Pen names have always been a common trend in the writing world. This is due to the fact that authors wanted their works to be judged by their writing not by who they were or where they were from or what nationality they were. Authors have abbreviated their names since the earliest of records for both ease of memorization and neural views by the public. This includes C.S. Lewis, Homer, and one of today most well known author, J.K. Rowling. One does not even have to get to her last name before an image of Harry Potter appears. But the author is not the sole decision maker in pen names. Before the world knew of Harry Potter and J.K Rowling, Joanne Rowling was simply trying to make a living by writing stories. In her 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 apparently boys do not 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 within? This male perspective on everything, or the male gaze, then becomes inherent. Now, does the same thing apply but to girls wanting to read Harry Potter? Women and girls are portrayed as the fragile and pure members of society. When authors such as Joanne Rowling publish under a pen name J.K Rowling, we 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. 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).
Another thing to note is the absence of an about the author column on the back page of all Harry Potter book covers (see Image 1). 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.-----
Image 1:
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Harry Potter Book Cover Art. N.d. JPEG file.
Zeisler, Andi. Feminism and Pop Culture. Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008. Print.
Should I expound more on female authors or the role characters within Harry Potter represent women in pop culture?
ReplyDeleteIt's really cool~ perhaps you can give an example of a failed female author who used her true name as a comparison
ReplyDeleteIt might be difficult to find, but I would try to find some statistics showing how success in writing is related to pen names, or find information that relates success (or failure) to gender.
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ReplyDeleteKath talks about women writers, such as JK Rowling, using pen names to gain popularity as a female author, who would otherwise be outcasted from the mainstream just because readers know she is a women. The visual element is a picture of Harry Potter book cover which is in compatibility with the hypothesis Kath proposed for not involving the author's name on the cover, but it seems to me that this picture is a little distant from the main idea of feminism. I agree with Jacob of using statistics, or even a chart to show this, as JK Rowling could be the only and extreme case, we want to be more general.
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