POA: Chapter Three
Jan. 13th, 2007 01:14 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockThe Knight Bus
*Harry is at large on the streets of Magnolia Crescent and there is anger burning in his heart. But don't worry the love is there too. Its mixing with the anger to create something really good and is sure to save the world.
*Oh no, Harry's stranded in a muggle world. As if the wizarding world is any safer.
*Damn, Harry is now a fugitive and expelled from Hogwarts! He violated the underage magic rule.
*There is a lack of notices from the MOM. I'm thinking this was still during the years that Fudge was still Dumpeydore's water boy.
*Well, now that he is a magical JD, an underage runaway BUT with a vault of gold, why not just use MORE magic? To hell with it all, right Harry? I'm sure the MOM can't pin down you're whereabouts at all. Too bad you aren't as smart as Riddle. I'm sure HE knew all the places he could practice magic without getting expelled. In fact, I'm sure most of Hogwarts (who aren't friends with the trio) know where they can practice magic without being expelled.
*You know, I'm thinking that this restriction is really just to handicap powerful muggle kids.
*Harry feels as if he is being watched. He turns to see a large dog and promptly falls down in surprise.
*The knight bus arrives just in time to prolong the mystery. Damn you Shunpike.
*Shunpike jumps out of the bus to deliver his speech. He is dressed in a purple outfit and his ears are really large and his skin is pimply. I suppose that was why he didn't get a job at the MOM. He was too ugly. We can't have ugly people running around the Ministry. Nope.
*Of course Shunpike has a thick, low class accent. Which is why he is working for a bus company. Don't you just love these books? We always know who is the upper crust from the low because Harry and pals have an RP dialect. Even Ron who should really be speaking with a lower class accent. But then again, his family were most assuredly former Kings of England fallen on low times. Nothing really, really bad can happen to the heroes. The Weaselys may be poor but their blood is the PUREST OF ALL!
*Harry tells Shunpike that he is Neville Longbottom. This is the only time Harry ever thinks of Longbottom away from school. Neville can always be good for an alibi.
*Harry asks Shunpike why muggles can't see the bus. Isn't it great that Harry buys into the prejudice of this world? It is a wonderful example of how loving and giving he really is.
*Shunpike is here only to give information about Black. He is a veritable scholar on Black crimes. He also very generously gives us information on Azkaban.
*Fudge is waiting at the Leaky Cauldron for Harry. Poor Shunpike he fawns all over Fudge. I guess he is still hoping for a better job. Clear up that acne, shrink your ears and learn better pronunciation Shunpike.
*A Harry Potter series bon mot: People who don't speak well deserve the low class jobs they get.
*Another bon mot: If you aren't connected by blood or friendship to someone better, you deserve the low class job you have.
*Fudge laughs off Harry's magical mistake. He states that Aunt Marge has been obliviated and the Dursleys will take him back.
*I shudder to think of what the aurors did to the Dursleys to convince them to take back Harry.
*Harry asks Fudge if he could give him permission to go to Hogsmeade.
*I love how Harry completely forgets all the trouble he has caused and immediately just thinks about his own silly problems. Harry needs to go to Hogsmeade, dammit!
*Fudge refuses to give permission. Damn Fudge, the aurors couldn't get a signed permission note from the Dursleys while they were messing with the Dursleys memories? This is HARRY POTTER you know. He just can't be treated like any old normal person.
*Harry is shown to his room and Hedwig is waiting for him.
*I guess staying with the Weaselys was too much for even Hedwig to handle. She would have rather taken shelter with the homeless Harry. Darn, that is saying quite a bit about the Weaselys.
*Harry then sleeps the sleep of the pure and blameless at the Leaky Cauldron inn.
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 07:52 pm (UTC)No, that would be
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 09:32 pm (UTC)All right, I'll bite. The linguist in me would like to point out that no dialect (or accent) is inherently better than any other dialect. The same linguist in me would also like to point out that we think more highly of certain dialects than others, and we tend to ascribe more positive characteristics to speakers of highly-valued dialects and more negative characteristics to speakers of less-valued dialects. In addition, we all speak a dialect, even those who speak a standard dialect. You with me so far? Good.
Now, it's not likely that everyone in HP would speak Standard English, yet JKR doesn't normally denote their non-standard dialects or accents in writing. Therefore, when she does do so, it's significant. Does she intend to evoke negative stereotypes by having Stan speak a lower-class accent? I can't answer for sure, but it does seem likely.
But whether you agree with me that, in this case, a lower-class dialect is used to evoke negative stereotypes, it'd be foolish to pretend that the choice to use such a dialect is a neutral one.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-16 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 12:14 am (UTC)Such as just discussed, why Stan has a noticeable accent but noone else does. With the exception of Hagrid. Who guess what? He fills a working class job as well. Or did until Dumbles decided to make him a teacher.
Maybe Hagrid got him drunk that night.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 12:19 am (UTC)I can't be cool headed about it. I have had too many people in my travels come up to me and congratulate me on my good, non-accented english OR ask me if I even speak english.
So I can't be objective with the all dialects are equal thing.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 01:22 am (UTC)Heck, it's not that comical!
OK, maybe it's not comical enough for a "boatload". Fine.
Then why doesn't Harry attend school with ANY student who speaks like Stan?
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 01:28 am (UTC)The books do contain plot holes, lapses in logic and more. The actions of the principals do tend to counteract every comment JKR has ever made in public about their motives and character.
Yes, we have fun too.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 09:12 am (UTC)I think I can be cool-headed about it, because here in Finland there's less stigma attached to lower-class dialects (though I'm not saying they are neutral). I think it's probably because the elite here used to speak Finnish, so it was more of a case of Finnish vs. Swedish instead of one dialect of Finnish vs. another.
congratulate me on my good, non-accented english
*headdesk*
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 11:36 am (UTC)Here is a post that explains the background a little (might help if I linked it from the userinfo at some point... *slaps own wrist*)
http://community.livejournal.com/deathtocapslock/20058.html#cutid1
It also contains links to the many 'sporking' communities over livejournal.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 02:19 pm (UTC)Does she intend to evoke negative stereotypes by having Stan speak a lower-class accent? I can't answer for sure, but it does seem likely.
I would never dream of describing anyone’s accent as ‘lower-class’(!) and I dispute that speaking with an accent necessarily creates ‘negative’ associations. I know that accents do have associations and that there is research to show this, but the associations are complex and often positive, and while a Glasgow accent, say, may be associated with heavy drinking and a tendency to fight outside the pub of a Saturday night, it doesn’t mean that anyone applies those characteristics routinely to every Glaswegian they come across.
Stan has a regional accent and works as a bus conductor. This community has deduced that Stan works as a bus conductor because he has a regional accent. And to bring us round in a circle, the community concludes that the job of a bus conductor is demeaning because it is done by someone with a regional accent. Stan’s accent, and by implication Stan himself, is held to be “thick” and “low class”. There follows a number of flights of fancy about Stan’s backstory, wizarding world education policy, class prejudice at Hogwarts, Snape’s origins and ambitions, and Harry’s understanding of the world he lives in. It’s fun, but it can’t be serious. The Society for the Promotion of Working-class Welfare is but a step away!
The wizarding world is in many respects an evocation of a mythical pre-WWII Britain, and the HP books are steeped in the children’s literature of actual pre-WWII Britain but the reader is hardly expected to share the attitudes and views of that time, when society – or a powerful section of it - did still tend to categorise individuals by occupation and accent. The book was written in the 1990s when, as now, it was neither adequate nor acceptable to define an individual by his/her accent or occupation. I don’t for a moment suppose that the members of this community would apply the approach they’re using with Stan to someone with a regional accent or to a bus conductor they met in RL, or that they imagine it is the attitude the author would apply in her daily life. The question is, is it worthwhile to apply it to this character in this novel? For the purpose of having fun, certainly. For the purpose of evaluating and understanding the novel, well it’s a place to start.
I know I don’t really have to say this, but it is worth remembering that the HP books are novels, and as such they don’t operate on only one level with only one tone. Novelists can – and need and must - get away with a lot more than academics, or the compilers of train timetables, for example, and when it comes to comedy they can get away with just about anything. Yes, we’re meant – and allowed - to find Stan, what he says, and the way he says it amusing. Yes, like Hagrid, Stan is associated in part through his accent with simplicity and a certain innocence. In both cases this serves to reinforce that their mistreatment at the hands of the wizarding powers-that-be is poignant and unjustified and obviously wrong. It really does not imply that Harry is some sort of marxist manque, or that there is a conspiracy against the working-class at Hogwarts. Regional accents do not figure among the students at Hogwarts. One chapter in which a character based on a London bus conductor speaks with a London accent is one thing, but an entire novel – series of novels! - littered with ‘By ‘eck’, ‘Cor blimey’, ‘Innit?’, and ‘Oo arr’ would be quite another. (How many readers would be able to identify a particular regional accent, I wonder? How many could bear to read the thing at all?) We are given little information about the backgrounds of the students, and whether or not 'we' imagine them all as middle-class peas in a pod is up to us.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 03:20 pm (UTC)This indicates to me that you never experienced anyone making snap judgments on your speech or appearance. I have and its my sore point. Accents are the first weapon in class war. I've seen it up close.
Its not the accent that I have a problem with in the book, its the way it is presented. Why not include a teacher at Hogwarts with such an accent? Why not Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville or Luna? To write that it would be tedious to do so would be to denigrate the efforts of Mark Twain or Anthony Burgess and numerous other writers who have made their character's accents a point to notice in their books.
The fact that any noticeable "accent" is attributed to characters who seem to be the underclass is a little disturbing. The fact that this was a common practice in "pre-war literature" makes no difference to me. We no longer live in that world and hopefully are more egalitarian in our views. No doubt, 50 years in the future, people will be better and practice better standards in everything than we do now. To hark back to the past as a golden age is dangerous. Because the past wasn't always a panacea to everyone involved.
Yes, like Hagrid, Stan is associated in part through his accent with simplicity and a certain innocence.
Again that has a note of being infantilizing and patronizing to working class/middle class people. They are innocent and must be protected by someone like Harry. They may be there as a point against an unjust society. But so far none of the heroes, with the exception of Hermione (at times), think that there is anything wrong with the WW as is. As far as Harry is unconcerned now, the WW is fine by him (if he didn't have a psychopath stalking him).
Third time's the charm. (Sorry, kaskait!)
Date: 2007-01-17 03:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 03:40 pm (UTC)Yes, we’re meant – and allowed - to find Stan, what he says, and the way he says it amusing. Yes, like Hagrid, Stan is associated in part through his accent with simplicity and a certain innocence. In both cases this serves to reinforce that their mistreatment at the hands of the wizarding powers-that-be is poignant and unjustified and obviously wrong.
But didn't you just lay out the stereotype people are identifying? The one that links funny accents to simplicity to innocence? It seems to be trying to have it both ways, here, saying that we can't deduce that the use of common class stereotypes drawn from a tradition that had certain attitudes about class in any way reinforces those beliefs, but it's okay to use those stereotypes to reinforce more flattering attitudes about class. But if I have to pick one or the other it seems like the books fit much more into the former idea, where cockney bus drivers and lunch trolley ladies are just comforting signs of a time gone by. Elitism is a theme that runs throughout the books, and sometimes it's criticized and sometimes it's not.
If Rowling is drawing on pre-WWII literature it makes even more sense for people to use their knowledge of the real world to understand the characters. They're saying that Hagrid and Stan, etc.--the ones whose accents are funny in ways Lucius Malfoy's is not--hold the same jobs that their Muggle counterparts would hold (blue collar and service jobs) while the kids moving towards middle to upper class lives don't speak like that and are served by them. That would indicate a class difference in the WW that mirrors our own, wouldn't it? Surely it can't be coincidence that the class differences happen to fall pretty much exactly the way they would in our world. I don't get anything in the writing that's challenging this or questioning why this is so.
Stan and Hagrid are both used to show mistreatment in the WW as *individuals* when they get into trouble. But even there aren't they still conforming to familiar stereotypes as unsophisticated cheerful innocents whom our heroes want to protect?
I don't think everybody has to be offended by these familiar stereotypes but I admit I can't find a way to really read them against type, or to not read their accents in the most straightforward way and contrast their accents, jobs and suggestions of different education to all the other people we know in the story. It seems too familiar and logical by Muggle standards to think this is a place where the WW is topsy-turvey. When it comes to stuff like that it seems like JKR's world is absolutely like our own.
Re: Third time's the charm. (Sorry, kaskait!)
Date: 2007-01-17 03:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-17 05:20 pm (UTC)There is no Stan Shunpike, so the relevance of his personal non-existent opinions about his non-existent job are moot.
Neither has this community deduced that Stan works as a conductor because he has an accent - our first clue that this was his job was the fact that it's his job. In the text.
Same as we've assumed that Dumbledore and McGonagall are teachers, and that Harry is a student at a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
People's attitude towards the writing of a character in a book =/= people's attitudes towards regional accents, people who speak with regional accents or even their own opinion of Stan Shunpike's character/personality.
Equally, noticing the author's treatment of class differences does not equal being classist.
Re: Third time's the charm. (Sorry, kaskait!)
Date: 2007-01-17 05:36 pm (UTC)kaskait, I think you're actually making some of the same points I'm making. I'm sorry to go on, but you clearly dislike assumptions being made about you by others because of your accent, but surely you're doing just that yourself in relation to the fictional character, Stan Shunpike, no?
Keyword here being fictional. Stan doesn't exist, he doesn't have "feelings" that can be hurt, he's a figment of JKR's imagination, a construct to serve some kind of plotpoint in her story. The reason for why he talks the way he does, works with what he does, plays the part of the story that he does, cannot be found in "stan's background, personality and choices", because he isn't real. Instead, it can be found in JKR's conscious intentions, as well as the subconscious choices she's made when creating his character. That's what we're discussing here.
Order, order!
Date: 2007-01-17 05:53 pm (UTC)If she's drawing on pre-WWII literature why would the things she draws from that literature suddenly not carry the meaning they did then?
Because that was then and this is now! (Sorry, had to say it!) Rowling is not a pre-WWII writer and we are not pre-WWII readers and HP is not a pre-WWII book. Affectionate parody? Of course!
I don't think everybody has to be offended by these familiar stereotypes...
But this community is palpably offended by the stereotypes it sees, and its response is to escalate the offence. For this community regional accent, and working class background and occupation have negative associations. Why should they?
They're saying that Hagrid and Stan, etc ... hold the same jobs that their Muggle counterparts would hold (blue collar and service jobs) while the kids moving towards middle to upper class lives don't speak like that and are served by them.
This is another circular argument based on the assumption that the students at Hogwarts are all something called middle-class and that Hagrid's and Stan's occupations are somehow unworthy. In what way are Stan and Hagrid serving a so-called higher class? Hagrid is a teacher just like Snape and McGonagall etc, Stan is a bloke with a job like anyone else.
...but I admit I can't find a way to really read them against type
But whose type is this? The wizarding world's, the author's, or (gently) yours?
But didn't you just lay out the stereotype people are identifying? The one that links funny accents to simplicity to innocence?
Yes. But, really, does this stereotype still hold? Of course not! Now it's something we can laugh at. This community is imbuing it with a meaning it no longer has.
Of course there is prejudice in our world, and of course assumptions are made, and of course this happens in the fictional HP world too, and it is dealt with (in some fashion) elsewhere in the story. (Waves hand airily.) JKR's world is like our own, but it's a lot of other things as well.
I was going to go but I do love a good discussion. (woman excommunicated)
Re: Third time's the charm. (Sorry, kaskait!)
Date: 2007-01-17 06:01 pm (UTC)The reason for why he talks the way he does, works with what he does, plays the part of the story that he does ... can be found in JKR's conscious intentions, as well as the subconscious choices she's made when creating his character. That's what we're discussing here.
Would you like to say something about it then? But don't feel you have to. (woman ironing) (Oh God, oh God!)
Re: Order, order!
Date: 2007-01-17 08:02 pm (UTC)That's if you assume there's parody. Since it's not totally obvious, many just read it as affectionate. That seems to be one of the appeals of the book for a lot of people.
For this community regional accent, and working class background and occupation have negative associations. Why should they?
I think people are describing what they see the text connecting to working class accents. Some people in the thread seem to have and want more positive associations than they see in the text. At least that's what I thought they said.
This is another circular argument based on the assumption that the students at Hogwarts are all something called middle-class and that Hagrid's and Stan's occupations are somehow unworthy. In what way are Stan and Hagrid serving a so-called higher class? Hagrid is a teacher just like Snape and McGonagall etc, Stan is a bloke with a job like anyone else.
I don't see how it's circular to note where the kids at Hogwarts seem to fall in terms of class based on what we know of them--particularly given markers like the ones we're discussing here. "Stan's just a bloke with a job like everyone else" just chooses to not talk about the differences. Some jobs are different than others. (I believe Hagrid's position as teacher was noted elsewhere.)
But whose type is this? The wizarding world's, the author's, or (gently) yours?
The wizarding world's and the author's. I'm describing how the author's world is put together--a world that draws on many types being familiar to her audience as well. You seem to have acknowledged this when you described it as affectionate parody, but other times claim total ignorance about it going on.
Yes. But, really, does this stereotype still hold? Of course not! Now it's something we can laugh at. This community is imbuing it with a meaning it no longer has.
That's going to be in the eye of the beholder. Some people perhaps do feel this meaning is still present and react to it as such. (If the associations were all that remote the types wouldn't work at all.)
But even if you do find the class stereotypes funny rather than classist, it still makes that class system part of the structure. Two people can agree that this pattern exists in the text and disagree on whether it's supposed to be a satire or not, with person A saying, "Oh, she's being satirical, making fun of people who think this kind of thing is cute" and Person B saying, "She doesn't sound satirical to me. She sounds like she is one of those people who think this kind of thing is cute." Nobody is wrong for describing the pattern as existing any more than they would be for reading Viktor's accent and saying, "Viktor's supposed to be from Bulgaria but any standard B-movie Dracula-accent will do, apparently." You might not be personally offended by it, but I don't think it's worth trying to argue it into something else.
JKR's world is like our own, but it's a lot of other things as well.
Well, yeah. But aren't we looking at exactly what those other things are? It just seems like this whole discussion goes to something central to the books, the conflicted feelings about elitism throughout the books. It's not the only thing to look at in the books, but it seems pretty central to understanding the world. Sort of like how the Dursleys are made fun of for wanting to send Dudley to a silly old-fashioned school--much like the one at which the story is based.
Part I
Date: 2007-01-18 04:47 pm (UTC)I think people are describing what they see the text connecting to working class accents.
A reader's response to a book comes from what they see in the text and what they bring to the text themselves. I get the impression that in this community the latter predominates. In relation to Stan Shunpike is there really any suggestion in the text that Stan's job is less than anyone else's - than the Minister for Magic's, for example, or any of the passengers on his bus? Surely the community has decided for itself that Stan's job is somehow unsatisfactory, that being working-class and speaking with an accent is a lesser state of being? And even gone on to create it's own backstory to support the idea!
Sort of like how the Dursleys are made fun of for wanting to send Dudley to a silly old-fashioned school--much like the one at which the story is based.
Is this really what’s being done? The books make fun of the Dursleys continually but I thought this was an example of the Dursleys’ different treatment of Dudley and Harry. Harry, they have decided, is to attend the local, free, state school but Dudley is to attend what they consider a better school, a private (or possibly a particular form of private called public), fee-paying school. Both forms of school are parodied, or at least made fun of: Smeltings is a brutal, private school, with a ridiculous uniform and a violent ethos (the stick), while Stonewall High is a rough, state school, with a drab, grey uniform and a culture of violence (the head down the loo). Hogwart’s could be Stonewall High in a Smeltings setting, lol! I mean, I don’t think Rowling is proposing Hogwarts as a paradigm of the perfect school, either on its own merits or in comparison with Smeltings, is she?
I don't see how it's circular to note where the kids at Hogwarts seem to fall in terms of class based on what we know of them
But what do we know about the Hogwarts students, and does what we know really enable us to pronounce on their social class? As far as I can tell this community proposes a middle-class bias to Hogwarts, and to the author, only because regional accents are not made apparent in Hogwarts students’ dialogue. There is, however, evidence against a middle-class bias at Hogwarts in the books: the names of all wizarding children are put down for entry to Hogwarts at birth, and there is support available so that poor students can obtain the things they need. Has the community considered these points?
(continues below)
Part II
Date: 2007-01-18 04:53 pm (UTC)