Comparing "house-elfment" to slavery (Part 2)

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 39303

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., ladjables <ladjables at y...> wrote:
  How do you
> help someone who does not believe he is oppressed? 
> Many listers have stated that the problem with
> comparing house-elfment to slavery is that seeing
> freedom as disgraceful is unknown in human society. 
> This is untrue.
> 
> The many slave rebellions thwarted by domestic slaves
> who, comfortable in their positions, frequently warned
> their masters of such plots to overthrow the
> plantocracy, attest to the fact that freedom, once
> seen as eviction, expulsion and exile, is distasteful
> to some.  Dave also gives a very nice example of the
> women who opposed the Suffragettes.  Henceforth, I am
> referrring to these women as house-wives.  

This is interesting. I believe I am the one who said that seeing 
freedom as disgraceful is unknown.  I am aware that many times 
slaves have co-operated with their masters in order to prevent 
rebellion. That isn't what I was talking about, though. 

Crouch punished his rebel slave by freeing her. I am not learned 
about this, does anyone know if  there are  parallels to this in 
human slave societies?  Winky was not outlawed or exiled.  Her 
punishment was freedom alone.

 Her reaction to being freed seems to be more like a Victorian 
domestic who has been given a bad character by her previous 
employer, or a house-wife who has been abandoned or 
divorced, but those are not slavery situations.

The difference is that the wife and the domestic worker derive 
their status in society at large from the social standing of the 
master of the house. This is not true, as far as I know, of slaves. 
House slaves in the old South might have more social standing 
among other slaves, but even the lowliest free person would 
look down on them, I think.  
 
Since slaves do not derive  rank from their master, they can't 
lose it if they are freed. Therefore freedom is a step up. They 
might refuse  freedom out of fear or hopelessness,  but that is 
not the same thing as being persuaded that  freedom is an 
inherently more degraded state than enslavement.

I am not sure what was meant  in  the original Nel question 
naming  "Little Black Sambo" and the House Elves as 
pro-slavery works. LBS was considered racist because the 
illustrations were caricatures of black people and the names 
"Sambo" "Mumbo" and "Jumbo" were once derisive names for 
black slaves in America. 

Unless the House Elves speech pattern is taken to be a 
demeaning  caricature of black English, I don't see the parallel. 
The Elves are not the only ones who speak a dialect. Hagrid and 
Stan Shunpike do too. This leads me to think the House Elves' 
manner of speaking is meant to indicate their lack of education, 
not their racial inferiority. Hermione backs this up when she says 
the Elves are "brainwashed and uneducated."

 I think the import of the second half of this statement is being 
over looked. How much difference would education make in the 
way the House Elves view their status? 

Dobby seems to think critically, but the rest of the House Elves 
don't seem to have this skill. Perhaps they can't tolerate being 
given contradictory information?

Dobby has to punish himself whenever he states information 
opposite to what he is supposed to think about his masters, and 
when Hermione starts haranguing the Hogwarts Elves to stand 
up for themselves, they react as if in panic and push all three of 
the Trio out of the kitchen.

Pippin
who agrees that Hermione's "you have a right to be unhappy" 
speech is very funny indeed