Social issues
Casual Vacancy features a range of social issues, including rape, racism, heroin and marijuana use, pornography, domestic abuse, child abuse, self-harm and suicide.[10]
Sukhvinder Jawanda is often berated by her mother, Parminder, and will resort to self-harm. Andrew Price, along with his brother Paul, suffers child abuse from their father Simon Price throughout the novel. The New Yorker questioned Rowling whether this represented her difficult childhood and relationship with her father; Rowling replied, "Andrew's romantic idea that he'll go and live among the graffiti and broken windows of London—that was me. I thought, I have to get away from this place. So all of my energies went into that", although she added, "I did not have an easy relationship with my father, but no one in The Casual Vacancy is a portrait of any living person."[9]
Politics and poverty
One of the novel's major themes is politics. The Guardian referred to The Casual Vacancy as a "parable of national politics", with Rowling saying, "I'm interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society, We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it's quite a satisfying thing to do, isn't it?"[8] Rowling was also critical of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition that had led since the general election in 2010 saying, "There has been a horribly familiar change of atmosphere [since the 2010 election], it feels to me a lot like it did in the early 90s, where there's been a bit of redistribution of benefits and suddenly lone-parent families are that little bit worse off. But it's not a 'little bit' when you're in that situation. Even a tenner a week can make such a vast, vast difference. So, yeah, it does feel familiar. Though I started writing this five years ago when we didn't have a coalition government, so it's become maybe more relevant as I've written."[8] Rowling went on to say that Britain held a "phenomenally snobby society", and described the middle class as "pretentious" and "funny".[8]
Rowling has commented on her economic situation before the success of Harry Potter as being "poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless"[9][11] and said that this was why she was drawn to writing about poverty.[12]
How many of us are able to expand our minds beyond our own personal experience? So many people, certainly people who sit around the cabinet table, say, 'Well, it worked for me' or, 'This is how my father managed it' – these trite catchphrases – and the idea that other people might have had such a different life experience that their choices and beliefs and behaviours would be completely different from your own seems to escape a lot of otherwise intelligent people. The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people. – J. K. Rowling, The Guardian, "The worst that can happen is everyone says, That's shockingly bad", 2012.[11]
