Weasley Family Chart Endnote
by Julianne
As we were reading critical commentary about J. K. Rowling’s works, I came across an essay by Julia Park called Class and Socioeconomic Identity in Harry Potter’s England. The essay talks about how Rowling may have integrated her views of the class system in contemporary Britain through characters and scene in Harry Potter. In her essay, Park focuses mainly on how Rowling’s life is similar to Harry’s rags-to-riches story, but also looks at how different characters reflect the British class-system. The Weasley family is one of the families that Park focuses on, and that is why we decided to create a Weasley family chart as part of our multi-genre project.
The way in which I created the Weasley family chart allows it to have a broader audience. If you are a first time reader of the Harry Potter series, the number of Weasleys can be quite overwhelming, and even more so if you are only making yourself familiar with the story though the movies. The chart can help this group to organize and get an overview of the large family. By adding a feature where you can hoover over the Weasley’s names to read more about them extends our audience even further. The information provided for each character does not only introduce the characters, but provides information like birthdates and extended family relations that could be interesting to dedicated Harry Potter fans as well.
In our research we learned about J. K. Rowling’s socioeconomic position before she succeeded as an author, and in reading the critical essay by Park we were given an insight into how Rowling expressed her own identity in British society through the Harry Potter series. In this chart I integrated the research in the following ways: 1) Choosing the Weasley family: by choosing the Weasley family I could show how class is expressed in Rowling’s work, because the family carries many stereotypical traits of a British lower-middle class family; like for instance the large number of children. 2) Integrating pictures: by integrating pictures in the chart, some of the previous mentioned stereotypes are evident: the hand-me-down clothes worn by Ron and Ginny (the youngest children), and the Irish features of the Weasleys: flaming red hair and freckles. Also, the background picture of the Burrow shows the lower economic status of the Weasleys. Finally, 3) Integrating the names: Julia Park points out that the name Weasley hardly carry any charming associations, as well as the name Molly is a traditional, Irish name, which again reinforce the mockingly, stereotypical picture of the Irish.
This piece, then, both integrate the research we have completed and speaks to an audience of new Harry Potter fans as well as old ones. The research was quite heavy, as we learned about the class system in Great Britain, filled in parts of Rowling’s background, and went into an analysis of the Harry Potter books. We also had to do research on the individual characters. However, I think that I managed to create a piece that integrated the research, without becoming too boring for the audience. The chart was created in Microsoft Words using pictures and infromation from the Harry Potter Wiki, and the Background used is drawn by Cory Loftis.
As we were reading critical commentary about J. K. Rowling’s works, I came across an essay by Julia Park called Class and Socioeconomic Identity in Harry Potter’s England. The essay talks about how Rowling may have integrated her views of the class system in contemporary Britain through characters and scene in Harry Potter. In her essay, Park focuses mainly on how Rowling’s life is similar to Harry’s rags-to-riches story, but also looks at how different characters reflect the British class-system. The Weasley family is one of the families that Park focuses on, and that is why we decided to create a Weasley family chart as part of our multi-genre project.
The way in which I created the Weasley family chart allows it to have a broader audience. If you are a first time reader of the Harry Potter series, the number of Weasleys can be quite overwhelming, and even more so if you are only making yourself familiar with the story though the movies. The chart can help this group to organize and get an overview of the large family. By adding a feature where you can hoover over the Weasley’s names to read more about them extends our audience even further. The information provided for each character does not only introduce the characters, but provides information like birthdates and extended family relations that could be interesting to dedicated Harry Potter fans as well.
In our research we learned about J. K. Rowling’s socioeconomic position before she succeeded as an author, and in reading the critical essay by Park we were given an insight into how Rowling expressed her own identity in British society through the Harry Potter series. In this chart I integrated the research in the following ways: 1) Choosing the Weasley family: by choosing the Weasley family I could show how class is expressed in Rowling’s work, because the family carries many stereotypical traits of a British lower-middle class family; like for instance the large number of children. 2) Integrating pictures: by integrating pictures in the chart, some of the previous mentioned stereotypes are evident: the hand-me-down clothes worn by Ron and Ginny (the youngest children), and the Irish features of the Weasleys: flaming red hair and freckles. Also, the background picture of the Burrow shows the lower economic status of the Weasleys. Finally, 3) Integrating the names: Julia Park points out that the name Weasley hardly carry any charming associations, as well as the name Molly is a traditional, Irish name, which again reinforce the mockingly, stereotypical picture of the Irish.
This piece, then, both integrate the research we have completed and speaks to an audience of new Harry Potter fans as well as old ones. The research was quite heavy, as we learned about the class system in Great Britain, filled in parts of Rowling’s background, and went into an analysis of the Harry Potter books. We also had to do research on the individual characters. However, I think that I managed to create a piece that integrated the research, without becoming too boring for the audience. The chart was created in Microsoft Words using pictures and infromation from the Harry Potter Wiki, and the Background used is drawn by Cory Loftis.
Research connecting to this piece
Anatol, Giselle Liza. Reading Harry Potter; Critical Essays. Connecticut: Praeger, 2003. Print.
"Biography - JKRowling.com" J. K. Rowling. N.p.,n.d. Web. 14.Nov. 2012. <http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/#/about-jk-rowling>.
"Harry Potter Wiki" Harry Potter Wiki. N.p.,n.d. Web. 14. Nov. 2012. <http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page>.
"Biography - JKRowling.com" J. K. Rowling. N.p.,n.d. Web. 14.Nov. 2012. <http://www.jkrowling.com/en_GB/#/about-jk-rowling>.
"Harry Potter Wiki" Harry Potter Wiki. N.p.,n.d. Web. 14. Nov. 2012. <http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page>.