Freedom for House-Elves (Was: Kreacher the Plot Device Elf)

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 161879

> Magpie:
> Or Mammy was a familiar narcissistic projection of the white owners
who saw 
> what they want to see--and since white people were usually the ones
doing 
> the writing that's what we saw. If a black slave is ordered to take
care of 
> the children, they would naturally see her as a warm, mother figure
and not 
> think beyond that. If a person has been raised to care for another
person 
> they certainly might feel affection for them. And people are
complicated. 
> Placed in a situation where one of you is in the owning family and
the other 
> is a slave, you still might find things to like in each other within
that 
> framework.
> 
> But so could the person being cared for come to see the situation as
being 
> about affection in ways it isn't, especially if they don't want to
justify 
> it. Unless an owner made an effort to find out about a slave outside
the 
> services they performed for them, they would have little idea what
they were 
> like as a person. A stereotype can be common and still be wrong.
Stowe's 
> characters react to things based on the Christian principles she
wanted to 
> show. She herself had never been to a plantation, iirc.
> 
> I mean, a rebellious slave was punished, so there were reasons that you 
> might more see more subservient behavior. For instance, in Roots
Kunta Kinte 
> doesn't accept his slavery at all. But when his family is threatened
and he 
> sees no other way to save them he falls to his knees and plays the
part of 
> the fawning slave. I can't imagine it wasn't common knowledge
amongst slaves 
> how to play that part to flatter whites if they had to do that. Alex
Haley 
> didn't personally experience slavery any more than Stowe or Mitchell
did, of 
> course, but he was writing based on his family's oral history, just
as I 
> think Mitchell partly was. His slaves come out very differently than 
> Mitchell's do. They would never have turned out an offer of freedom.
Freedom 
> was the goal. Frederick Douglass, iirc, describes his dawning childhood 
> realization that he is a slave as a sad one, and says the "Old
Master" was 
> never spoken of with affection.

a_svirn:
Well, of course it's a narcissistic projection. Every work of fiction
is a narcissistic projection of sorts, and the same, unfortunately,
can be said of a great many sociological and anthropological studies.
This does not, however, means that Beecher Stowe or even Mitchell made
the whole thing up. Emotional bonds between slaves and masters are
indeed known to exist, just like the fear of freedom is a well known
(and absolutely the worst) effect of slavery. Of course not every
slave's spirit can be crushed and not everyone was mentally crippled.
Still, even "rebellious slaves" often rebelled against cruel masters,
rather than against slavery per se. Take another literary example –
Jim from "Huckleberry Finn" was happy enough to be a slave. He only
objected strongly to being sold and parted with his beloved family and
kind mistress. Hence rebellion. That's practically Kreacher's story. 

> Magpie:
> There were slave rebellions.  There were also runaways and the
Underground 
> Railroad etc.--I believe slaves commonly sheltered runaways in their
own 
> quarters to help them get away and helped in other ways. And there were 
> individual examples of slaves acting out against masters--sometimes 
> violently.

a_svirn:
I don't know about "etc", but the Underground Railroad is a well known
phenomenon. But then, there is an equivalent in the WW, isn't there?
Any elf who fell foul of his or her master can be sure to find a
shelter at Hogwarts.