[HPforGrownups] Re: Freedom for House-Elves (Was: Kreacher the Plot Device Elf)

[Magpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 161885

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:
Sure, they were all basing their characters on something--but the question 
is why would JK Rowling be using that particular view of slaves in her books 
today? She's supposed to be a 21st century author, one of whose themes is 
that Wizards viewing other species as inferior is wrong. So why would she 
feel she needed a race based on 19th century slave stereotypes?

> 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.

Magpie:
That's not an equivalent, it's one place that keeps a lot of elves. An 
equivalent would be elves running away to *freedom* because they wanted to 
be free and helped along in secret by other elves and sympathetic non-elves.

-m