Harry Potter and the Egalitarian Spirit

One of the little discussed aspects of the Harry Potter books is also one of the main keys to their success: the basic equality of the characters.

This is no mean achievement in that the main setting for the series is an English boarding school. However, Hogwarts is no ordinary boarding school, nor are the students in any real sense ‘ordinary.’ However, apart from some very basic distinctions, the world of the Potter chronicles is very much a meritocracy.

We know only a few things about the families of the children at the school: Hermione’s completely muggle. Her parents are dentists, and can be assumed to have a comfortable, but not extravagant living – they are British dentists, not American ones, and could even be employed by the National Health Service.

The Weasleys are certainly not wealthy, and there are many cruel remarks made about their “poverty” though they cannot be in any way said to be living in poverty. They have to work hard and make do, but they are still surviving on the salary of Mr Weasley alone – something that may not be true of Hermione’s family, both of whom work. The Weasleys are also pure-bloods.

Harry Potter himself has a muggle mother and wizard father, so in the three main characters, we have all the combinations. Harry does have a great deal of money and earns more from his achievement in the tri-wizard tournament, but he has little regard for money apart from the good it can do for other people. His experiences at the hands of the Dursleys means that he knows just how much generosity and kindness can mean to people who need it.

Of the other student families, we know very little. We know that Neville Longbottom comes from a well-respected family, but there is no evidence of wealth, and Neville is unprepossessing and often a source of good-natured amusement.

We suspect that the Malfoys are wealthy, and see that Lucius Malfoy buys the latest broomstick for the Slitherin quidditch team, but the Malfoys’s brand of snobbery is not based on money, but on power. The source of that power – apart from associations with you know who – is unclear, though Lucius seems to spend a lot of time at the Ministry of Magic.

Apart from these very sketchy inferences, the position of the students and other characters are largely based on ability and moral courage, rather than on inherited position or wealth. J K Rowling’s position appears to be that she considers character to be of more importance than either position or wealth, and we, as readers, respond to that attitude, finding ourselves admiring the virtues of honesty, loyalty, courage, friendship, dedication to duty, and love in the various characters, regardless how eccentric.

Just how J K Rowling gets us to admire and like characters as curious as Lupin, Tonks, Hagrid, Luna Lovegrove and others is part of her art.

Harry Potter and the Question of Religion – Part 1

This topic will be in several parts as the Harry Potter stories are laced with religious references, myths, stories and ideas.

I want to offer first a few thoughts about whether there is justification for religious outrage at these stories about witches, wizards, ghosts and other supernatural phenomenon.

Let me begin with a story about when I was a teacher. I was teaching at a girls’ school and had set a series of ghost stories as a class reader. The books had been taught at the school before and comprised a selection of Henry James, Somerset Maugham, M R James, Sheridan LeFanu, Edgar Allen Poe and tales by other well-respected writers. These weren’t driller-killer stories.

After one lesson, I found one of the girl’s mother waiting to speak to me.

“I’m not having my daughter reading this book!” she exclaimed. “We’re a Christian family and don’t believe in ghosts and other such supernatural things.”

I let her spill it all out, which took several minutes. When she had finished, I said:

“Very well. Let’s go see the head mistress together.”

“What? Why?” she asked in some surprise.

“To arrange to have your daughter withdrawn from the school,” I replied.

This stopped her.

“Why?”

“Because, if I can’t teach stories with ghosts, I can’t teach her Julius Caesar. I can’t teach her Richard III. I can’t teach her Macbeth. I can’t teach her Hamlet. If I can’t teach her those texts, there is no way that she will get her GCSE examinations, her “A” levels or get into university, so you may as well take her out of school now.”

The mother went home to reconsider and I never heard about it again.

Stories with ghosts and witches and magic are part of the wonder of the culture of the world. They are stories, and when regarded and taught as stories, they are fun and fantastical and provide much amusement, and some chills, too.

Regarded as such, they do little, if any damage to anyone. Like all things, they can be misused. Teaching that Harry Potter was a real boy and that the dark lord known as Voldemort does exist and is waging a secret war in a hidden world is something else altogether.

I’ll talk about evil in another article, but my point here is that read in the way that it’s intended, there’s little harm – and arguably a deal of good – to be found in reading the Harry Potter stories.