Changing readers’ attitudes? The representation of discrimination in the Harry Potter novels
©2017
Textbook
34 Pages
Summary
When Joanne K. Rowling published her first Harry Potter novel in 1997, probably nobody expected the tremendous success her writing debut was going to bring her. The huge popularity of the seven-book series led not only to an equally successful series of film adaptations, but also to a variety of well selling merchandise. Children and adults alike are enchanted by the wizarding world that Rowling so meticulously created.
However, Rowling’s story does not only serve as a source for our entertainment, she also uses her fantasy world as a metaphor for our own world, depicting rights and wrongs in many different fields. One of the main themes is even a very controversial one: discrimination. And Rowling did not just invent a world in black and white, she does not simply tell the reader that prejudice is a reprehensible trait in our society. Rather, she created a world for the readers to explore and find things out for themselves as the story continued.
In this paper, the author claims that the representation of discrimination in the Harry Potter series influences the readers in a positive way and that they are likely less prejudiced against stigmatised groups after reading the books.
However, Rowling’s story does not only serve as a source for our entertainment, she also uses her fantasy world as a metaphor for our own world, depicting rights and wrongs in many different fields. One of the main themes is even a very controversial one: discrimination. And Rowling did not just invent a world in black and white, she does not simply tell the reader that prejudice is a reprehensible trait in our society. Rather, she created a world for the readers to explore and find things out for themselves as the story continued.
In this paper, the author claims that the representation of discrimination in the Harry Potter series influences the readers in a positive way and that they are likely less prejudiced against stigmatised groups after reading the books.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
and how they come to be. I will then deal with three specific forms of discrimination.
The first racism is a very wide topic for which I will give a definition and short
history before explaining forms and displays of modern racism. Following that, I will
give an overview of slavery and its impact on black people in our time. Strictly
speaking, slavery is a form of racism, but I will deal with this particular aspect in an
extra chapter because Rowling has a different metaphor for slavery in her books, as we
will later see. The last type of discrimination will be that of ill and disabled people.
Chapter 2 will start with a short introduction to the Harry Potter series and an
analysis of its narration as well as its effect on the reader. The chapter will continue with
the implementation of the aforementioned ways of discrimination. Many wizards in
Rowling's fictional world judge others based on their blood status, that is, whether their
ancestors have been wizards as well. How this metaphor of racism is expressed on both
the side of the good wizards as well as that of the villains will be analysed in this
chapter. The house-elves, on the other hand, provide a good image of slavery, as they
are employed without payment and generally treated very poorly. The depiction of
illness and disability finds expression in the introduction of werewolves and Squibs,
children of wizarding parents who have no magic themselves.
Chapter 3 will present a study concerned with the effect of reading Harry Potter
on children and young adults. It will determine whether this paper's thesis is valid.
Chapter 4 deals with selected theories on reader identification. It will examine
which factors influence which character the reader identifies with and whether this kind
of identification has a long-term effect on the reader.
1. Discrimination: The fear of the Other?
Many reasons for discriminating behaviour lie in prejudice, which again is
"conceptualized as an attitude that [...] has a cognitive component (e.g., beliefs about a
target group), an affective component (e.g., dislike), and a conative component (e.g., a
behavioral predisposition to behave negatively toward the target group)" (Dovidio et al.,
Prejudice 2010, 5). So for people to develop discriminating behaviour, they first need to
be in disfavour of a certain group of people, and then act on their feelings. These actions
are generally seen as "inappropriate and potentially unfair treatment of individuals due
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to group membership" (ibid., 8), which does not necessarily have to be overtly negative
behaviour, but can also result in more subtle actions like denial of positive reactions (cf.
ibid. 8f).
Discriminating attitude can be evoked through a range of different feelings and
causes. People who consider themselves the norm, or the ingroup, might experience
milder feelings like dislike for people who deviate from that norm, the outgroup. An
action against such would probably be equally moderate, like avoidance. Stronger
hostility towards an outgroup could be caused if they received what the ingroup saw as
unjust benefits. A probable reaction to that might be equally stronger, leading the
discriminators to actively engage in reducing the outgroup's benefits. If the ingroup
even felt threatened, this could invoke true hostile behaviour. Thus, discriminatory acts
are highly influenced by the degree of danger the ingroup feels. (cf. ibid., 9).
Discriminatory behaviour may stem from only a single individual or from a
group of people. However, it is also possible for higher agencies to display disfavour
towards members of a certain group of people. This institutional discrimination "refers
to the existence of institutional policies (e.g., poll taxes, immigration policies) that
unfairly restrict the opportunities of particular groups of people" (ibid., 10). Institutional
discrimination may be facilitated by the support of individuals, but it does not depend
on it. In fact, often individuals do not recognise certain laws or policies as institutional
discrimination. Either they are not challenged as unjustified because they are perceived
as right since it is the law, or people might not question them, because those laws have a
long tradition and are therefore considered normal and the way things have always been
(cf. ibid. 10f).
Generally, discriminating behaviour is supposed to protect the status of the
ingroup against a deviating outgroup, whether the perceived danger derives from the
outgroup itself or another authority. The status marker used for unfair treatment is by no
means invariable. People can find undesirable characteristics in many different areas,
like religion or age (cf. Levin 2002, 228). In the following subchapters, I will introduce
the markers of race in general, being black in particular and, lastly, disability and illness.
I will highlight why members of these groups are being stigmatised and how actions
against them are expressed.
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1.1 Racism: Culture as marker for difference
The term 'race' was first used in the 16
th
century to differentiate between families and
lineages (cf. Rattansi 2007, 23). The notion received a connotation more similar to our
idea today in the 18
th
century. Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus divided humanity into
four different races according to their origin, appearance and temperament, all of which
were interconnected according to Linnaeus (cf. ibid., 25). In the 19
th
century, Robert
Knox and Arthur de Gobineau further developed this idea. They, too, attributed specific
markers, like skin colour or distinct features in their appearance, and, moreover, moral
traits to certain races. Furthermore, they claimed that there was an innate hierarchy to
races based on talent and beauty, with white people at the top and black people at the
bottom (cf. ibid., 31). Today, the idea of races based on biological differences is less
supported. Instead, the notion of being an ethnic Other is grounded on territorial
belonging combined with different cultures. However, skin colour and culture are still
strongly intertwined (cf. ibid., 97f), and although it is widely seen as a taboo to judge
people based on their nationality or culture today, many still draw upon these
differences in arguments (cf. ibid., 100).
Dovidio et al. (Racism 2010, 312) claim that racism has three defining elements.
Firstly, they mention "distinguishing race-based characteristics that are common to their
members" and, secondly, that these "perceived inherent racial characteristics of another
group make it inferior to one's own group". They add a third aspect to that; a social
power that enables people with a racist mindset to act on their negative attitude to either
create disadvantages for other groups or advantages exclusively available for their own
group. Nevertheless, according to Ottomeyer (2011, 170) it is already indicative of
racism to express this mindset with pejorative or hateful utterances towards people of a
different skin colour or culture.
However, not every race is equally discriminated. Often, there is a certain
hierarchy with people of one colour being more accepted than another group,
particularly when the colour is more similar to one's own (cf. Knapp 2008, 14). Yet
many support the idea that different races should not mix and that races should keep
their blood pure (cf. ibid., 20).
Racism had its latest climax in the mid-20
th
century, when Nazis singled out
"Jews [as a] distinct race [which] posed a threat to the Aryan race to which authentic
Germans supposedly belonged" (Rattansi, 2007, 4). Similar to the general idea of
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racism, Nazis in Germany distinguished between different grades of being Jewish. A
person had to have at least three Jewish grandparents to be seen as a Jew. If they had
only one or even two, it was possible for them to be regarded as German citizens and
they were even allowed to fight in the German forces during the Second World War (cf.
ibid., 6) as long as they "did not practise Judaism or marry Jews or other part-Jews"
(ibid., 6). This also reflects the idea of keeping the blood of your race pure.
Although the idea of naturally inferior races based on biological differences has
become a taboo after the Second World War, racism is far from extinct. In fact, since the
term race is so closely linked to the genetic differences, we are not supposed to
differentiate between races any more, but more between different cultures. However,
this just seems like a way to talk around the actual problem (cf. ibid., 7f). While the
constitution promises equal rights to people regardless of their nativity, skin colour or
religion, there are still those who use exactly these distinctions to claim that there are
better or inferior classes of people (cf. Knapp 2008, 22).
Expression of racism today is quite variable, with some people merely speaking
out against different cultures and others taking more drastic actions. Different studies
throughout Europe show partially strong tendencies against other cultures. Statements in
these studies ranged from the conviction that foreigners should only marry people from
their own countries still reflecting the idea of keeping the blood pure to the request
that foreigners' rights should be restricted (cf. Ottomeyer 2011, 172f). However, we also
experience frequent attacks against foreigners or refugee hostels (cf. Knapp 2008, 23).
These xenophobic attitudes are often a result of somebody's upbringing and
passed on by the parents. However, bad experiences with someone from a certain
culture can also lead to generalising notions about the whole race (cf. ibid., 24).
Concluding, many notions of racism still persist in people's minds, albeit under a
different pretext. Racism started with scientists pointing out alleged inherent differences
between the races and claiming that there would be a natural hierarchy because of these
distinctions. Although today it is clear that there is no such thing as natural inferiority
because of biology, people still use differences between cultures to take actions against
members of these groups.
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1.2 Slavery: The (ongoing) oppression of blacks
Along with the ideas of different races in the 16
th
century, as seen above, slave trade
developed around the same time, with the first record of a black slave in Britain dating
from 1554 (cf. Howard 2009, 39). The slave trade kept growing until it reached its peak
in the 18
th
century (cf. Carey 2003, 107), particularly through the extension of the
British empire to the New World (cf. Howard 2009, 39).
The slave trade was supported by the idea that black people were inferior by
nature. In the eighteenth century, both Immanuel Kant and David Hume claimed that
there had never been a more sophisticated race than white people, and that black people
were not only inferior but also generally had lower intelligence than white people (cf.
Rattansi 2007, 27). In fact, Africans were not even seen as wholly human. The slave
trade had been legitimised by the notion that Africans were rather a sub-human species
(cf. ibid., 29), which is why they also were not seen as proper citizens. This
classification even gave Courts the right to withhold the privileges and immunities of
citizenship from black people (cf. Levin 2002, 229).
Over the centuries, the slave trade and the supposed inferiority of black people
turned into something like a social norm, a "widely accepted 'fact' that [was] very
seldom or never questioned neither by the master class nor by the slave class" (Brown
2008, 88). Most people, oppressed and oppressor alike, had accepted the circumstances
enough to not even question how they came to be in the first place. They had become so
deeply ingrained over a long period of time that people held on to these ideas because it
was just the way thing were (cf. ibid., 88). From time to time, there have been slaves
who tried to escape their situation and bring the system down, but these efforts were
quickly been to an end and the rebel was looked down upon even by other slaves (cf.
ibid., 88f). Of course, there have also been severe punishments for those who tried to
escape, which was another reason why most blacks simply accepted their fate. They
feared the retaliation and were intimidated by their masters. Most were not willing to
risk the relative safety in slavery for an uncertain outcome. While they were fed and had
a place to live, it was unsure if a rebellion would succeed (cf. ibid., 100), and even if it
did, some slaves even feared freedom, for then they would have been responsible for
their own actions and had to take care of themselves (cf. Howard 2009, 42).
However, the wind changed in the years following the American Independence.
The voices condemning the slave trade became louder and a public pressure campaign
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demanding to prohibit human trafficking gained extensive support. The campaign did
not bring immediate success, but the ongoing fight against slavery led to the abolition of
the British slave trade in 1807 (cf. Carey 2003, 107).
The question remains whether the past 200 years brought real equality for black
people. As we have seen above, the constitution promises equal treatment no matter the
skin colour. However, studies show that particularly black people in the United States
seem to be rather at a disadvantage. In 2001, the income of black families in the US was
only 62% of that of white people, unemployment of black men was twice as high, and
black children are three times as likely as white children to grow up in officially defined
poverty. African Americans are the most geographically separated group in the US and
often live in groups in areas with low income. On the upside, 75% of African American
children achieve a High School diploma, but only 14% earn a college degree. Also, the
number of black people in prison is comparatively high. While the black population in
the US makes up about 12%, 50% of all prisoners are black. The death penalty rate for
black people is twice as high compared to white convicts (cf. Rattansi 2007, 140-143).
In conclusion, African people have been exploited for centuries. Because of their
skin colour, they have been seen not only as inferior but also as less intelligent. These
assumptions have been used to excuse selling black people as slaves. Although the slave
trade has been abolished for over 200 years, black African citizens are still not fully
equal to whites.
1.3 Ill and Disabled: A burden for society?
The studies on discrimination against the ill and disabled are by far not as extensive as
those seen above, but they are no less important. Miller et al. call this kind of
discrimination disabilism and define it as "discriminatory, oppressive or abusive
behaviour arising from the belief that disabled people are inferior to others" (2004, 9).
The expression of prejudiced thinking against ill and disabled people range from
discriminatory utterances to actively aggressive behaviour.
Disabled people are generally seen as less qualified than healthy people. It is
assumed that they could never express their full potential and are less capable of
achieving the same goals as non-disabled people. Thus, they are treated more often than
7
necessary as people in need of charity and special services. Many are pitied for their
circumstances (cf. ibid., 11f).
The human rights network Disability Awareness in Action set up a database
recording attacks against disabled people using law reports and newspaper articles.
According to this database, 682 disabled people were killed because of their condition
between 1990 and 2004. These acts not only include crimes committed out of fear or
hatred, but also mercy killings (cf. ibid., 15). Thousands more suffered from degrading
treatment including verbal, physical or sexual abuse (cf. ibid., 24).
Disabled people also have difficulties receiving the education or employment
they desire. In 2003, of all people with no health issues who applied for admission to a
university, about 8% received a place. However, only 0.5% of disabled people who
applied were admitted (cf. ibid., 24). Additionally, unemployment among disabled
people is twice as high compared to healthy people. One third of those who do work
receive less payment than their co-workers with no health problems (cf. ibid., 23).
Ill and disabled people are handicapped even in their social lives. Many people
think that they themselves are responsible for their circumstances and that they are
inferior because of their illness (cf. Gipser 2012, 122). As a result, disabled people are
excluded from social activities; some mothers even abort their pregnancy if the child
might be born disabled (cf. ibid., 123).
Often, ill and disabled people are expected to live within the prejudiced
expectations set for them by healthy people have against them, so they rarely have the
chance to exceed these expectations. For example, mentally challenged people are
expected to be childlike and backward in their development, so they cannot be trusted
with more complex operations. Rather, they are put together with people with similar
disabilities. Therefore, they tend to have little contact with non-disabled people and
virtually no chance to disprove the prejudices (cf. ibid., 126).
All in all, people with illnesses or disabilities are either regarded with pity, or
they are discriminated against, sometimes even attacked for their afflictions, and they
have fewer chances to realise their full potential personally or professionally. Although
there are organisations fighting for equal rights, there is still much to do, similar to the
other forms of discrimination outlined above.
8
2 Harry Potter A short introduction
The book series tells the story of the eponymous Harry Potter, who, when he turns
eleven, learns that he is a wizard. From then on, he must not only learn what is
necessary to pass the tests of Hogwarts, the wizarding school, but also unravel the
mysteries of his past. The evil wizard Voldemort tried to kill him when Harry was just a
baby, and now Harry has to fight him again to save the wizarding race from Voldemort's
cruel plans to reign.
Authors can draw from a large pool of methods to influence the way readers
perceive their works. The narrator is an important tool in story-telling. The narrator
necessarily reveals his relation to the events and characters, but also the viewpoint from
which the story is perceived, and with comments or judgements, he also gives his
opinion about the text (cf. Farner 2014, 33). If the narrator is a third-person narrator, it
is possible for him to have insight to the feelings and thoughts of other characters; he is
then omniscient (cf. ibid., 139). It is also useful to distinguish between covertness and
overtness. If the reader receives information about the narrator himself, how he writes
or tells the story, the narrator is overt, while complete lack of any hints about the
narrator makes him covert (cf. ibid., 140). If the narrator is absent from the events we
refer to him as heterodiegetic (cf. ibid., 206). Another important aspect is focalisation.
The narrator has the option to focus on one or more characters to tell the story. He also
can choose whether he tells the feelings and thoughts of those characters; the narrator
then chooses internal focalisation (cf. ibid., 235). Moreover, there is the question of
stability when it comes to focalisation. If the narrator chooses to follow mostly one
character, his focalisation is constant, whereas switching between more characters leads
to variable focalisation (cf. ibid., 239).
The choice of the narrator can serve different aims. Particularly if the narrator
uses internal focalisation, it may lead to a closer understanding of that character and
therefore might encourage identification with this character, as the reader is part of their
world and feelings (cf. ibid., 256f).
Rowling's story features a heterodiegetic, omniscient narrator. He is a third-
person narrator who is not part of the events taking place, yet has deep insights into the
thoughts and feelings of the characters. However, the narrator mostly focuses on Harry,
to tell the story from his point of view. There are very few chapters which focus on
different characters. Nevertheless, these chapters are notably different from the rest.
9
While the Harry chapters make use of internal focalisation and give a lot of insight to
his thoughts and feelings, the other chapters rather give only the facts with little
evidence to the characters' emotions. While these chapters give crucial information
which would not have been available if the narrator focused on Harry exclusively, the
reader is apparently supposed to identify more with Harry.
2.1 The importance of blood-status: Are magical children of non-magical parents
inferior witches and wizards?
In order to exemplify racism in her books, Rowling could have gone the direct route, as
she has characters of many different cultures in her books. However, these characters
are only very minor characters whom the reader gets to know very little about (cf. Ostry
93f). Rather, she creates a different way to deal with racism, the blood-status of her
characters concerning their wizarding ancestry.
Most witches and wizards are born to equally magical parents. They are known
as pure-bloods. It is also quite common to be born with magical powers if only one
parent is a witch or wizard. Children of this ancestry are called half-bloods. However,
although it is rare, it is possible that a witch or wizard is born to ordinary parents
without any magic. Since people without magic are called Muggles, their magical
children are known as Muggle-born. For some wizarding families, Rowling came up
with the idea that pure-bloods or at least half-bloods are better wizards and witches than
those born to Muggles. Often, these people descend from mighty aristocratic families,
for it is easier for those with power to actively oppress others (cf. Flotmann 2013, 337),
as we have already seen above.
This way of dealing with racism may be a politically correct way to do this. By
using her characters' degree of wizard ancestry, "[it] is not Black- or Asian-British
people who suffer because of their skin-colour but all people, black or white who do not
have the 'right blood'" (ibid. 341). So in this way, people are not discriminated because
of their skin colour, but all people from different cultures in our world are being treated
the same.
Still, the group of Muggle-borns has to deal with several problems, the likes of
which ethnic minorities in England and many other places must face today. They are
ridiculed, verbally and physically attacked and later even persecuted, which is most
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Details
- Pages
- Type of Edition
- Erstausgabe
- Year
- 2017
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783960676645
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9783960671640
- File size
- 260 KB
- Language
- English
- Institution / College
- University of Hamburg – Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik
- Publication date
- 2017 (June)
- Grade
- 2,3
- Keywords
- Harry Potter Literatur Rowling discrimination racism slavery illness magic wizard society literature pop culture
