Some Assorted Questions and Comments on the Dursleys

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

1. Is Smeltings a boarding school or a day school? My first instinct is that it's a local private day school, mainly because Piers Polkiss, Dudley's neighborhood friend, also attends the school. But I've read a lot of fics in which it's a boarding school, so I'm not sure.

2. I have trouble pegging the Dursleys' social class. One the one hand, several factors lead me to believe that they are upper-middle class--Vernon has a white collar job and drives a company car; they have a four-bedroom house, and Dudley attends a private school. On the other hand, I feel like the Dursleys'behavior better fits the stereotype of a working class family. Vernon reminds me of Homer Simpson or Peter Griffin from Family Guy, and both of those characters are meant to be caricatures of working class men. It's possible that Vernon grew up in a working class family, but that doesn't quite make sense to me, either, because he also attended Smeltings. So, I know that the Dursleys are supposed to be caricatures, but I'm not sure whom they're supposed to be caricatures of. The problem might be simply that I'm American and not that familiar with British culture.

3. If the Dursleys were a real-life family in the UK, would they have been able to get away with forcing Harry to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs? I want to believe that, if anybody knew about the cupboard, they would have reported the family to social services, and I don't think it's very realistic that the Dursleys would have managed to keep Harry's sleeping arrangements a secret for eleven years. For instance, I imagine it would have been difficult for them to prevent Dudley's friends from finding out about the cupboard and saying something to their parents. But maybe I'm being too optimistic.

4. Rowling makes it sound like it's the worst thing in the world that Harry has to wear Dudley's old clothes. But it's actually perfectly normal for the younger/smaller children in a family to be given the hand-me-down clothes of their older/larger relatives. New clothes, especially school uniforms, are expensive, and children often outgrow their clothes long before wearing them out. Harry's clothes may have been baggy on him, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the Dursleys dressed him in rags.

Comments

[epea-pteroenta.livejournal.com]

Regarding their social class... I've always seen them as the "nouveau-riche" side of middle class as opposed to the "professional" side. So Vernon probably came from a working class background and although he earns enough to afford a middle class lifestyle - the modern but largish house, the car, the holidays abroad, the private school etc. he lacks the cultural background that people in the same economic class but with a university background and professions like doctor, lawyer, teacher etc. might have. Put simply, the Dursleys don't have very many books in their home. They're very much rising up in the ranks - not rich enough to be truly important but have enough money to think they can insinuate themselves into a cultured class.

I don't know if that made ANY sense at all (and very likely all my own class prejudices are showing through) but their social status always made sense to me!

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

What I mostly find confusing is that Vernon also attended Smeltings. In the U.S., I think it's pretty unusual for working class families to send their children to private high schools unless the local public schools are absolutely terrible; the exception to that may be if the parents want their children to attend a parochial school. Furthermore, in the U.S., I think it's expected that most students who attend private high schools will go on to attend college or university.

[epea-pteroenta.livejournal.com]

Hmm, yes...

There are private schools and private schools though. I see Smeltings as probably a tiny private school that is big on aping the big public schools (Eton, Harrow etc.) in terms of uniform, discipline, mottos, traditions, pretentiousness but completely hollow when it comes to real class or indeed academic quality. If Vernon's father was in the same sort of class as Vernon is now with enough money to send his son somewhere pretentious then it would work but I do feel Vernon has "progressed" a bit, or at least is trying to. His father would be the post-war generation and they wouldn't have had very much money... I don't know...

The thing with Piers is also weird. That suggests it's a day school but I really doubt Vernon lives in the same area as his father did. Privet Drive is definitely a "suburb" type name and those aren't really the sort of places you stay for generations and build up cute little historical communities...

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

It could just be that Rowling threw in the detail about Smeltings being Vernon's alma mater without giving it much thought.

[sunnyskywalker]

Maybe Vernon's father "made it" after Vernon had already reached age 12 or 13, say. Enough time to send him to Smeltings, and late enough that Vernon might still see getting his own home somewhere in the general area (maybe there's a neighboring community just a step down from Little Whinging where his father got - or rented - a house) as an achievement. But I don't know much about the British class system either.

[sunnyskywalker]

Forgot about Aunt Marge - she seems quite comfortable in her role with the dogs and hunting and brandy, which might argue for her growing up in that kind of environment. But I don't know - maybe she's overcompensating for a less well-off background, and after a few decades she's settled into the role enough that it seems natural.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----I can't find a single thing which might indicate that Vernon or Marge were ever working class.

One thing that stands out for me is that Vernon makes racist jokes at his dinner party at the beginning of CoS. It's not that middle class people aren't racist, it's just that making racist jokes at a business dinner is usually considered to be rather uncouth, I think.

Then again, that scene is set in 1992; maybe racist jokes weren't viewed as so inappropriate 20 years ago.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

And this is why I'm wondering if I'm running into cultural or time period differences. In my experience, making a racist joke when you're among family or friends might be acceptable in some social circles, but I'm pretty sure that it would be viewed as very unprofessional in a business setting. Telling racist jokes is just considered very crude behavior, sort of the equivalent of telling sex jokes or using certain expletives. They're very inappropriate in the context of trying to score a major business deal.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

No problem. :)

When Vernon has to check on Harry in the middle of the dinner because of all the noise Dobby is making, he says to Harry, "What — the —devil — are — you — doing? You’ve just ruined the punch line of my Japanese golfer joke… One more sound and you’ll wish you’d never been born, boy."

Re: One

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----To be fair, Vernon could mean his standard stock-in-trade anecdote of something funny that happened to him when he and members of the Japan-based sister company of Grunnings went golfing, and so it need not be a racist remark at all.

Oooh, this is a very good point. Thanks!

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

In my experience, making a racist joke when you're among family or friends might be acceptable in some social circles, but I'm pretty sure that it would be viewed as very unprofessional in a business setting.

Actually it's quite the opposite.

Over the years I've worked for a handful of banks and my job was such that I often had to interact/socialize with upper-level bank execs. Take my word for it, racist/sexist/classist epithets and insults are the NORM in those "country club" circles! They feel safe amongst "their own" and it never crosses their collective minds that anyone in their circle would think/feel differently.

Even though I myself am definitely not from the "country club set" nor ever remotely approached it, because my ethnic background is WASP these people felt very comfortable in stating one racist/classist thing after another in my presence. And even though I'm a woman, sexist comments were de riguer (sp?) also, apparantly they were comfortable in saying such things in front of me because their own wives and daughters just stood there not only said nothing, but actually laughed along with the "joke"! :-P

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

That's just... depressing. I guess I'm just lucky that I haven't had to deal with much of that, yet anyway.

The Dursleys

[urbanman1984.livejournal.com]

The Dursleys are obviously caricatures of middle class suburbanites - they are late 20th century provincial English snobs, but are both exaggerated from reality and simplified at the same time, as is the norm in drawing caricatures.

The caricatures have the role of being like fairy tale antagonists, hence details of over the top wickedness such as putting Harry in a cupboard. However, JKR messed up in her efforts to build a fairy tale setting, in that the magical people who rescue Harry put him there for no good reason and knew all about it, just didn't care. Furthermore it is also jarring that Harry is sent back there in the summers. That would be equivalent to the Prince and the Fairy Godmother sending Cinderella back to live with the evil stepmother in the summer. JKR's failure as an author stems from her ineptitude in handling the fairy tale and fantasy genres. She was only ever any good at the elements that were the British boarding school genre.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

2. I have trouble pegging the Dursleys' social class.

From my American perspective, I always felt that the Dursleys were what could be pegged as an "upwardly mobile" family...coming from working class roots but currently working in a white-collar job.

It's possible that Vernon grew up in a working class family, but that doesn't quite make sense to me, either, because he also attended Smeltings.

According to Pottermore, Vernon and Petunia met when Petunia went to work right out of school as a secretary at an insurance company where Vernon was a middle manager.

So we know for sure that Petunia at least does not have any higher education. Vernon attended Smeltings, but nothing is mentioned about any education he may have pursued after graduating from Smeltings.

Vernon's father could very well have been "working class", but perhaps had worked his way up to, say, factory floor manager. Vernon's parents perhaps felt that sending their son to a "better" school like Smeltings would give him a leg up for his future career prospects, and in their mind a career at midlevel management in an insurance company was very prestigious.

3. If the Dursleys were a real-life family in the UK, would they have been able to get away with forcing Harry to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs?

Sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs never really bothered me, and really, how would anyone outside of the Dursleys know?

Hand-me-down clothing didn't bother me, either. What bothered me is that it should have been noticeable that the Dursleys were semi-starving Harry, and that Dudley at least was subjecting him to physical abuse, and yet no one intervened, no neighbors, and even worse, no teachers or school authorities.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Harry wasn't starved to a point where his health was seriously affected. He was strong enough to run and successfully escape from Dudley et al, he was strong enough to participate normally in sports etc. It wasn't anything like the case of 'A Child Called It' where the boy in question was suffering liver problems in the summer because during school breaks he didn't have that much access to food he could safely steal. Harry's teachers had no way of telling if he was being underfed or was naturally of smallish build. PS states explicitly Harry was *not* starved by the Dursleys, but was never allowed him to eat as much as he liked - no seconds, no desserts, but he did get the basics. His diet was probably closer to current recommendations than Dudley's.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----Sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs never really bothered me, and really, how would anyone outside of the Dursleys know?

How would they hide it from any friends that Dudley had over to play? Would the other children really never notice that Harry didn't have a bedroom? In eleven years, would they really never see Harry entering or exiting the cupboard, even though they would have had to pass by it to get upstairs to Dudley's bedroom?

I guess it might have been doable if Dudley had rarely invited his friends inside the house, which might have been the case given that Petunia was such a neat freak.

I don't think it's clear if the Dursleys were semi-starving Harry or if he was just small for his age due to genetics. My parents always made sure that my brother and I were well-fed, yet we were always consistently the smallest kids in our classes.

As for the bullying, I'm about nine months younger than Harry would be. From what I can remember of my childhood, I think there was a lot more tolerance of bullying even 20 years ago than there is today.

Genetics or stunted by malnutrition?

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

If Harry was stunted by malnutrition, so was James Potter.

At least, as of SWM, Harry explictly notes that he and his father are within an inch of height of each other (and it's not even specified which is the taller, though most assume is must be James). James Potter is significantly (for a teen) older--we see James at his OWLS, 2-3 months after his sixteenth birthday in March, while the Harry making the observtion that they're nearly the same height is viewing the memory about 4 months shy of his sixteenth birthday.

If we compare two sixteen year olds, close relatives, one half a year older than the other, who are within an inch of height of each other, and affirn that one's height is due to having been stunted by deprivation, then so too must the other.

Poor neglected James!

[mmmarcusz.livejournal.com]

So, I know that the Dursleys are supposed to be caricatures, but I'm not sure whom they're supposed to be caricatures of. The problem might be simply that I'm American and not that familiar with British culture.

No, the problem is that JKR gives them too many 'evil' characteristics without thinking about what they mean, so you get unrealistic Roald Dahl negative characteristics, negative upper-class characteristics (Smeltings, the gun, Aunt Marge), negative middle-class characteristics (the arrogant boss yelling at his underlings, Dudley's presents, the rich white man telling racist jokes, the Masons at the party, the obsession with "respectability", the company car, everything about Petunia) and negative working-class characteristics (Dudley acting chavvish in later books - he should have been crashing his dad's car, playing rugby, getting into posh nightclubs on a fake ID and doing coke; not boxing, hanging around the estate and beating up little kids)

If the Dursleys were a real-life family in the UK, would they have been able to get away with forcing Harry to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs

Of course not, the school would have reported them. And it makes no sense, if they're determined for Harry to go unnoticed, for them to abuse him like that. It would make more sense, and be much more interesting, if they treated him like a normal son but freaked out if he did anything different and tried anything to distract him away from anything "irrational."

1. Is Smeltings a boarding school or a day school? My first instinct is that it's a local private day school, mainly because Piers Polkiss, Dudley's neighborhood friend, also attends the school. But I've read a lot of fics in which it's a boarding school, so I'm not sure.

There are lots of private schools (confusingly called "public schools" in the UK) that take both boarders and day pupils.

[oryx_leucoryx]

Of course not, the school would have reported them.

But what would the school have known? Unless Harry told anyone, and it seems he didn't, why would the *teachers* know of his sleeping arrangements? Maybe if Dudley's friends found out and made it an issue for public ridicule.

The teachers would see a sullen boy who gets bullied a bit by peers, and maybe heard complaints from the Dursleys (at conferences) about how he is hard to discipline at home. The 'boys will be boys' view is that Harry is bullied because he is 'asking for it' by being unfriendly and uncommunicative.

The taped glasses must have been excused as 'he is so clumsy, we can't afford to get him new glasses at the rate he keeps getting them broken'.

From the teachers' POV I'd say the oddest thing would be constantly wearing oversized clothes.

I wore plenty of hand-me-downs despite being the eldest in my family - from cousins and even family friends. My daughter is an only child and gets hand-me-downs from her cousin. But in both cases clothes were selected that were of a size that fit well.

[sunnyskywalker]

I think if Harry had shown up to his new school at 11 (instead of Hogwarts) in massively oversized clothes which had been dyed in the sink, someone would have found that odd. What was Petunia thinking?

And thanks, mmarcusz, for unpacking that - no wonder the Dursleys feel all over the map, class-wise.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much my perspective on what must have happened. All the same, I don't think this was *just* the result of Harry being naturally unsociable and sullen. He might have felt he was justified in, and had good reason for spurning his classmates. I left a comment about in the Bellatrix Rant thread, but the conversation was pretty much dead by that point so I don't think many people saw it. The relevant portion is quoted below.

------------------------

Y'know, this has me thinking about another conversation I was following about Harry's (lack of) ability to empathize or even manage basic socializing with his peers. It was brought up by some of the commenters there that in their experience, even at their most isolated and bullied, there were always a couple of other kids at the bottom of pecking order who would be willing to play and commiserate with them, even if they weren't willing to stand up to the bullies on their behalf. But for someone as naturally inclined to black-and-white thinking as Harry, would he be able to recognize that nuance as a small child without someone pointing it out to him?

Normally, this duty to explain that just because someone wasn't strong enough or brave enough to stand up for you in a tough spot doesn't mean they're a terrible person would fall to a child's parents or guardians. Petunia and Vernon, however, would never have bothered themselves that closely with Harry's social situation, and if they did, they might even have thought this the preferred outcome since it helped 'beat the magic out of him.' Without any older siblings/relatives he could rely on for help, the only other people in a position to straighten out his thinking was his teachers. Except from the background we're given, his teachers never saw Dudley and his gang behaving badly enough that they had to be reigned in (and you know Harry would have reveled in such a memory), and they don't seem to have seen any reason to intervene on Harry's end either.

End result? Harry never had anyone to knock him out of the (reasonable for a child) thinking of 'You didn't stand up to the big bad bully for me when he was beating me senseless?! FINE! I guess you were never a REAL friend ANYWAY!!!' This sense of hurt rejection would only have been exacerbated if *Harry* had tried standing up for his 'friends' against Dudley the way he expected them to do for him. And it is canon that Harry will put himself in a fight against bad odds for someone he considers a friend: witness the initial confrontation between him and Ron versus Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, which he seriously thought might turn into a fist fight against at least two boys who handily out-massed him, among other incidents.

So Harry turned his back on the kids who had 'betrayed' him and refused to interact with the fakers even when he wasn't being actively targeted by Dudley (which, given Harry was a preferred target and Dudley et al. seemed to have a knack for avoiding the teachers, probably wasn't as often as Harry wished). If the teachers then saw Harry rejecting company without knowing Harry's perspective, or even how bad Dudley's bullying was, they probably, and reasonably, would have assumed the issue was Harry's alone. Harry, in the meantime, forced to choose (he thought) between deciding everyone else in his year was a complete jackass, and just blaming Dudley for the situation, went with the (only slightly) more reasonable course of just blaming one person instead of everyone.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not sure if we can take Harry at his word that he had absolutely no friends, ever, before he went to Hogwarts, or at least never for very long before Dudley chased them away. For one, kids can exaggerate the state of their unpopularity in their minds, especially when they're feeling insecure or depressed. My mother used to sing the worm song (Nobody likes me, Everybody hates me, I'm gonna eat some worms) when I had such moments. For two, kids' friendships come and go as their interests and hobbies change, as they reach new stages in their psychological development, as families move in and out of the area, or as the students with whom they share classes changes from year to year. Harry might have had good friend in the past who had moved away or something.

Another thing to consider is that Harry consistently blames others for his problems, so he would therefore believe that his lack of friends was somebody else's fault regardless of whether or not that were actually true.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

I thought that was what I said, though I guess I was unclear. It really is normal for kids to act like that and overreact when their feeling slighted. But unlike your mom, who gently pointed out when you were being ridiculous, Harry really didn't have anyone in a position to set him straight.

So yes, it was his own behavior that alienated the other kids. But he was also young enough and isolated enough that with no one to *explain* that to him, what he thought was a reasonable reaction was never corrected. I also wouldn't say that Harry "never" had a friend, but I do think it's possible that he wouldn't have *recognized* that he did, especially without someone in his life mature enough to point out when someone had genuinely betrayed him (Srs Bizniz for a kid) and when someone had only failed Harry's utterly unreasonable expectations.

tl;dr Harry had a number of troublesome personality traits that would have made it difficult to make friends, including black-and-white moralizing and a tendency to blame others for his own problems. These traits are easily corrected (and expected) in young children. Harry didn't have anyone interested enough to correct him, so his faults became more engrained and in fact worsened.

[for-diddled.livejournal.com]

"No, the problem is that JKR gives them too many 'evil' characteristics without thinking about what they mean,"

That's probably the case, and would certainly fit in with Rowling's other main villains, Voldemort (who is supposedly motivated by his desire for immortality, but for some reason feels this would best be achieved by being a wannabe fascist dictator), the Malfoys (who are evil pureblood supremacists, but close friends with the half-blood Severus Snape), the Slytherins (who are upper-class snobs, but value stereotypical middle-class traits such as cunning and ambition)...

[oryx_leucoryx]

Nah, see, you are the classist for making these connections. Rowling is just an equal-opportunity vilifier. (ducks and hides)

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Crabbe and Goyle certainly don't seem upper-class.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

----No, the problem is that JKR gives them too many 'evil' characteristics without thinking about what they mean

Yes! This is the sense I was getting, but I was having trouble thinking of concrete examples. Thanks!

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

It would make more sense, and be much more interesting, if they treated him like a normal son but freaked out if he did anything different and tried anything to distract him away from anything "irrational."

I agree, but this would introduce a certain amount of moral ambiguity into Harry's actions when he abandons the only family he has ever known for his shiny new friends. We can't have Harry looking ungrateful, right? At least not on purpose...

[condwiramurs.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure that JKR was consciously thinking that though. The idea of 'moral ambiguity' when it comes to Harry seems beyond her reach. She seems fine having Harry do worse things, and even being punished for them, without ever having the narrative voice suggest that he is morally ambiguous. More and more I find these books to be just *bewildering.*

Consider the incident in HBP where he nearly kills Draco. He's punished, and at one point it seems like it's being suggested that he's not so perfect - Minerva tells him he got off lightly. But then the narrative switches to telling us how unfair and horrible the detentions were, and Harry *never, ever* reflects back on what he did or why it was wrong. Nor does the narrative voice or any other character in the series (at least, any Authorially Approved character) tell him that he needs to reflect and maybe feel remorse. Instead, in the same book he's praised for hexing someone who can't fight back (Flich) without provocation, and in the next book he's praised - by Minerva! - for torturing someone for spitting. Yet at the same time we are expected to unquestioningly believe that he is an extraordinarily loving junior Jesus?

Does. Not. Compute.

It's kind of like the thing with his supposed horror over James' behavior in SWM. He gets all the brownie points for the right reaction, without it ever having to actually make an impact on his consciousness. Instead he starts behaving just like James, and the narrative voice thinks it's just fine and dandy! I guess we are supposed to take away from that that Harry was somehow So Amazingly Teh Love that he felt sympathy even for the ugly Slytherin who Totally Deserved What He Got, without this affecting his Cool Jock Heroicness as demonstrated by his unprovoked tormentingrighteous punishment of the cranky old squib? Or something.

*goes to bang head into nearest wall, as it hurts less than trying to make sense of these books*

[charlottehywd.livejournal.com]

Well put. I think this explains a lot of why the Dursleys never seemed like real characters or people. Well, not that most other characters did, except on accident, but still.