Before the world knew of Harry Potter and J.K Rowling, Joanne Rowling was simply trying to make a living by writing stories. Most readers do not even know her real name or the fact that she does not have a middle name. Authors have abbreviated their names since the earliest of records for both ease of memorization and with hope of receiving unbiased reviews by the public; of the many authors, C.S. Lewis, Homer, and Mark Twain are the most common. In Rowling’s case, it was the publisher who insisted on the use of a pen name in order to appeal to a larger audience. A larger audience in this case meaning both boys and girls because, according to her publisher, boys are less likely to read novels by female authors. Whether or not this strategy worked better than not having the pen name, no one will ever know however it does give insight into our society. As adults do we encourage this behavior of discriminating authors based on their gender or is this an idea formed from an early age? This male perspective on everything, or the male gaze, becomes inherent as we grow and mature. Does the same thing apply but to girls wanting to read Harry Potter? Women and girls are often portrayed as the fragile and pure members of society. When authors such as Joanne Rowling publish under a pen name J.K Rowling, we as a society are settling. It is often hard pressed to get into the writing business, especially as a female, but settling for a pen name in order to ‘get in’ can be considered unproductive in strict feminist views.
Another thing to note is the absence of an about the author column on the back page of all Harry Potter book covers. Whether this was intentional for the sake of eliminating discrimination or in order to have a full picture of the story, I cannot quite be sure. As a fan of Harry Potter, I love being able to see J.K Rowling’s depiction of the story. It is a look into her vision of the wizarding world. It also brings up the question of whether the publisher did this on purpose or not. Despite the popular phrase, almost everyone judges a book by its cover. In advertising, the book jacket is a vital part in attracting readers and gaining a fan base. As a book intended for children, the images displayed on the book jacket are cartoon-like and are gender neutral, displaying no ‘male gaze’ point of view yet disguise the author’s identity. If I was an author lucky enough to have a book published, I would want my face to be known as the author.
Rowling also used the subject of her writing to fight women’s rights. Harry Potter as a whole is a gateway to new realms of feminism and outlooks of the roles of women. While discussing the topic of feminism, my friends and I concluded that we as females want to be recognized as strong and able, yet we do not want to lose the chivalry shown by men. Rowling effectively used female supporting characters to carry the story and display this modern view on feminism. The most obvious of female characters is Hermione Granger. From the start she is a book worm, a nerd, a geek, an outsider As a reader you are put into the situation of wanting to root for the outcasts and are given a sense of the humiliation they go through.
Throughout the course of all seven books, Rowling builds Hermione in all aspects. Her smarts are appreciated and life saving in many situations while she also matures in her looks and becomes attractive while maintaining her geeky ways. Despite the many strong modern female characters, Rowling also introduces the reader to more traditional female roles such as Madam Pomfrey. She is the caregiver and motherly figure within the books as the typical school nurse who is both kind yet strict. She is essential to the Harry Potter books as she keeps Harry alive multiple times throughout his schooling and shows that the characters are not invincible.
Crafting a combination of modern and traditional female roles, Rowling places feminism into the media in ways that bring out the best aspects of it. Reducing her name into a pen name is degrading in way, however, J.K Rowling did a great thing by gaining a seat for “women at the proverbial table,” inspiring young authors that anyone with a goal in mind can achieve that which they set out to do (Zeisler, 2008, p 21).
Resources:
“Harry Potter Book Cover Art.” World Wide Art. n.d. Web 12 Sept. 2011. http://www.world-wide-art.com/Mary_GrandPre/Harry_Potter_Harry_Potter_Limited_Edition_Deluxe_Book_Cover_Art_Set/vaid28718.html
“Hermione Jean Granger.” Fanpop. n.d. Web 20 Sept. 2011. http://www.fanpop.com/spots/harry-potter/articles/55603/title/hermione-jean-granger
“Madam Poppy Pomfrey.” Screened. n.d. Web 20 Sept. 2011. http://www.screened.com/madam-poppy-pomfrey/15-13683/
Zeisler, A. (2008). Feminism and Pop Culture. Berkeley, CA: Seal Press.
Ahhh yes this is much better. A couple of things to note though (since I'm just too lazy to go get the reviewing rubric and go through it again at 2 in the morning):
ReplyDeleteYou might want to read through again and try to proofread and catch little grammar and punctuation errors. Some are subtle, and others are kind of large and probably easy to spot.
As far as content and organization go, you seem to be taking different sides in the same blog. For example, in the second paragraph, you said "It is often hard pressed to get into the writing business, especially as a female, but settling for a pen name in order to ‘get in’ can be considered unproductive in strict feminist views.", but later go on to say in the conclusion that "J.K Rowling did a great thing by gaining a seat for “women at the proverbial table,” inspiring young authors that anyone with a goal in mind can achieve that which they set out to do."
Another thing i noticed is that some of your sentences don't really support your main idea or the paragraph they're in. For example, in the third paragraph, you begin talking about the lack of an"about the author" column in the books. However, the next two sentences talk about her view of the wizarding world, which is really unrelated. I believe it would help your overall message if you were to remove unneeded and unrelated sentences. Ask yourself if each sentence truly relates to and supports your argument. Also in the third paragraph, saying that the pictures on the cover are gender neutral and that they don't show any signs of the male gaze is actually counter intuitive to your argument because your general argument is that due to the male gaze, Rowling was forced by her publisher to not have an about the author section in her books. If anything, in order to get more people to read the books, wouldn't a more male gaze stance and picture be more male-friendly and sell more books? Maybe I'm just misinterpreting what you're saying, but that just seemed a bit off to me.
My last bit of criticism is the bit about Madam Pomfrey. I know I said to include her somehow in my other comment, but my only concern is that the way she is presented doesn't really relate to feminism so much as it relates to traditional gender roles, which we want to avoid reinforcing. She's the "caregiver and motherly figure within the books as the typical school nurse who is both kind yet strict", but I believe it would be more beneficial to your argument to show ways in which she broke these traditional gender roles and was a strong woman like Hermoine was.
Lastly, i really hope you don't think I didn't like your blog or i think its awful or anything like that. I'm just trying to help out :)
No, thank you! You make really good points and I definitely agree with you and would rather you tell me than not.
ReplyDelete