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

[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.