The Question of Class

Abstract

I have been edging towards the issue of social class — one that, in the context of the Harry Potter books, has attracted some attention — for a while now. In the previous chapter I have noted that the educational experience of Magic world is apt to be viewed in our world as being specific to a certain social class. This has in fact been the main thrust of observations about class attitudes in the Harry Potter novels, and to this I return later in this chapter. In the previous chapter I have also commented on the manner in which the house-elves’ class characteristics (being servants, the kind of treatment they receive, the spaces they inhabit, their way of speaking, etc.) is made uneasily coextensive with their species-condition of servility. This latter observation arguably has a bearing both on prevailing conceptualizations of class in our world and (to some extent) on the social and political implications of the reception accorded to the Harry Potter novels.KeywordsSocial ClassClass AnalysisPrevious ChapterClass AttitudeClass DivisionThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.