The thing is that Fraser isn't considered lower class - he is, but doesn't show it if you were simply having a conversation with him (although, frankly, I don't quite count Librarians as lower class). You are right. This would not normally be an issue; the example in Eight Sessions is somewhat of an aberration. Talks like he's old world money, but! he doesn't act like it. He certainly doesn't live like it - and we know from reality that not only would he get more than enough to live on, and live comfortably, in Chicago (yes, even after the exchange rate), but he would also probably get rather good Allowances, as he's not only on an out-of-country posting, but one with a diplomatic focus (which, trust me, comes with more allowances related to Entertainment, for starters, but I've got another post on that subject alone in the works). Yes, many would look up to him. But sometimes, someone might look down on him - but only if they know what his past was. In s2's Thank You Kindly, Mr. Capra, he is treated almost as an equal by the previous
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It's not that he talks like old world money as much as he talks like an intellectual, which is a class of people almost universally despised by the blue-collar working class.
From the union-rep's view, Fraser is perceived as being uppity, a college-educated know-it-all who looks down his nose at those who "work for a living." He holds himself aloof from the police brotherhood, as well, which just makes him seem all the more snobbish.
The problem is, of course, that Fraser's background is from blue-collar working class, just an extremely rural version of it.
bakaknight makes a point about librarians not being lower class, but these aren't your typical librarians. They aren't your college-educated MLA's who've come to the NWT to bring the light of knowledge to the uneducated masses. These are librarians-by-accident, people who saw a need and a niche in a difficult environment and ran with it.
bakaknight also has a valid point about allowances and other diplomatic niceties (my ex's father was once the Army's attaché to Canada and he got an allowance
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the union rep sees the Serge, hears Fraser's diction and vocabulary, and assumes that means Fraser is a well-off, well-educated upper-class intellectual. And Ray thinks that Fraser is actually more like a soldier from the southern US - poor, under-educated, rurally-raised.
Interesting! I get that Fraser ironically can be compared to an US soldier of a certain background, but nobody in most parts of the US would look at him like that from the first, surface impression.
I'm just finding this and all the comments as really itneresting. Because somehow I never attached the class hitng to Fraser, as if he had tried to not make the class thing clear. With other characters, like the Rays, you think yeah lower class.
But as others have said with Fraser being educated (albeit unconventionally) he comes across as higher class than his background might suggest.
kind of random replymikes_grrlDecember 7 2008, 15:04:25 UTC
That description of Fraser in "Eight Sessions" really hit on with me, because I AM a Southerner and my father WAS a GI who was in many ways 'under educated'. Yet he became a high ranking officer in the Air Force. Thing is, because of his very strong dialect, he suffered many chauvinisms over the course of time (he sounded like a hillbilly, straight up). He made it pretty far, but not as far as he could have if he had just SOUNDED like Fraser (my parents were very strict about training the Southern accent out of my own speech because of that).
So here is homeschooled Fraser who never went to college and grew up in a very rural area and is a cop -- these are all the *traditional* markings of lower class in the U.S.. Fraser escapes the label because of his diction, and the homeschooling itself which was obviously thorough, and his bearing.
Akamine wrote: It's not that he talks like old world money as much as he talks like an intellectual, which is a class of people almost universally despised by the blue-collar working class.That is a
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Re: kind of random replyjulia_hereDecember 8 2008, 02:56:06 UTC
Hey, were you ever based at McChord? I'm just west of the Nisqually River, myself.
And bingo about the way a very deep-south accent can effect a military career; my dad, who left school after the eighth grade, ended up as a Master Sergeant over a bunch of mostly Louisiana/Texas/Arkansas/Oklahoma people at least partly on the strength of a neutral Washington State accent although joining up before Pearl Harbor also helped.
Julia, so much from this neighborhood that Ft. Lewis has eaten two generations of family farms.
It actually makes Fraser weirder from some points of view. There have previously been studies (and dammit, I didn't bookmark the things!) that suggest that a person with a lower-class 'accent' is more liable to be trusted than an upper-class version, even if the words (or meaning, if the phrasings need to be different) are identical. But consider how often people trust Fraser's word...
This reminds me of GW Bush and how people voted for him because of the way he talked and how he was "just like them" and the way that Al Gore was dismissed because of that intellectualism (he sounds too smart). It's another reason why it's so exciting that Obama got elected: because he is an intellectual...very well read, college professor, etc etc. As you say, that's usually looked down upon by a great many people in the states.
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You are right. This would not normally be an issue; the example in Eight Sessions is somewhat of an aberration.
Talks like he's old world money, but! he doesn't act like it. He certainly doesn't live like it - and we know from reality that not only would he get more than enough to live on, and live comfortably, in Chicago (yes, even after the exchange rate), but he would also probably get rather good Allowances, as he's not only on an out-of-country posting, but one with a diplomatic focus (which, trust me, comes with more allowances related to Entertainment, for starters, but I've got another post on that subject alone in the works).
Yes, many would look up to him. But sometimes, someone might look down on him - but only if they know what his past was. In s2's Thank You Kindly, Mr. Capra, he is treated almost as an equal by the previous ( ... )
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From the union-rep's view, Fraser is perceived as being uppity, a college-educated know-it-all who looks down his nose at those who "work for a living." He holds himself aloof from the police brotherhood, as well, which just makes him seem all the more snobbish.
The problem is, of course, that Fraser's background is from blue-collar working class, just an extremely rural version of it.
bakaknight makes a point about librarians not being lower class, but these aren't your typical librarians. They aren't your college-educated MLA's who've come to the NWT to bring the light of knowledge to the uneducated masses. These are librarians-by-accident, people who saw a need and a niche in a difficult environment and ran with it.
bakaknight also has a valid point about allowances and other diplomatic niceties (my ex's father was once the Army's attaché to Canada and he got an allowance ( ... )
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Interesting! I get that Fraser ironically can be compared to an US soldier of a certain background, but nobody in most parts of the US would look at him like that from the first, surface impression.
I better go read this "Eight Sessions" story.
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Which is the whole point. Fraser presents one impression, when in reality he's more closely related to something 180 degrees from what he presents...
*headtilt*
You haven't read "Eight Sessions"?
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I don't think so....it's late and my brain is fried - I have read "Some Strange Prophesy".
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But as others have said with Fraser being educated (albeit unconventionally) he comes across as higher class than his background might suggest.
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So here is homeschooled Fraser who never went to college and grew up in a very rural area and is a cop -- these are all the *traditional* markings of lower class in the U.S.. Fraser escapes the label because of his diction, and the homeschooling itself which was obviously thorough, and his bearing.
Akamine wrote:
It's not that he talks like old world money as much as he talks like an intellectual, which is a class of people almost universally despised by the blue-collar working class.That is a ( ... )
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And bingo about the way a very deep-south accent can effect a military career; my dad, who left school after the eighth grade, ended up as a Master Sergeant over a bunch of mostly Louisiana/Texas/Arkansas/Oklahoma people at least partly on the strength of a neutral Washington State accent although joining up before Pearl Harbor also helped.
Julia, so much from this neighborhood that Ft. Lewis has eaten two generations of family farms.
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(The comment has been removed)
But consider how often people trust Fraser's word...
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Bush winning because Gore was considered "too intellectual" - god, I was pissed off for years...
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