Kreacher the Plot Device Elf

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 161805

> > Magpie:
> > But what's the metaphor? Human slaves don't have a culture where 
> > they're offended at freedom, and enjoy slavery and consider it 
an 
> > honor, or look down on freed slaves, or feel personally guilty 
and 
> > want to be punished when they disobey their masters.
> > 
> a_svirn:
> Yes, they do. It's actually quite a common thing. Uncle's Tom 
Cabin 
> and Gone with the Wind may be different as night and day in their 
> description of and attitude to slavery, but they both feature 
slaves 
> who are affectionate and faithful to their "families" and for whom 
> parting with those families means (or would mean) the worst of all 
> disasters. Firs, a man-servant (and an ex-serf) from "The Cherry 
> Orchard" actually refers to the emancipation of Russian serfs as 
> to "The Disaster". And that's just the most famous examples off 
the 
> top of my head.

Magpie:
So again my question is, what's the metaphor? Because this just 
doesn't seem to cover the entire slave experience to me. For 
instance, I believe it was quite common for people to say and 
perhaps believe, regarding slavery in America, that it was the 
natural, correct, happy state for black people--are the house elves 
the living embodiment of that (false) sentiment as truth? Because it 
is, imo, part of human nature that some people will take to a slave-
like existance(that doesn't just apply to literal slaves), but it's 
not the total experience of all people born or sold or captured into 
slavery. Slaves being human beings, there have also always been 
those capable of seeing their captivity as wrong, and trying to 
rebel or escape. Claims that human slaves were fundamentally 
different from other humans is false. But house elves are literally 
a different race from humans. So what's the analogy saying about the 
actual humans, who would presumably be the point of the analogy? And 
how does that analogy comment on JKR's modern Western civilization? 
I mean, Uncle Tom's Cabin was written by an abolitionist who wanted 
to show slavery as a cruel system that divided families--this was 
while it was going on in her country. GWTW was more concerned with 
the lives of the slaveowners than the slaves. What's Rowling writing 
about with her brownie-esque creatures?

Basically I guess what I'm saying is...it seems kind of weird to me 
to say that the house elves are supposed to be an analogy to real 
life slaves, because real life slaves all loved their masters, and 
would have been devestated to leave them, and they were just loyal 
and affectionate with nothing to hold against them. Isn't that kind 
of a sunny view of slavery? And was it the norm for a slave 
separated from his/her master to fall into despair the way it 
actually does seem to be the norm for house elves? Didn't plenty of 
slaves actively seek freedom? I see the connection that it's owning 
a sentient being either way, so many of the same morals apply, but 
just have a problem going beyond that.

-m