The Sociology of Harry Potter: 22 Enchanting Essays on the Wizarding World

by Unknown

  Malfoy’s joke is an evil one precisely because he questions the Weasleys’ ability to get by in life, thus linking consumption to one’s ability to provide for ones dependents. Lucius Malfoy is similarly mean-spirited not just because he’s a Death Eater but because he shows that the lack of social estimation he gives Mr. Weasley is related to, what he believes, is his failure to “be a good wizard.” When Lucius makes jibes about Mr. Weasley’s poor pay, it stems from his belief in his failure to be a good wizard. As he says, “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it” (COS 62). We see this opinion firmly related to consumption practices. Mr. Malfoy begins his interacting with Ron by commenting on how the Weasley’s clothes are all hand-me-downs and books are second hand: “...red hair, vacant expressions, tattered second hand books, you must be the Weasleys” (HP2). Here we see illustrated the problem of consumption being not just about getting useful things. It’s also about getting recognised as being worthy of respect and our ability to provide for ourselves and others. So money and consumption becomes sociologically translated into ones moral worth.

  Lucius Malfoy has informed Draco’s ideas about the wizarding world’s status hierarchy. During one of their first encounters, Draco introduces Harry to the social hierarchy of the wizarding world. Just as his father had seen status stemming from appearance, Malfoy comments to Ron, “No need to ask who you are. Red hair and a hand-me-down robe. You must be a Weasley” (HP 1). He then turns to Harry and remarks, “You’ll soon find that some wizarding families are better than others” (ibid). Harry has come right up against the status order through consumption of clothing. Harry makes his moral judgement clear, saying he can figure out “the wrong sort for myself thanks” (ibid). Harry rejects what social theorist Jean Baudrillard (1998) called the “order of signs.” Seeing robes as a mark of esteem and moral worth is to view people through arbitrary signs, Baudrillard would argue. Harry clearly rejects Malfoy’s ideology of the choice of clothes as a sign of moral worth.

  Within this ideology, since consumption choices translate money into moral worth, they can be used to assert moral superiority over others. At the Quidditch World Cup, Draco brags to the Weasleys that “Father and I are in the Minister’s box” (HP4). Lucius swiftly stabs him with his walking cane and spits, “Don’t boast, Draco. There’s no need with these people” (ibid). Not only are the Weasleys poor, they do not deserve acknowledgement.

  Understanding our consumption as also moral worth is to understand what is considered a legitimate claim to participate in society. To be a wizard or a witch is to be a wand bearer. What marks wizards out from other magical creatures, such as Goblins, is that they use magic through their wands. Buying a wand is buying your claim to participate in wizarding society. When it came to the horrific trials conducted by the Death Eater controlled Ministry of Magic, the stripping of a Muggle-born wizard of their wand becomes a ritual of dramatic social exclusion. It denies one’s claim to be a member of the wizarding world. On trial, Mary Cattermole states, “I didn’t take it … I bought it when I was eleven years old. It chose me” (DH 260, emphasis in original). Mary’s statement is a claim to legitimate membership: You can’t buy a wand that doesn’t choose you! But Umbridge denies her: “Wands only choose witches or wizards. You are not a witch” (DH 261).

  We have seen that consumption is a moral order whereby we sustain recognition of ourselves, or lack of recognition, with the example of the Weasleys, Malfoys, and Mary Cattermole. But what then do these reciprocities count for? How do we become recognised as well-regarded, esteemed and honoured members of society? A good example comes from shopping for broomsticks.

  Harry vs. Draco: Recognition is moral worth proved

  When Harry gets his Nimbus 2000 he soon learns that he’s a fantastic flyer and even better Seeker. It’s in his blood, as Hermione tells him. We can take from Harry’s flying skills that he’s able to contribute to the Gryffindor team and contribute to winning matches against other Houses. Harry’s reciprocity is Seeking, he finds the snitch; Fred and George “stop him from getting blooded up” (HP1) as Beaters; Katie, Angelina and Alicia score goals as Chasers; and Wood, as Keeper, defends his teams’ hoops against the opponents’ Chasers. They all have a status on the team and a role to play. Harry’s broomstick, while advertised as a wonderful, exciting commodity (like all Muggle daily appliances in the home and on TV), is essential to his being a good seeker. Harry’s broomstick, not simply his seeker skills, gains him recognition as worthy of being on the team.

  As we have seen, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen is responsible for observing that everyday objects can be symbols of wealth and gain us recognition from our peers, but also they can assert ferocity. Speaking of the Victorian walking-stick, Veblen (1994: 162) turns it into a barbaric weapon so people can recognise the gentleman as worthy of deference and respect:

  The walking-stick serves the purpose of an advertisement that the bearer’s hands are employed otherwise than in useful effort, and it therefore has utility as an evidence of leisure. But it is also a weapon, and it meets a felt need of barbarian man on that ground. The handling of so tangible and primitive a means of offence is very comforting to anyone who is gifted with even a moderate share of ferocity.

  We could argue that broomsticks in the wizarding world can be seen as evidence of this “predatory” element of wizard culture. While they’re used in a barbaric game, as Hermione might view a game of wizard’s chess, they’re essential to be seen as a person of respect and being recognised as such. Harry’s Nimbus was a symbol of his ability to prove his pre-eminence on the pitch, his prowess as a player.

  Yet we encounter an interesting case of fraudulent consumption in Harry’s second year when, to everyone’s surprise, Draco Malfoy enters the Slytherin team as their new seeker. How did Draco manage this? He bribed the Slytherin Quidditch team with the Nimbus 2001s. We could say that Malfoy misunderstood the walking-stick as symbol that wealth had been earned, that broomsticks are the mark of a good flyer. He thought it was the means to gain prowess and status, but really it proves it. Malfoy thinks the broomstick itself will outdo his peers. As Marcus Flint says, “Very latest model. Only came out last month….I believe it outstrips the old Nimbus Two Thousand series by a considerable amount” (COS 111). Flint too engages in what Karl Marx called the “fetish of commodities” (1976:163ff): People mistake the consumer product as having value as a part of its very nature, when in reality the broom itself is just a lump of wood. Instead we have to remember that the broomstick’s brilliance comes from the brilliance of the wizard using it. As the perceptive Hermione puts it, “At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in … They got in on pure talent” (COS 112, emphasis in original). Malfoy’s broomstick does not show his prowess as a great wizard of the Quidditch pitch, rather his bribery. It was a fraudulent thing to do.

  Hermione, clever as always, understands that people can’t just buy their moral worth and social status, as sociologists have been able to tell us. Hermione’s judgements also tell us something important about the morality of buying things: That we can’t buy everything (no matter how many lovely sweets Honeydukes has on offer).

  Harry vs. Dudley: Moral responsibility in consumption

  The places in which we Muggles do our shopping are overloaded with fantastic trinkets and offerings. They have been said to be so exciting that they’ve been labelled “cathedrals of consumption” (Ritzer 1999). They offer such wonderful promises, and we imagine ourselves using them as we gaze upon them. As sociologist Georg Simmel (1989) observed, the money economy of modern society allowed unrestrained freedoms in man’s will. Harry isn’t exempt. Upon witnessing the Firebolt, Harry knew that he shouldn’t buy it “when he had a very good broom already....but he returned, almost every day after that, just to look at [it]” (POA 52). Harry also encounters his fellow Gryffindor’s, Dean and Seamus, in the shop later on “ogling the Firebolt” (POA 55). The b
roomstick is a fantastic piece of consumer dreams and fantasies (Campbell 1987), but it is also understood as costing too much money.

  Harry understands that buying the broom is a big investment and that he shouldn’t waste money on something he doesn’t need. What is sociologically important is that too high a level of shopping is damaging to social order and the reciprocities we are engaged in – how would Harry afford all his school books if he spent his money on a Firebolt (especially since the price of this broomstick isn’t even disclosed !)? (POA 51).

  The sociologist understands these thoughts as indicative of a socially shared morality. This is a morality which is preached in Diagon Alley itself. As Harry enters the wizard bank Gringotts and goes down to the vaults, he sees upon a silver door a message of warning:

  Enter, stranger, but take heed

  Of what awaits the sin of greed,

  For those who take, but do not earn

  Must pay most dearly in their turn …

  (SS 72).

  Explicitly here, the guardians of the wizarding world’s monies are employing a moral judgement about rightful senses of social justice. It makes clear that legitimate and sanctioned acts of shopping are to be morally justifiable not just to oneself, but also to society. If one is greedy, or even a thief, he or she jeopardises the foundations of social order and reciprocities. Going shopping every day leads to an inability to perform as a regular member of society, and therefore, Parsons would label overspending as a form deviance. What turns Fred and George from tricksters who, in Mrs. Weasley’s eyes, overindulge in Zonko’s Joke Shop products, is their transformation into savvy businessmen who contribute to society (even during the dark times of Voldemort’s second rise).

  It seems clear that the best candidate for the irresponsible, deviant consumer is Cousin Dudley. Recall his inability to appreciate his parents’ gifts, demanding more and more presents than the previous year. Remember also that Harry used to live under the stairs due to the fact that the Dursley’s spare room was Dudley’s toy room! A whole devoted room to the vertiginous, needless spending his parents had put upon him. Dudley is in dire need of a modern day Muggle lifestyle specialist, one of the wise aunties who try to tame the shopaholic. Dudley’s over-consumption is subversive and, as warned by sign at Gringotts, he “must pay most dearly” for his over indulgences (i.e., “the sin of greed”) (SS 72). If we recall the actions of Hagrid when Dudley scarfs down Harry’s 11th birthday cake while he’s not looking, we see society’s sense of justice being acted out through the wand: Hagrid’s swift flick of his wand gives Dudley a curly pig’s tail that pokes out the back of his trousers, revealing him for the very animal over-consumption has made him.

  Conclusion

  The lessons that the sociology of consumption are able to reveal is that a clear set of moral judgements and processes of recognition are at work in the most mundane acts. Choosing what is worthy to buy (get your book list first, and just fantasize about the broomstick), displaying the products in front of your peers (and the social failure of buying the broomsticks to bribe people) all highlight this moral order. Of course, simply being a good member of society through earning what you buy, and not being a greedy pig like Dudley, is a valuable lesson. Investigating what people, Muggle or wizard, do with things is a good way to answer questions of what is morally worthy to us.

  Sociologists who study consumption are always asking these questions. A classic study of “tastes” for consumer goods is Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction (1986). It tells us that what is being negotiated when we Muggles listen to certain types of music, eat certain types of food or even play tennis on holiday is actually a sense of the proper ways to do things. Playing tennis wearing a Lacoste t-shirt and Bermuda shorts becomes, sociologically, a struggle over defining the right and wrong ways of doing things and, in so doing, creates social divisions and exclusive places for exclusive people. All through the arbitrary classifications of the world of consumer goods!

  Buying things is often about upholding moral worth in society. By looking at consumption patterns in the wizarding world, we Muggles are able to better understand our own.

  References

  Baudrillard, Jean. 1998. The Consumer Society: myths and structures. London: Sage.

  Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. Distinction: a social critique of judgement and taste. London: Routledge.

  Campbell, Colin. 1987. The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford: Blackwell.

  Davis, Mark. 2008. Freedom & Consumerism. Aldershot: Ashgate.

  Durkheim, Émile. 1933. The Division of Labour in Society. New York, NY: Free Press.

  Marx, Karl. 1976. Captial, Volume 1. London: Penguin.

  Miller, Daniel. 1995. A Theory of Shopping. Cambridge: Polity.

  Parsons, Tallcot. 1951. The Social System. London: Routledge.

  —. 1964. Social Structure and Personality. London: Free Press of Glencoe.

  Ritzer, Georg. 1999. Enchanting a Disenchanted World. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.

  Simmel, Georg. 1989. The Philosophy of Money. London: Routledge.

  Veblen, Thorstein. 1994. The Theory of the Leisure Class. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications.

  “You Have Never Treated Harry as a Son”

  The Politics of Motherhood

  in the Wizarding World

  Tanya Cook

  “Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and he gave no obvious sign of anger, Harry felt a kind of chill emanating from him and noticed that the Dursleys drew very slightly closer together. ‘You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you” (HPB 55).

  Introduction

  During his visit to No. 4 Privet Drive Harry’s penultimate summer with his aunt and uncle, Dumbledore finally sanctions the Dursleys for their terrible treatment of Harry. Uncle Vernon responds defensively but Petunia is described as being “oddly flushed” after Dumbledore’s reprimand. As self-centered (or shall we say Dudley-centered) as she can be, Petunia demonstrates an awareness that she has failed as Harry’s adoptive mother. Furthermore, Dumbledore indicates that she has failed her biological son, Dudley, through a pathological over-mothering. This encounter highlights just one of the many examples of what I call “the politics of motherhood.” The role of “mother” in the wizarding world carries with it specific sociocultural expectations of what a mother is or should (or should not) be.

  In this chapter I focus on the mothers Harry encounters and demonstrate the pervasiveness of norms related to motherhood. Three mothers: Lily Potter, Petunia Dursley, and Molly Weasley can be viewed as illustrating best, worst, and second-best case scenarios for mothering, respectively. I will illustrate the concept of social roles as an interactive social construction. Drawing on West and Zimmerman’s (1987) concept of “doing gender,” I argue that through “doing motherhood” the women listed above are variously constrained and enabled by their mother role performances. The role of mother is further shown to be a re-constructed and re-negotiated one as Harry’s generation grows into adulthood. Finally, drawing on the concept of othermothers (Hill Collins 1990) and Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking (1989), we see exactly how social the role of mother is in that “mother” does not have to equal biological mother or even woman.

  Social Roles and Socialization

  Sociologists developed the concept of socialization in order to explain how individuals internalize norms or guidelines for behaviors that are socially accepted. Borrowing from the language of the theater, social roles are parts individuals play out in society that are governed by norms. Role performances are then subject to judgment and criticism by other members of society based on how well one adheres to normative behavioral guidelines as was illustrated in the example which began this essay (Bankston et al. 2000). Individuals possess many
roles which may be encompassed in a role set (Merton 1957). Roles have been described as “the dynamic aspect of status” (Linton, quoted in Turner 2001). Here, status is the position; and role is the performance or behavior that is expected of an individual in that position. A given individual will have multiple roles within their repertoire on which to draw in a specific, context-influenced interaction. Some roles, however, “...are more dominant than others” (Zurcher 1983: 230), and as such will be arranged hierarchically with certain roles carrying precedence over others. For example, the role of mother trumps other social roles in various interactions that Harry observes.

  Roles link what are sometimes called the macro and micro levels of sociological analysis. The individual (micro level) acts out a role performance that is structured or defined in some ways by larger social institutions (macro level). The individual’s performance may in turn affect the larger social institution in which it takes place. I draw on West and Zimmerman’s (1987) concept of “doing gender” and Ruddick’s (1989) theoretical argument for a kind of thinking defined by motherly activities to highlight the dynamic, interactive, and pervasive characteristics of the mother role as exemplified by the mothers Harry knows.