Analysis of
a text using Fetterley (Sample of applying theory to
a text.)
Julie Barak
In
many ways J. K. Rowling’s books upset traditional gender roles. The most obvious way is in her creation of
female Quidditch players who are every bit as good as
and as tough as the male players. There are also some very powerful witches in
the Harry Potter books – Professor McGonagall and Beatrix
LeStrange, for example. Many of the teachers at
Hogwarts are female – Professor Trelawney, Professor Sprout and Professor Grubblyplank. And, of course, Hermione is the brain of the
bunch.
But,
Rowling also, and I think more frequently, reinforces the female stereotypes
and leads the reader to valorize male behavior over female behavior. I’ll examine a couple of examples. Mrs. Weasley is the ultimate care giver and fulfills her
motherly duties in traditional ways. She might use magic to put dinner on the
table, but it’s not the poof and there’s dinner magic that would liberate her
from household drudgery. She’s got to
get the spoon going to stir the porridge, get the scouring pad scrubbing at the
pot, etc. She is also always involved in
child care, something Mr. Weasley escapes completely.
For example, while Mr. Weasley and the children go to
the international Quidditch Competition, she goes
shopping for school supplies. She’s the disciplinarian, the one that they must
fool, foil, or plead with for permission. Mrs. Weasley is the worrier, the inhibitor, the nagger. While Mr. Weasley
floats about in his muggle-loving dream world, Mrs. Weasley gets the shopping done, feeds the kids, and
organizes the household.
Hermione,
too, takes up traditional female roles and responsibilities. She’s a knitter of caps for house elves. Is Rowling using Hermione’s dedication to this
cause to make fun of liberation movements – especially feminist ones? It’s quite interesting, isn’t it, that the
house elves don’t really want to be liberated, just like patriarchal-minded men
think that their women don’t really want to be liberated from child-care,
house-keeping, and the economic dependency that stay-at-home moms experience?
Hermione, like Mrs. Weasley, is always scolding the
boys for their lack of dedication to their homework, for their childish and
dangerous behaviors. She’s the monitor (momitor) of their behavior.
Also,
if Hermione is to function as a powerful female figure, she must be an equal
participant in the action. But, she’s
not. For example, in book one, she’s put
in charge of taking care of Ron after the chess match while Harry goes on to
face Voldemort.
In book two, she’s paralyzed for the greater part of the action. In book three, she’s totally unimportant to
Harry’s struggle against the dementors. In book four, she spends most of her time
with Victor Krum. How is she supposed to work as an anti-stereotype, when
Rowling gives her such conventional roles?
One
of the ways Rowling pokes fun at one especially powerful witch, Professor Umbridge, is to make her both ugly and ultra feminine. She dresses her in pink frilly sweaters,
plants absurd bows on top of her head, makes her talk in a high, girlish
voice. Readers hate her not only because
she’s vicious, but also because she comments the worst of sins for a woman –
she’s ugly and doesn’t know it, or chooses not to disappear because of it.
Cho,
Harry’s love interest in book five, is constantly weeping over Cedric’s death,
Harry’s lack of sensitivity, and romantic disappointment in the men in her
life. None of the male characters
“understand” women, and Hermione constantly has to explain the female mind to
them. Harry even makes a comment about how a course on the
way women think would be more valuable to him than Divination. Obviously, women are “odd,” hard to
understand, and outside the universal, “normal” world of the male.
The
school is headed by the male Dumbledore; the ultimate evil is Voldemort, also male. The giant world is dominated by two
ultra masculine heroes. The Centaurs
we’re introduced to are almost entirely male. Power is obviously in the hands
of the masculine. The dominant metaphor of the books is the masculine war
metaphor.
So,
while it may, at first glance, seem that Rowling’s books are feminist texts, closer examination shows that to be false. Rowling
has instead created yet another patriarchal universe for readers.