[HPforGrownups] Free Elves Unite?

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 37051

ladjables wrote:

> Speaking of lack of freedom and abuse, I was just
> wondering what the consensus is on house-elves.  Do
> people believe JKR has set up an analogy for African
> slavery by creating such an oppressed group in the
> HPverse?  Or is our information on house-elves so
> woefully inadequate that we cannot make a case for or
> against that concept?  Canon-based diatribes are
> welcome, of course!

My feeling on the house-elves is that JKR is setting us up to
find out that neither Ron's nor Hermione's knee-jerk reaction is
the whole story.  Ron, of course, is our standard pointer toward
the received wisdom of the wizarding world, because he's been
brought up in a wizarding family:  House Elves like it that way
and besides, we've =always= done it like that.  Hermione here
represents the (current) received wisdom of the muggle world: 
Work without pay is slavery and slavery is Wrong Wrong Wrong.

My personal experience (and my estimate of JKR as a writer) lead
me to espouse, in this case, Pat Wrede (?)'s dictum:  It's Not
That Simple.  Ever.  And I will be =very= interested to see how
the ramifications of this work out.


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>