Harry Potter's Bookshelf Page 12

  To step us into reading Harry Potter as allegory, then, I want to start on the straightforward tit-for-tat level of satire. Satire is barely disguised allegory with real-world correspondents—individuals, institutions, and ideas—we’re meant to recognize without much effort. Satire is also meant to be ironic.

  I start peeling back the allegorical layer of meaning in Ms. Rowling’s work this way, then, because the person, organization, or belief being mocked is relatively easy to see and because it’s meant to be and is very funny. Satire is quite a bit like a political cartoon that shows the faults of a politician, a political party, or a failed policy in the worst possible light. Recognizing her satire makes us more receptive to the less amusing but much more profound and challenging meanings that come with the allegory and symbolism in Ms. Rowling’s work.

  I also like starting with satire because there is a very long tradition of satire in English letters. From The Canterbury Tales to Harry Potter, writers have been taking their readers on a journey to a different place to reveal the underside or neglected aspects of the reality we live in. Sometimes this journey means a trip to a “strange new world,” as with Gulliver’s Lilliput, Butler’s Erewhon, and Baum’s Oz. As often the journey, like Alice’s adventures down a rabbit hole or Through the Looking Glass and the Narnia adventures, takes us inside, beneath, and behind the world of appearances and reflection. Or we discover a secret life of animals, say, the esprit de corps of a cadre of the Watership Down male rabbits in exodus or the history of the proletarian revolution in Animal Farm. Or a combination of all these trips that we get in The Phantom Tollbooth and Harry Potter: a trip far away as well as “further up and further in” with a menagerie of magical anthropomorphic or just beastly creatures.

  The meat of satire is portraying a real-world goon or menace as a laughable caricature in story. The disguise has to be clever enough to be seen through easily enough for those with eyes to see, but not so transparent that there is no pleasure or sense of gleeful accomplishment in the discovery. But the masquerade isn’t just for providing puzzle lovers with a challenge. The hidden quality of satire, historically, has been a life insurance policy of sorts for the author, and, as important, it restricts the message to readers for whom the taunt is meant.

  Swift is supposed to have said that satire is a mirror in which “everyone can see anyone’s face but their own.”5 What better place could there be, then, than in satirical fiction to conceal criticism of those in power?

  But Harry Potter as political satire? Isn’t it just a book for kids?

  Harry Potter has quite a thick layer of political allegory in the form of satire, in fact, and that it comes in the guise of a book for children only makes that more credible. As one historian of children’s literature has noted, “Many books we shelve as ‘children’s literature—Grimms’ Fairy Tales or Gulliver’s Travels or Huck Finn—were born as biting political satire, for adults.”6 And Ms. Rowling has made it clear that she is writing in “political metaphors” for those with the discernment to see it.

  First, she insists that she wrote the book for “obsessives” who would turn over every detail for meaning.7 She also is quite open about the political content of her fantasies—“What did my books preach against throughout? Bigotry, violence, struggles for power, no matter what”8—she’s quite open about the satire, what she calls “metaphor” instead of allegory.

  Fan: Voldemort’s killing of Muggle-borns, it sounds a lot like ethnic cleansing. How much of the series is a political metaphor?

  JKR: Well, it is a political metaphor. But I didn’t sit down and think, “I want to re-create Nazi Germany,” in the—in the Wizarding world. Because—although there are—quite consciously, overtones of Nazi Germany, there are also associations with other political situations. So I can’t really single one out . . .9

  JKR: I think that the world of Hogwarts, or my magical world, my community of wizards—it’s like the real world in a very distorted mirror.10

  Rowling points frequently to the importance of reading the text hidden inside the text. Riddle’s diary is smuggled into Hogwarts between the covers of a textbook. The marginalia of the Half-Blood Prince’s Potions textbook is Harry’s life preserver in that class his sixth year. And Dumbledore leaves Hermione, the smart character, a copy of Beedle the Bard with confidence that she will be able to figure out its greater meaning in symbols, not to mention the fate-of-the-world relevance of that meaning, whereas the Ministry would not.

  Hermione’s cat, Crookshanks, is another pointer to the “smart reader” being asked to look for political metaphor and satire especially in the story. Hermione buys the furry ginger cat, with its bowed legs, grumpy and “oddly squashed” face that gave it the appearance of a cat who “had run headlong into a brick wall” (Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter four), almost as an act of charity (“the witch said he’s been [in the Magical Menagerie] for ages; no one wanted him”). Given that its first act in the story is to jump on Ron to get at Scabbers, it seems cause for buyer’s remorse. But it’s a good purchase. Sirius spells it out for Ron in the Shrieking Shack:“This cat isn’t mad,” said Black hoarsely. He reached out a bony hand and stroked Crookshanks’s fluffy head. “He’s the most intelligent of his kind I’ve ever met. He recognized Peter for what he was right away. And when he met me, he knew I was no dog. It was a while before he trusted me . . . Finally, I managed to communicate to him what I was after, and he’s been helping me . . .”

  “What do you mean?” breathed Hermione.

  “He tried to bring Peter to me, but couldn’t . . . so he stole the passwords into Gryffindor Tower for me . . . As I understand it, he took them from a boy’s bedside table . . .” ( Prisoner of Azkaban , chapter nineteen)

  So we have a superintelligent cat as the pet of the “cleverest witch of her age” (Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter seventeen) that no one appreciates. The most notable aspect of its intelligence is that it is able to discern the reality beneath the deceptive but suggestive surface of people and creatures it meets.

  Crookshanks the cat is named for nineteenth-century England’s most famous caricaturist and political satirist, George Cruikshanks. Cruikshanks was legendary for his deadly broadside cartoons that pierced the mighty, especially royals and aristocrats, but all the powerful, Whigs and Tories alike. The smart money, consequently, is not betting against the idea that Ms. Rowling, too, is writing political satire, just beneath the skin of her characters, rats and heroes. Let’s see if we can make out what Cruikshanks might have seen in the Hogwarts adventures.

  Ms. Rowling’s Politics

  It’s a safe bet that Ms. Rowling writes as a political liberal. Her writing pre- and post-Potter speaks from the left side of the partisan house. She admires Jessica Mitford (for whom her eldest daughter is named), she worked for Amnesty International as a bilingual secretary and researcher after college,11 and she has donated as much as a million pounds at a time to the U.K. Labour Party to protect “the poor and vulnerable” from the Conservatives.12 Keith Olbermann, an American television talking head and Harry Potter fan, claims Ms. Rowling “told me the parallels between the Ministry of Magic and its false sense of omniscience and the conduct of the American and British governments were no inferences. She had put them there.”13

  Ms. Rowling has repeatedly said that she is against “fundamentalism of any kind,” fundamentalism tending to be a partisan buzzword used to describe the positions of religious people with conservative political beliefs. She said during the presidential primary season that she is “obsessed with the U.S. elections” and “I want a Democrat in the White House.”14 She has agreed that her satirical depiction of the Death Eaters as racists and Nazi-echoes was a pointer to their being “neo-conservative and Thatcherite.”15 One French philosopher and critic has gone so far as to say, “Harry Potter is a war-machine against Thatchero-Blairism and the ‘American way of life.’”16

  Where does her satirical slant to the political left show itself? In almost ev
ery character-as-caricature we are offered as representatives of government, the justice system, media, and schools. She skewers specific real-world individuals, whole institutions, and human types with big brush strokes and a dark, comic touch.

  Did someone mention Margaret Thatcher? Ms. Rowling’s experience on the dole as a single mother resulted in a depression that was bad enough that she “contemplated suicide.”17 She felt the “right-wing government” of that time and the media “scapegoated” single mothers as “feckless teenagers who didn’t know how to use contraception.”18 The Ministry of Magic and the Daily Prophet reflect, as we’ll see, her thoughts on government and media, but Lady Thatcher gets special treatment.

  Aunt Marge, Uncle Vernon’s mustached, self-important, and outrageous sister, a breeder of bulldogs (a mascot or symbol of England because of its determination and fighting tenacity), is easy to see as a Rowling caricature of the former Prime Minister. Her dog, Ripper, isn’t lovably tenacious; it is violent and mean-spirited. Just like his mistress. After explaining to the Dursleys after dinner and too many glasses of wine that Harry’s runtishness was a function of his poor breeding, she does a little scapegoating on her own:“[Harry’s father] didn’t work,” said Uncle Vernon, with half a glance at Harry. “Unemployed.”

  “As I expected!” said Aunt Marge, taking a huge swig of brandy and wiping her chin on her sleeve. “A no-account, good-for-nothing, lazy scrounger who—” (Prisoner of Azkaban , chapter two)

  Harry loses control at this point and blows her up, literally, like the overinflated bag of wind that she is. What less could you expect him to do, not only because of the insults to the memory of his parents, but because of the eugenicist “breeding” comments only Death Eaters and Voldemort voice in these books?

  Tony Blair gets the more direct treatment. Half-Blood Prince opens at 10 Downing Street, in which the Muggle Prime Minister meets with Cornelius Fudge and the new Minister of Magic, Rufus Scrimgeour. (The P.M. is not named and some say it is meant to be John Major, though U.K. friends assure me the speech patterns are Blair’s.) The Muggle minister is presented as a man concerned only with political praise and blame, a man wanting to be treated with respect by the “Other Minister,” as he thinks of the Minister of Magic, but wanting them to fix his problems post-haste. “The President of a far distant country” is about to call and the P.M. dreads the conversation to come with “that wretched man.”

  The institution of government is pilloried more than individuals, of course. On nonsensical things like the thickness of cauldron bottoms, the importing of magic carpets, and the organization of “Bread and Quidditch” events like the Triwizard Tournament, the government lavishes indefinite resources and manpower. But on the critical issues of the day, namely, the return of Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters, they rush only to denial and inaction, except to be sure that the Daily Prophet is given the correct spin so that the Minister himself doesn’t look bad.

  The best part of her satirical treatment of U.K. government officials is her depiction of types. There is the ambitious young man on the rise, putting aside thoughts of right, wrong, family obligation, and even common sense to be seen with the right people and to get their attention. I give you Percy Weasley. What sort of man Percy would have turned into if he had continued on this path is visible in the tragic Barty Crouch, Sr., who so neglects his family that his son becomes a Death Eater and a patricide.

  Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic for the first five books of the series, is, as Dumbledore says, “. . . blinded by . . . the love of the office you hold, Cornelius!” (Goblet of Fire, chapter thirty-six). He becomes a stand-in for Neville Chamberlain, denying Lord Voldemort’s ascendancy and evil as Chamberlain did Hitler’s. Rufus Scrimgeour, in contrast, is no appeaser and dies heroically after the Ministry is overtaken by Death Eaters. Even he, though, is not interested in winning the war as much as he is in gestures to foster public morale, gestures that include imprisoning the innocent, men like Stan Shunpike; tolerating vicious people like Dolores Umbridge within the Ministry; and holding the items left to Ron, Harry, and Hermione by Dumbledore in his will. Both Scrimgeour and Fudge are about power, not mercy, justice, or truth.

  There are good guys in government. Arthur Weasley works in the least important government departments (Misuse of Muggle Artifacts and Head of the Office for the Detection and Confiscation of Counterfeit Defensive Spells and Protective Objects) but manages to write and help pass The Muggle Protection Act. This makes him and his clan “Blood Traitors” to other Pure Blood families. The Aurors, Ministry Dark Wizard hunters, range from the duty-observant street cops like Dawlish to the self-sacrificing heroes like Alastor Moody.

  But, taken all together, the Ministry as Rowling presents it is sympathetic to the powerful rather than the needy and vulnerable, to the racist rather than the oppressed, and focused on the trivial and superficial rather than the vital and essential. When the Death Eaters succeed in putting Pius Thicknesse (a name suggesting the religious right, “fundamentalists”) under the Imperius curse and take over the Ministry with Thicknesse as Voldemort’s puppet, it is no surprise that it quickly becomes a totalitarian, Pure Blood regime.

  Profiteers, Fools, and Blood-Sucking Parasites: Fleet Street in Satirical Story

  Ms. Rowling’s relationship with the media, by which inclusive term I mean television and print journalists, is a remarkable one. She is a media darling; getting an interview with her is a difficult thing, especially when it is not in association with a charity event or the release of a book or movie—and reporters’ gratitude for the privilege is evident. She is rarely asked a hardball question and has not been presented in an unflattering light, to my knowledge, in scores of articles consequent to interviews.

  Nevertheless, Ms. Rowling clearly is cautious about the press. She has set up her own website so she can communicate directly to her fans without having to work through the medium or filter of the press. She does do interviews and press conferences, online and in person, with nonjournalists—i.e., fans, especially children and young adults, whom she trusts will be kind and attentive to detail rather than having a “selling papers” agenda. She never looks comfortable at designed-for-media events like red carpet charity or theatrical appearances and press conferences.

  She has sued newspapers and celebrity photo services to protect her privacy, especially the privacy of her children.19 The press, as a rule, fawn over her, but they are not her friends. Here is a telling response to a question from a fan about political allegory: Q: Many of us older readers have noticed over the years similarities between the Death Eaters’ tactics and the Nazis from the thirties and forties. Did you use that historical era as a model for Voldemort’s reign and what were the lessons that you hope to impart to the next generation?

  A: It was conscious. I think that if you’re, I think most of us if you were asked to name a very evil regime we would think Nazi Germany. There were parallels in the ideology. I wanted Harry to leave our world and find exactly the same problems in the Wizarding world. So you have the intent to impose a hierarchy, you have bigotry, and this notion of purity, which is this great fallacy, but it crops up all over the world. People like to think themselves superior and that if they can pride themselves on nothing else, they can pride themselves on perceived purity. So, yeah, that follows a parallel. It wasn’t really exclusively that. I think you can see in the Ministry even before it’s taken over, there are parallels to regimes we all know and love. [Laughter and applause.] So you ask what lessons, I suppose. The Potter books in general are a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry, and I think it’s one of the reasons that some people don’t like the books, but I think that it’s a very healthy message to pass on to younger people that you should question authority and you should not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth.20

  She gets her shot in there at the Bush and Blair governments, makes a fist pump for her postmodern celebratio
n of tolerance, but summarizes her message in the axiom “Don’t trust the establishment or the press to tell you the truth.”

  When Harry “leaves our world” and finds “exactly the same problems in the Wizarding world,” then, it should come as no surprise that one of these problems is an obnoxious, irresponsible, dangerously mean-spirited and unregulated press. And that is exactly what we find there.

  But not right away. Though Harry learns about the Wizarding world newspaper, the Daily Prophet, the same day he is told by Hagrid he is a wizard (Sorcerer’s Stone, chapter five) and almost all news of the outside world comes to Hogwarts through this medium, Harry doesn’t meet the press, per se, until he becomes an unwilling Hogwarts champion in Goblet of Fire (chapter eighteen). Then he meets Ms. Rowling’s memorable type and caricature of a Fleet Street reporter, Rita Skeeter.

  We actually hear her name mentioned earlier in Goblet of Fire (chapter ten) because she writes up a misleading and rumor-laden report in the Prophet about the Dark Mark appearing above the Quidditch World Cup campgrounds. We are forewarned, consequently, when she pulls Harry into a Hogwarts broom closet before the weighing of the wands ceremony for Triwizard Tournament champions. Harry gives pedestrian answers to her questions and insists, despite her fishing for a more titillating response, that he hadn’t entered the Tournament voluntarily.