or referred to:

Austen, Jane Pride and Prejudice

Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre
Villette

Bronte, Emily Wuthering Heights

Dickens, Charles Great Expectations
Hard Times
Oliver Twist

O.Connor, Flannery The Habit of Being

Rowling, J.K. The Harry Potter series, especially
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Websites:
The Full text of Kipling's poem, "The White Man's Burden", can be found at the Fordham University website here:
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/Kipling.html

Travis Prinzi's summary of his podcast on racism in the Harry Potter novels is here:
http://thehogshead.org/2007/02/19/hogs-head-pubcast-17-racism-in-harry-potter-part-one/

cardiglrs essay on racism in Harry Potter is here:
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/120973.html

Bohemianspirit's is here:
http://asylums.insanejournal.com/snapedom/121324.html

I cannot remember exactly which of Jodel's essays I am citing from memory - Jodel, if you can remember, perhaps you could correct me? in any case, her website is:
http://www.redhen-publications.com/Potterverse.html

Finally, Daniel Hemmens writes for the e-zine Ferretbrain, where you can find his article, "Harry Potter and the Doctrine of the Calvinists" at this link:
http://www.ferretbrain.com/articles/article-161.html

Comments

[hope-24.livejournal.com]

Interesting essay.

I like your take on ambition. There's probably even more in Dickens that you could utilise on this point that would strengthen your argument further. There's Bitzer and Uriah Heep for example. This re-inforcement of the idea of keeping to one's place in society ties in with your Oliver Twist analogy. Although Oliver ends up in an orphanage and then a den of thieves, he ends up being led back to his rightful class. Equally, although Harry is mistreated in the lower-middle-class household of his relatives, he's eventually led back to the social sphere of his parents. Snape is put firmly back in his place for aspiring first to Lily and then to power. 'Natural order' is restored at the end of the day.

I'm not sure about 'What's Bred in the Bone Will Come Out in the Flesh', simply because I think there are counter examples that can be offered. Florence in Dombey and Son, Caddy Jellyby in Bleak House or Margaret in North and South.

As I said, interesting essay, and loads of stuff for discussion.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes - thanks for your comment. Rowling's unexamined assimilation of 19th-century mores (my thesis here) does not explain all the flaws of her novels. Her extreme determinism does seem more Calvinist to me. One question I still have is: to what extent is Rowling even aware of the somewhat hateful messages that come through so strongly in these books? I do think it's possible she's not aware at all; she truly seems to think she's written different books!

Another point, of course - and I tried to address this a bit, but could have gone into greater depth - is that the great Victorian novelists had a coherent worldview with some positive aspects. In Dickens, it actually is okay to advance socially to some degree, provided you are not a hypocrite and do not forget your roots. Most people are good, regardless of their origin, and all people deserve humane treatment. Rowling is not like this at all. In her universe, some people deserve to be put in their place, just as you say. And you can tell who those people are by what a *hat* says about them when they are 11 years old!

[threeoranges.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of your points (especially "what's bred in the bone" and its relevance to Linton vs. Hareton and Tom vs. Harry). What intrigues me is that the Victorians, for all their faults, did at least acknowledge the necessity for society to help the disadvantaged: in the world of JKR, however, there seems no such "necessity". Rescues certainly do happen in the Potter books, but when they do it's intended to illustrate not the need, but the deserving nature of the person receiving the assistance.

I've attempted to express my feelings here (http://community.livejournal.com/dimmeststar/3585.html), in an essay entitled "Harry vs. Merope, or why Blessed = Virtuous". It's not entirely synthesized yet, but I think I more or less made my point in that and the subsequent comments: at no point does JKR stress the need for the wizarding society to look after its weaker members. If Harry gets help, it's because he "deserves" it. If Merope doesn't... she clearly doesn't.

Compare this to LES MISERABLES, where help is extended to both Valjean and Thenardier at "low points" in their lives. (The fact that Valjean uses his hand-up to become a saint, and Thenardier uses his to continue his wicked ways, is not the point. Hugo naturally has to make us aware that not every act of charity will result in a life-changing act of repentance on the part of the recipient!) We're also shown that help arrives for Fantine only when she's on the point of death, which makes us wonder what her life might have been like had she received it earlier. Contrast this with JKR, who doesn't seem to think that society owed Merope anything in the way of assistance at all (and if she did... why didn't she make it clear in that section of the book?)

So yes, I think that quite "un-Victorian", but equally it does bear striking similarities to the "Calvinism" theme.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks - another wonderful comment. I agree with all you say here.

[gothslytherin.livejournal.com]

Very interesting essay. The 19th Century is one of my great interests, and I had seen a few of these points on the internet before, it always makes for a good read. Thank you!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating! I don't know Trollope at all, so could not have picked up on that one. ) But it is pretty obvious (to an adult reader with some knowledge of the literature Rowling is copying) that the Weasleys, for example, in spite of their poverty, are in a much more stable and established position in the WW than the nouveau riche interlopers, the Malfoys. I am always shocked when I come across essays defining the Weasleys as working-class. Snape is, rather obviously so, and they are not.

It's also true that - just as Terri and Arsinoe surmise in their fics - Voldemort seems out to destroy the pureblood families, as well as Muggleborns and Halfbloods. AND that a person like Voldemort is the logical consequence of the WW's unconscious racism. Gosh, these are ugly books! At this point, I cannot think of a single positive message in them that I would actually agree with. (And I wrote this essay with a huge sense of relief, thinking "Well, maybe she didn't mean all this, after all. Maybe she just didn't think about it.)

Even the most conservative of the 19th-century authors, being far better artists and grounded in a coherent worldview, don't seem as racist, classist and sexist as Rowling does. Dickens, for example - as the above commentator pointed out for Hugo - argued that society has a duty to care for *all* its members. You don't find this in Rowling, do you?

[ellid.livejournal.com]

This is absolutely brilliant, especially the part about rewriting. If one goes back and looks at the series at a whole, it's quite clear that the best, and best-written, of the seven books are the first three, where Rowling was still contractually obligated to listen to her editors. Once she had enough power to dictate to them, she could, and did, turn in what reads like unedited first drafts. Very bad, and why in the long run I can't see her books being taken seriously as literature after her death.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Honestly, I'm not sure that *I* rewrite as much as I should; I"m only just starting a couple of novels, and on these as well as everything else I work on, I tend to rewrite as I go. It's just shocking, though, that a published author of a long and complicated tale would claim never to reread nor rewrite her own work. It seems rather arrogant.

But - I know a lot of people like POA the best, but to me, looking back, that is where the rot began to set in. There were hints before (in her treatment of the Dursleys; in Dumbledore's statement about our choices "showing" what we are), but the extreme cruelty of the ending of POA has no parallel till we hit DH. At least, that's how it strikes me. I'm talking about Dumbledore's cruelty to Snape, the injustice to Sirius (who may be a jerk, but who was *innocent* - and, if Dumbledore has all this power, why couldn't that be proven, even without Pettigrew as prisoner? What about pensieve evidence? Veritaserum? Even questioning the kids separately about what they witnessed?), and the casual cruelty of Sirius and the three children, who spare no regard for the physical welfare of the man they have knocked out. And I was just repelled by the contrived plot and all the shouting. Up till hbp, it was my least favorite of the books.

Sorry for the rant - I guess my point was that the first three books are definitely tighter than the later ones, but, even there, contradictory and negative messages are obvious. And no, I don't think Rowling will be remembered after her death. Something about these books managed to capture the world's imagination; they are in tune with the Zeitgeist somehow, but I don't think they will last. In the end, what is original in them is (mostly) pretty nasty, and what is derivative - well, it's been done much better by other authors. And, as I said, some of her derivative messages are pretty negative, too.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I had not heard of him, though I'd certainly heard of Carlisle and some of the other Indian schools. This sounds fascinating.

And you're quite right that Hermione's racism is of this sort, and it isn't terribly clear if Rowling is aware that she's written Hermione as a racist. I just don't know if she thought about these messages at all.

(1/2) Their problem or her problem?

[raisin-gal.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, this is fascinating! Going straight into my memories. Thanks so much for all the insights, and the coherent pattern you've drawn out with regards to so many of the HP story's multitude of problems.

My exposure to 19c literature consists solely of that costume-drama movie Alan Rickman starred in (gosh, I can't even remember its title...) so basically everything you point out here are fresh and enlightening for me. But most especially, the light you shone on the issue of "ambition" -- wow, you're really onto something big there. Both your arguments in the post and your discussion with cardigrl et al. are fascinating. I'd never thought of that angle.

There's only one minor point I disagree with you on, which isn't even a real disagreement because it's a moot point anyway. But I personally don't feel inclined to give JKR as much credit as you're giving her, in blaming the messagery of her story on her inexperience and lack of good editing. For reasons such as readability and plot consistency, I wish JKR had given her later volumes more rewrites (and I wish she were affiliated with a better publisher that induced her to make such efforts) and I wish to believe she would have realized how she'd depicted the moral universe of her fantasy world if she had, but she doesn't seem to posess the type of humble self-reflecting ability that allows us human beings to make such moral judgments on ourselves. It seems she has a tendency to run away from accusations rather than try to understand them and deal with them head-on, as seen when she is asked point blank by a journalist why she avoided portraying Dumbledore as textually gay in her books, and misunderstands, misinterprets, then ignores the point of the question.

...Which is likely part and parcel with *why* she doesn't reread her own work or edit as much as she ought to in the first place; if she tends to like what she has put down exactly the way it is, and tends not to hear other people's voices, let alone her own, criticizing it, then it's no surprise she's so bad at editing. And I wonder if this might also be something that relates to the moral problems you have coherently explained as 19th century mores. They are that, for sure. But could it be that this problem is rather personal than political, in that it's the author's me-ism rather than her us-ism (or the usurped ideology of her predecessors) seeping out in a way that ends up classist, racist and nationalist? Oh and sexist. And homophobic too, but let's leave that last one alone for a moment, because I think you're right: homophobia ends up very present in the series but it's probably not what the story is actually focused on as its target of obsession. (What it cares about is probably, scarily, homosocial male bonds themselves. It only ends up getting tangled up with the tale's homophobia, as another symptom of the Potterian world's twisted psyche...) All this, I suspect, is the result of a rather more personal psychological issue on the part of the author, than just a proclivity to grab everything she likes on the shelf and toss it into her purse without examining the expiration date, as it were.

The main reason I'm inclined to think this way is because the weirdness of HP extends well beyond the realm of discrimination (like, for instance, the contradictory signals we get in terms of Christianity and morality, most vividly in the glorification of suicides, or so I think?). And also because the discriminatory attitude itself is often not actually a straightforward replica of the 19 century ideology, but rather a mind-blowingly innovative new-age version -- such as the updated (and twice as scary) form of sexism she applies to her romantic heroines, which I really need to stop blabbering on about in other people's journals and start writing that damned Chapter 3, but hey! *g*

Re: (1/2) Their problem or her problem?

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I personally believe that the reason she paired off Tonks and Lupin, two of the least compatible characters in the series, was because a lot of fans and critics were reading them as queer, and Lupin's condition as a metaphor for being HIV+. Having the Riot Grrl and the guy with the mysterious wasting disease into loving, martyred parents was a neat way of shutting down the critics cold, or so she must have thought.

(2/2) Further questions -- really just questions

[raisin-gal.livejournal.com]

I have just a couple of questions in line with your track of thinking:

1) Class and women: are women and men treated even slightly differently in the 19th-century mentality with regards to classism? The daughter of a French courtesan may be bred-in-the-bone less honorable than pure Englishwomen, but does mother-blood count for less than father-blood when it comes to inherited social class -- i.e. are female social-climbers in the form of Cinderella deemed permissible in at least some occasions?

2) Sorry, I just had to ask: how does the 19 century do its homophobia? Does that relate to how the HP universe does its homophobia -- be the Good Repressed Gay and we'll let you live, even prosper and succeed?

Sorry if the answers are very obvious. Like I said I'm completely ignorant on these issues.

Re: (2/2) Further questions -- really just questions

[ellid.livejournal.com]

1. Female blood did not count nearly as much in social climbing due to the overall status of women; a noblewoman who married a commoner retained her own title, but her children would be commoners. That's why there's such obsession with women making "good marriages" with men of suitable social class and wealth.

2. Homosexuality was closeted to the point that someone who was accused of it had to leave the country or (if in the military) eat his gun. The merest accusation could destroy careers. Rowling isn't nearly that bad, but as I said in an earlier comment, I don't think it's a coincidence that she married off the two characters a lot of people were reading as queer (Lupin and Tonks) and had them die in a safe, heterosexual relationship after they'd proved their heterosexuality by having a baby.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

Excellent essay. Will comment back later in more detail-- I will say that I particularly loved the way you pointed out that your theory doesn't quite match up to some things that JKR did, and had a reason why. Thanks for sharing!

[(Anonymous)]

From Oryx:

Other women in non-traditional roles in the Potterverse:
Amelia Bones - a woman of integrity, but gets killed by Voldemort (and isn't married)
Rita Skeeter
And the only magical mother of a school-aged child who is known to work outside the home is Madam Edgecombe.

(We know there were female Ministers and female headmistresses but their careers take place off-page.)

[bemoan1000.livejournal.com]

Great essay. It brings up many things that bothered me in this series. I was reading this on my phone this weekend (the only way I have access to the internet at home) and what you wrote about Healthcliff and Bertha. It got me to think about how half-bloods are portrayed, and how some see Snape calling him the “Half Blood Prince” as denying the muggle part in him. And I had a lot to say about it but now I’m at a lost. I should have written it down.

I also tried to use my researching skills to find the essay about Healthcliff being Irish. The closes I came up with is “Healthcliff and the Great Hunger” which is in Healthcliff and the Great Hunger by Terry Eaglerton. It doesn’t mention anything about “white niggers” only “Catholics are already salves” pg 34.

[nemesister.livejournal.com]

Heathcliff is called "gypsy", "dark boy" and it is suggested that he could be a lost Indian prince, all of which fits together quite nicely. He is not white!

I agree that JKR is very influenced by these novels and probably does a lot of this mirroring unconsciously. The Goblins are very obvious and I really don't think they are a conscious decision, because uh ...what would be the point?

In detail, though:

Yes, Voldemort is evil; yes, they are good and right to fight him - but part of what they are fighting to preserve is the status quo. And a little social climber like Severus Snape, who aspires far beyond his station, must be put down. It is not insignificant, I think, that James Potter and Sirius Black are both members of the social elite - independently wealthy purebloods, and, in Black's case, from a very old family. And they, of course, are the "good guys".

That would work better if the books would be about James, Sirius and Snape. As it is Snape is the only major character out of these (James is super minor) and no other of the good guys is anywhere near as elite as James and Sirius(rich and pure-blood and everything) The only equally elite characters I can think of are the Malfoys and Bellatrix, who are also interested in the status quo in their way.

You must have noticed that Draco thinks people like Ron and Hermione are beneath him and don't know their place. This attitude is maligned on purpose. So looking at the main characters you get the opposite of the message you are suggesting with only two ambiguous side characters to ambiguously back you up.

The only way Hermione is advantaged by birth in this world is maybe that she is a born Gryffindor. So yes, with the house system I can see an argument, but there is obviously no message of rich and noble people being better and having more right to rule the world than the poor and common people - This is not a trap JKR fell for IMO.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Um - but one of those "super minor" super elite characters is Harry's *father*. This makes Harry himself - like Oliver, the lost foundling - a son of the elite who is finding his way home.

As for Draco, I firmly maintain that the pureblood Weasleys are of higher class than the Malfoys. They have less money, yes, and have fallen in class recently because they are "blood traitors" (whatever that means. The term is never explained). But they are not lower class people. They are just poor.

As for Heathcliff, he is described in the text, I believe, as pale-skinned. I will try to find a quote.

[eir-de-scania.livejournal.com]

My main problem with the HP books is that JKR created a children's book fantasy world that is very charming and funny but doesn't make sense when you think about it from an adult POV. (My favourite example - the ever-revolting Goblins are in total control of the wizarding economy.)

Then she creates characters that feel very real, and would easily fit in adult fiction, but not to ruin The Plot they have to act like total morons - and socially incompetent at that. In RL, every wizard-born kid would know all about Harry and his parents, and Harry would have been told about it from day one. The missing bits would Sirius have told him when they sneaked away from Molly's house-cleaning, hiding out in Buckbeak's room.

Concerning Sev/Marauders: she does a BIG mistake in telling, not showing that Sev was indeed a DE and James grew into a good man. Instead, she shows us Sev at his best, or at least being vulnerable, and James -and Sirius- at their teenage worst.

I have no problems believing in James growing up from a brat to a good man within a few years, because I've seen it over and over, beginning with my own classmates.

But then, had I been at Hogwarts in the Marauders days (I'm in the right age for it ;-) ) I'd have been among them urging Lily to stop defending Snivellus Snape. His friends Avery and Mulciber reminds me of two fifteen-y-o neo-nazis our local paper reported on. They had sprayed Nazi slogans and swastikas on the house where an 80-y-o widow, a concentration camp survivor, lived. I wouldn't want to be friends with them, but not with anyone defending them, either.

For the rest: I don't know anything about English literature, but I've thought from book one that the wizards view on Muggles was very much like the one colonists had for the "locals". Even those calling themselves Muggle supporters are very, very condenscating.

[travisprinzi.livejournal.com]

Mary, thanks for the quote, and the link! As you've already mentioned to your readers, we disagree on a lot of stuff. I don't have time these days to get into lengthy discussion, but for the sake of conversation, I'll lay out, in what is will probably such brief summaries as to be quite inadequate, my overall differences. (These are not numbered to corollate with the numbers in the essay).

1. I think your suggestion that Rowling might be somewhat uncritically indebted to her 19th century heroes to be a plausible explanation. I think it is equally plausible that she wrote some of these characters the way she did rather deliberately. Giants, for example - their "savage" behavior is not supposed to be seen by the reader as something quite natural to their kind. It's supposed to be seen as the result of their being oppressed by the WW. This is something Rowling does more than once; it's something of a Critical Literacy experiment with the fairy tale genre itself. She takes groups of characters who are traditionally evil - giants, werewolves, etc. - and makes them oppressed groups of people. The goblin situation is particularly interesting, and the conversation between the trio and Griphook is meant to demonstrate how unwillingness to understand another person's cultural frame of reference leads to all sorts of oppressive metanarratives.

2. I know it wasn't a major point of your article, but I think one of the most unlikely propositions about Rowling's belief system, though I've heard it repeated often, is that she's a Calvinist. Both the Anglican Church and the Church of Scotland have reformed histories; but neither carries a strong emphasis on traditional Calvinistic doctrine today. And everything else Rowling believes about human goodness in particular flies radically in the face of traditional reformed orthodoxy.

3. I think there are at least 6 promising ways to read HP in a feminist way, none of which impose upon the text and are all complementary to each other. There's no time or space to get into the six here; I only mention the number because I think much of the gender commentary has been missed due to its being a secondary social issue; racism is clearly the primary sociopolitical issue of the series.

4. There is some really nuanced commentary on racism in the series. First, in response to some of the comments - Hermione's blundering moves towards the house-elves are supposed to be portrayed as erroneous. So I don't think seeing Hermione is totally screwing that up would be a shock to Rowling, as if she just uncritically wrote a wealthy white hero of house-elves. On the contrary, Hermione doesn't get to point one of being willing and able to fight against house-elf subjugation until Book 7, when, instead of talking about revolution, she embraces her own subjugated status as a "Mudblood." When Hermione called herself a "Mudblood," embracing the painful, oppressive term, my eyes froze on the page; that's was a gutsy and brilliant move on Rowling's part.

5. The key to unlocking Rowling's social vision in the series is her deliberate links to the founders of the Fabian society, Dumbledore's "Fabian Strategy," an almost libertarian respect for free will, and a Wilberforce-like Christian social advocacy.

So, there you are - for what it's worth, a sort of bullet-point, chaotic summary of another point of view. Far too much is missing, but if I get going, I'll end up having to summarize most of Part III of my forthcoming book, and I don't think my publisher would be too happy to find my book in a comment on the internet ;-)

[travisprinzi.livejournal.com]

And posts like that are why I wish you could edit. Forgive the grammatical mistakes and awkward sentence structures in that last comment.

Yay mores!

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

I was in travail with a new story, is why it took me so long to comment. Found it very illuminating--only main problem I saw with your analogies, you seem to be relying primarily on Severus in your ambition section, and most of the DE's seem to be purebloods. But I had a great idea on that, which crashed when I tried to post it here.

The comment about HP reflecting the Zeitgeist of our age: callousness, meanness of spirit, believing that who ends on top is entitled ... sounds like compassionate conservatism to me.

Regarding women's role and the heritability of status: in every mixed marriage I see, the woman takes on her husband's status unconditionally:

Merope, Eileen, and Seamus's mom all apparently lived in the Muggle world (Seamus is a football not Quidditch fan)
Andromeda Tonks is NOT living like a Black scion (and note Uncle whosis got blasted off the tapestry for leaving his money to Sirius, not to both black sheep)
Lily & Kendra both apparently lived at their husbands' status levels.

I never could read Dickens; now I see partly why....

Re: Yay mores!

[(Anonymous)]

Actually it is Dean, who was raised by Muggles because his wizard father left his mother and later got killed by DEs who is a football fan. Seamus knew how to fly pre-Hogwarts and attended the Quidditch World Cup with his mother. We also know his mother reads the Prophet and keeps up to date with the goings on in the Wizarding World. It isn't clear if Seamus' father is at all present in his life, there is no mention of him beyond the fact that he was shocked when he learned he had married a witch.

[horridporrid.livejournal.com]

Wonderful essay! And great comments, too. :) This does so much to clear up where JKR got all of these dated ideas and ideals, for me. And goes a long way to answering "why" as well.

Her books are so opposite what she says in interviews (and so opposite what she seems to think she's actually written), that I've long been frustrated trying to figure out the breakdown. That JKR never rewrote explains a lot. And is also stunning. But, thanks to your examples, I can see how she borrowed the tropes of well-loved classics without thinking through the implications.

Though... I don't know, a part of me still thinks she's also revealing a personal world-view that she isn't fully aware of. A sense of "us" vs. "them" where anyone "them" is bad without question, no need to think about reasons, etc. Which would, I think, explain why some of the uglier politics of the 19th century literature stuck, while some of the kinder ideas expressed were left by the wayside. I agree this wasn't "the message she intended to convey," but it think it is telling that this is what she gleaned from her own readings and regurgitated in her series.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I think you are right that what Rowling gleaned from her readings is not what everyone would have picked up. I didn't! Her borrowings from this literature are partial and lean in one direction - and she doesn't seem aware of what she's done. It's fascinating, but depressing.

Love your comments on "Horse and His Boy", btw. I really don't think even "The Last Battle" is as racist, hateful and deterministic as the Potter books.

[anne-arthur.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating! Very thought-provoking (and seems to have provoked quite a bit of thought already . . .). I have a couple of thoughts of my own to add:

On the matter of JKR's hostile attitude to ambition, I think that there is one negative influence that needs to be mentioned: Margaret Thatcher. Far too twentieth-century for this essay, at first sight - but perhaps not really, as one thing she seems to have been trying to do was rekindle the kind of Victorian entrepreneurial spirit which so alarmed the authors you quote. Which has worked, to some extent, but because it went against the grain of more recent British history, it produced the eighties 'yuppie': a rather shallow growth, all too often typified by an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude and a willingess to be 'tough' to the point of cheating and callousness. Growing up then, I can remember the fairly relentless propaganda that a soft heart was for losers (when asked what your worst fault was in a job interview, for example, you were supposed to say 'an inability to suffer fools gladly') and that making money was the only worthwhile thing to do with your life - countered, of course, by propaganda from other quarters that anything BUT making money was acceptable . . . Judging by JKR's choice of career (working for Amnesty International, teaching English as a foreign language in Portugal) she belongs firmly in the latter camp. And thinking about this over the last day or so, I think this works as an explanation of Slytherin house. They are all 'ambitious' because they are all Thatcherites, and 'ambition' was the watchword of Thatcherism. It's the only force I can think of that groups into one body the 'cockney wide-boy' types, the working-class spivs fighting their way up the social ladder and sod anyone else (this doesn't quite encapsulate Snape, but I think we are agreed that Snape has got away from his creator and become his own man!) and the Hooray Henrys like Draco Malfoy, boasting of their wealth without realising how little they have done to earn it. And of course Thatcherism is right-wing, so she tacks on a bit of really right-wing nastiness in the form of blood prejudice, and voila! I'm sure there are a million and one holes in this, but I'm too tired to work them out now - I'll leave it for your consideration, holes and all! And I also realise that I have got a long way from the essay - sorry. But this schizophrenic attitude towards ambition is bad, because it does prevent it from becoming a more socially responsible force - for example, there is a constant lament by charities that wealthy people in Britain are much less inclined to support charities with their wealth than their counterparts in America - we get the Slytherins we deserve, perhaps?

On a lighter note, I have a nineteenth-century parallel for great literary fame leading to writing very quickly and not revising your works. A friend of mine, who is one of these people who will not read the books but want to know what happened, was asking me about DH. I said that I thought that it had been written far too quickly and not revised nearly enough, and that I thought that this was probably a result of trying to meet the publishing deadline and avoid leaks. 'Just like Walter Scott' he said!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's interesting about the Thatcher years! I can remember them, too - in the U.S., it was Wall Street scandals and Reagan bombing small third-world countries and "greed is good" in the movies.

And as to 19th century models, that's fascinating (and amusing) about Scott, but I'd also like to point to James Fenimore Cooper. Twain's essay on Cooper's literary sins is hilarious.

[woman-ironing.livejournal.com]

A challenging essay, with which I heartily disagree. Like my Snape essay, it does have a point - almost! I’ve followed the discussions with travisprinzi above with interest. For me, travisprinzi’s comments are spot on - and I admire the intelligence, clarity and patience with which they’ve been expressed.

The view of HP put forward in your essay requires a high level of incompetence and naivete on the part of the author. The story does come trailing the clouds of glory of two hundred plus years of English literature, and centuries more of myth, (not to mention alchemy!) and this surely tells us we’re dealing with something that, far from being naïve, is very knowing. You make the point that ‘Rowling is a postmodern, 21st century author‘. In that case we need to read HP with a post-modern sensibility, which boils down to: don‘t read it expecting answers! It’s not incoherent, it’s coherence lies in its contradictions, and it doesn’t present a dubious morality, it questions morality. The two go hand in hand, really. Think of Harry and Snape, whose stories - as I know you are aware - parallel and oppose each other. Dumbledore says ‘Its our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities’, and Tom, Snape, Harry and Draco - and the house elves! - show just what we have to overcome to be able freely to make choices. Harry rescues Griphook but wrestles with the difficulty of accepting a being so unfamiliar and who seems so ‘other’. Far from being incompetent, Rowling has quite efficiently drawn us into a bewildering labyrinth and blocked our escape at every turn! What’s the purpose of ensnaring us in this way? To force us to stop chasing morality and face up to humanity.

While not presenting us with a neat morality HP does suggest something to help us negotiate the labyrinth - choose love not power.

I think it also helps in coming to terms with HP if we recognise that Harry’s goal is emphatically not to save the wizarding world and open up the Kingdom of Heaven for it. It’s a lot less grand than that, it’s to understand (ie.vanquish Voldemort) and live.

[(Anonymous)]

Dumbledore says ‘Its our choices ... that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities’,

Very easy for Dumbles to say while he plays god and executioner over his charges. A cult leader extroadinaire, so much so that it seems the parents of the wizarding world have abdicated their role as parents to let him do as he pleases.

Where is this love all the Rowling keeps going on about?

The so-called worthies of the world inherit the earth and everyone else dies. That is her idea of the redemptive power of love.

All is well huh?

I think the House Elves need to start reading some Marx


Rowling wrote a very conservative book cloaked in liberalism.

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I'm commenting a bit late. I'm supposed to be writing two essays for two different classes, but I thought I'd mention another 19th-C staple we've been discussing on another board: Merope Gaunt.

The single mother. Her husband left her for obvious reasons, so she is left alone to have her child. Through karmic justice, she is miserable, and dies in childbirth, begetting the monster of the story. The poor girl was miserable and mistreated all her life. Her attempt to escape an abusive home is understandable if not correct. She, like Snape, got nothing but misery in life and in death, and spat on by the author as well.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

True. And she does remind me of Oliver's mom, who also had to die miserably in childbirth as a punishment for bearing an illegitimate child.

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

Mary, I read this back when you posted it. I'm only now getting around to commenting.

First, thanks for linking to my "Still Further Thoughts" essay rather than the first one. The first one was my initial attempt to express thoughts that had been simmering for a while (months!) as I read various discussions about SWM, but I think the second essay is much clearer and better organized. Unfortunately, only the first one seems to have been picked up for a wider readership, so people are mistakenly thinking that I just missed the intended parallels between real-world racism and wizarding blood-prejudice, rather than that I was questioning how we use the "racism" parallel and language in discussion of the books. Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack, here, just wanted to thank you for linking the better of the two articles!

On to your essay:

I found all of it to be thought-provoking, but especially the point on ambition.

And, in the classic 19th century British novel, social ambition is always a mark of potential evil. Even a humane reformer like Dickens was not terribly concerned with allowing people to better their stations in life.

In reading British works like the Harry Potter series, as well as Tolkien and others (it seems like so much popular fantasy is British; I wonder why that is?) I often find myself running against the barrier of how very American my point of view is. I am not familiar with 19th-century British literature, and my familiarity with America in the 19th century is mainly due to the legacy that carried over into the literature and culture of the 20th century.

The thing that strikes me is this: Broadly speaking, it seems that 19th century England espoused an ideal of stability and order, know your place and keep in your place, don't try to rise above your betters. Society had a structure, and your role was to know your place in the structure and fulfill it as expected. In contrast, America not only didn't discourage ambition; ambition was the dominant cultural motif. Go West, young man, go west! Always reaching for the next horizon, always striving for something better, the self-made man of humble origins who became a great tycoon. And so on.

Of course these are generalities, with individual exceptions, and America certainly has its share of conformism just as England has its share of individualism and ambition. Yet in terms of national ideals and types, at least as shaped the cultures during the 19th century, it strikes me that viewing the anti-ambition bias through American eyes is partly what leads to our head-scratching and wondering what the heck is wrong with wanting to be Something More.

Running out of time, so I'll just wrap with the observation that there may be something, after all, to my initial sense that Severus Snape had a lot in common with Jay Gatsby: not only having a Daisy-like idealized love object as his inspiration, but also in having the ambition to reach always for more, always for the green light, just out of reach... but someday...

Vid rec

[raisin-gal.livejournal.com]

Belated comment, and going back yet again to my obsession with the romantic side of the HP story's racism -- I just came across a songvid that beautifully illustrates the mentality of the Potterian narrative (simply by virtue of being faithful to canon) which is set to the Avril Lavigne song "Girlfriend."

Hope it's all right to link to it here:

Girlfriend by lolobell123
Pairings: Harry/Cho, Harry/Ginny, Ron/Fleur, Ron/Hermione
Ratings: R? (Lyrics include the F word.)

The racist and xenophobic imagery buried straight into the many romantic story arcs of the HP characters become starkly visible when you focus on them in video format. I'm not sure whether that was the point of the vid (probably not?) but either way, it shines a light on what the canon is textually doing. And also, returning to the Zeitgeist discussion, I think this song by Avril Lavigne is a prime example of the present-day culture of "The winner is always entitled and cool" -- which, again, is of course tied intricately (yet always surreptitiously) with the issue of racial/ethnic discrimination and international politics.

This song seems to be used by many other HP vidders seeking to depict the canonical love triangles of the main characters. That seems indicative of the ethos of the HP story... And then, of course, the scary question is:

"Wait, so do our kids *like* this picture?"

Re: Vid rec

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Thanks - that's not something I'd really noticed, but it is *true* that, though our Gryffindor kids can go out with non-white peers, no one ever marries a person from a different race. Very disquieting!

As for me, I'm still trying to figure out why people think Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecomb are so awful. I had a lot of sympathy for both of them, and hope Cho managed to find someone nicer and more ethical than Harry. )

Just wanted to say

[(Anonymous)]

Brilliant!

Re: Just wanted to say

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Why, thank you! (As Spock would say.)

Brilliant page.

[(Anonymous)]

thanks much, man

thanks much

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting page!, dude

thanks much

[(Anonymous)]

favorited this one, bro