What is a house elf?

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 178686

Betsy Hp:
>But the reader isn't coming to the series as a blank slate.  JKR 
>*has* to realize the kind of loaded word "slave" is.  And she's no 
>stranger to using our RW context to add depth to story (ie Nazis = 
>Death Eaters).

Bart:
The question really is, what is a house elf? Humans have long, and continue to, use animals for work and food. In general, animals who are higher in intelligence and are used for complex tasks are not generally eaten (although horses appear to be on the borderline there). Some animals have a genetic instinct to follow a leader unquestioningly, such as pack animals.

So, the question comes on the origin of house elves. JKR doesn't give us a clue, unfortunately, so we don't know if they come from a similar stock as humans, breeding and enchantment were used to make them into slaves and like it, or did they come from servile animals, and the enchantment is used to bind them to a specific individual, to prevent them from being taken advantage of. It does seem that house elves are treated more like highly intelligent working animals than human slaves. 

If they are a comment on the treatment of animals by humans, JKR is not the first to do so. One of the stories in the then cutting-edge science fiction collection, DANGEROUS VISIONS involved a parallel Earth where a minor genetic variation of humans were given surgeries at birth to keep their intelligence at animal level, and were used as beasts of burden and for milk production. The question becomes (and is an underdeveloped theme in the book), when does an animal become a person. Centaurs, for example, are very clearly depicted as people, while kneazles, for example, are clearly on the animal side. But on what side are house elves? Maybe the encyclopedia will tell us what JKR had in mind. 

Bart