House Elves and Slavery

[davewitley]

No: HPFGUIDX 127383


Responding rather late as I have only just seen this.

Debbie wrote:

> The differences between nonhuman beings and humans does make it 
very
> difficult to claim that any species of beings is being used in the
> books as a specific metaphor for something -- be it slavery,
> housewives, or the servant class (in the case of the elves), the
> mentally ill or HIV-positive (in the case of werewolves), or Jews
> (which has been suggested as a metaphor for the goblins), though I
> believe it is appropriate to assume that JKR is raising issues of
> exploitation and prejudice in her depiction of the treatment of
> nonhuman beings in the books.

I rather see this the other way around.  All the sentient characters 
must 'really' be human when we try to consider the relationship of 
the books to the real world, so unless JKR is purely spinning a yarn 
for its colour and adventure, they must all be metaphors for 
different aspects of human variety.

If we are to empathise with these characters at all, then that very 
act turns them into humans, with our preoccupations, pains, and 
pleasures.

I do see a tendency, though, for JKR to seek out difficult cases to 
test that empathy.  Dobby gets our obvious sympathy as a slave: oh, 
let's have a Winky, and see what we now think.  Abolitionists say 
she's only mentally conditioned, slavers say Dobby is the unusual 
one and elves prefer slavery.  OK, then, let's have an elf who knows 
his own mind and is able to disobey manipulatively like Dobby, yet 
upholds the 'traditions': enter Kreacher.

Other examples of this are the mandrakes and Grawp.  How far can our 
empathy be stretched?

David