by Unknown
Conclusion
Examining the mothers Harry knows dramatically illustrates a sociological understanding of motherhood as a dynamic social role performance. Motherhood as a social role is shown to be dynamic in two ways. Firstly, mothers’ interactions with Harry and others allow them to be evaluated based on their role performance. Secondly, the definition of motherhood as a role changes over generations while continuing to imply norms and values that constrain and enable the actions of mothers. Motherhood as a social role is pervasive in that individuals who are mothers are not viewed independently of their role, irrespective of context. Finally, motherhood as a role is social in that one does not have to biologically be a mother or even a woman to perform the mother role.
References
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“She’d Have Been Locked Up in
St. Mungo’s for Good”
Magical Maladies and Medicine
Dustin Kidd
Introduction
When Albus Dumbledore’s brother, Aberforth, finally explained to Harry, Ron and Hermione the mystery surrounding Ariana Dumbledore’s life and sad death, the story he told was dark and foreboding. Six-year-old Ariana had been innocently performing the magic that came so naturally to her when three Muggle boys spied her through a hedge. Curious, they asked her to show them how to perform the tricks. As a young witch, lacking in magical education, she wasn’t able to repeat her magic and this angered them enough that they attacked her. According to Aberforth, “they got a bit carried away trying to stop the little freak doing it” (DH 564). How exactly the boys get carried away is not clear, and the language that Aberforth uses leaves open some terrifying possibilities; but the attack is so brutal that Ariana went mad inside, and would explode with frightening bursts of magic thereafter.
Surely in such a moment the wizarding world would offer help and aid to heal Ariana’s physical and mental anguish. But the Dumbledore family chose a more secretive path. Ariana’s father attacked the boys, landing himself a cell in Azkaban, and refused to explain his motivations to the authorities. Why? “[S]he’d have been locked up in St. Mungo’s for good. They’d have seen her as a serious threat to the International Statute of Secrecy” (DH 564).
How could a six-year-old girl be seen as both a freak and a threat, and why would her family have so much fear of the hospital? The goal of this chapter is to examine what injury and disease mean in the magical world, and to see how wizards and witches treat illness and disability with their own magical medical institutions. Three medical spaces exist in the wizarding world. The first and most institutionalized space is St. Mungo’s Hospital for the Care of Magical Maladies. A second space of medical care, only somewhat less institutional, is Madame Pomfrey’s Hospital wing at Hogwarts. The third medical space is outside of institutions altogether. This is the treatment of injuries in the home and other private spaces by other witches and wizards, or by the injured themselves. After the introduction of some useful sociological concepts for thinking about embodiment, maladies and medicine, this chapter will tour through those spaces to examine the meanings and consequences of illness and disability in the magical world before turning to the story of Voldemort to see what his rebellious powers might tell us about the meaning of magical illness.
Basic Concepts
Disability and illness are concepts that we associate with the body. Although we usually think of our bodies as biological entities, the meanings that we associate with the body are socially produced. Our religious ideals, philosophical approaches, and our experiences with social institutions shape how think about the body generally and about our own bodies specifically. Studies of the body as a social idea often discuss the “Cartesian split.” This refers to Rene Descartes’s statement “I think, therefore, I am.” This short phrase made a powerful philosophical leap by associating human experience with thinking, and separating thinking from embodying. Descartes created a mind/body binary that has strongly influenced modern Western conceptions of both the body and human civilization. This binary is at times mapped on to other systems for thinking about the body such as gender and race. The racial version of the Cartesian split associates White privilege, power, and supposed cultivation with the thinking man, and justifies the oppression of seemingly less cultured societies by treating them as baser and associating them with the body (and not the mind). The gender version of the Cartesian split treats men as thinkers who supersede their own bodies while it treats women as emotional reactors who are limited by the needs of their bodies (through hormones, through menstruation, through pregnancy, etc.). Sociology’s focus on the body has sought to undermine the Cartesian split and to emphasize that all human experiences are embodied.
Medicine
Peter Conrad, one of the major sociologists who studies the history and meanings of medicine, defines medicalization as “defining a problem in medical terms, using medical language to describe a problem, adopting a medical framework to understand a problem, or using a medical intervention to ‘treat’ it” (Conrad 1992: 211). Some of the most striking work in this field focuses on ailments that are initially not viewed in medical terms but which come to be understood through a medical framework at specific points in history. Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), for instance, refers to behavior that presumably occurred among children for most of human history but which only came to be “medicalized” when a) the social life of children conflicted with that behavior, and b) the medical field was able to understand and tr
eat the behavior.
One of the key issues then in studying illness is to understand the medical field itself. Although health practitioners can be found in many societies and across time (including healers, witchdoctors, and modern surgeons) only in the modern era are those practitioners part of a distinctly medical field. In pre-modern times, these healers were often part of the religious system and no medical system was present. Having a medical field has required the development of medical education, the credentialization of doctors, and the creation of a profession through organizations like the British Medical Association and the American Medical Association. In the magical world, Healers are the leaders of the medical institution. When Harry and his friends go through career counseling at the end of their fifth year, they learn that Healing requires “at least an E at N.E.W.T. level in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts” (OOTP 656). It is not clear what additional training is required after Hogwarts for pursuing this career, but credentialed healers are distinguished by the lime green robes they wear.
Another medical professional in the wizarding world is that of Mediwizard. The Mediwizards appear frequently during the Quidditch World Cup to assist the exhausted players in the grueling match between Bulgaria and Ireland, including the young Bulgarian seeker Viktor Krum. The mediwizards seem to be distinct from Healers and may focus only on medical emergencies, although that is not clear from the text.
In the magical world, the Muggle medical system is referred to as “complementary medicine.” Arthur Weasley experiments with this alternative Muggle medicine, with the help of a Trainee Healer named Augustus Pye, after he is attacked by Nagini. It becomes clear that Muggle remedies do not work on magical maladies, and are the sort of thing that only Trainee healers would dabble with. When his family and friends visit him in St. Mungo’s Arthur Weasley is on the lookout for Healer-in-Charge Hippocrates Smethwyck in hopes of a proper magical treatment for his wounds, since Muggle stitches were of no use. It is interesting to note the skepticism with which the magical world eyes Muggle treatments, as the Muggle world in which we live is known for associating alternative medicine and homeopathy with the fringes of society and even with witchcraft!
In the wizarding world two important distinctions are made regarding medicine. First, they distinguish magical maladies from ordinary ones. Second, they distinguish magical remedies from Muggle remedies. Magical remedies – referred to as remedial potions and charms by a St. Mungo’s healer – are used on both magical and ordinary maladies. The most common ordinary malady is the broken bone, which is usually healed magically. When Neville broke his wrist during broomstick lessons, Madame Pomfrey “mended it in about a minute” (SS 156). This was Neville’s second trip to the Hospital Wing in the early days of his first year at Hogwarts. The first trip resulted from a magical malady that occurred in Snape’s potions class. While making a potion to cure boils, Neville missed one item in the directions and actually gave himself boils when the potion melted his cauldron.
One other note about institutionalized medicine in the magical world: wizards appear to have their own pharmaceutical industry. Skele-Gro, a potion that restores the bones in Harry’s arm after Lockhart accidently removed them, is made by Rubens Winikus and Company Inc. (HP2). Another commercial potion is Dr. Ubbly’s Oblivious Unction, which Madam Pomfrey uses to heal Ron’s arm (OOTP 847).
While potions such as these are made and sold on a pharmaceutical market, other potions are homemade; and not always by professional healers. All students study potions at Hogwarts under Professor Severus Snape and later under Horace Slughorn, and are likely to make potions throughout their lives, although only a handful of students continue the study of potions after taking their O.W.L.s. For example, Snape produced a Wolfsbane Potion to help ease Professor Lupin’s discomfort during his werewolf transformation.
Institutionalized Medical Care
Wizards and Witches at Hospital
St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Illnesses was founded by Mungo Bonham, a Black British wizard who lived from 1560 to 1659 and was a famous healer in his time (Rowling 2005). St. Mungo’s seems to be the only magical hospital in Britain, though that should not be a problem with so many forms of magical travel
When Harry and his friends met Neville in the long-term residents ward, they were on the second of two visits to St. Mungo’s that give us the best glimpse we have inside the hospital. When they first visit St. Mungo’s to see Arthur Weasley, after he is bit by Nagini, they travel by subway across the city of London. St. Mungo’s is in London, situated in a busy shopping district which allows sick witches and wizards to go unnoticed as the spectacle of consumption dominates the attention of the shoppers. St. Mungo’s is hidden within a department store called Purge and Dowse Ltd., which is permanently “closed for refurbishment.” To enter, visitors lean against the glass window and tell the mannequin the name of the patient they are visiting. Once approved for access, they are able to step through the glass and directly into the waiting room of the hospital where the Welcome Witch directs patients and visitors to the various wards. A sign on the wall gives a rough guide to the hospital’s six floors. The various floors are further divided into a multitude of wards, such as the “Dangerous” Dai Llewellyn Ward, for serious bites, where Arthur Weasley is kept after his confrontation with Nagini.
While in St. Mungo’s, Hermione, Harry, Ginny and Ron run into Gilderoy Lockhart, who now lives there after losing his memory from his own backfired Memory Charm in the Chamber of Secrets. They are told that he has not had any visitors. Although most people who knew Lockhart personally before his accident disliked him, he was nevertheless a famous bestselling author who we might expect to have visitors. Perhaps the stigma of being a permanent resident in the hospital has kept his fans away.
As discussed in detail in Chapter 12, stigma is an attribute that causes one to lose social standing. That sense of stigma seems especially apparent when Harry spots Neville visiting his parents in the long-term ward. Harry seems to know instinctively that Neville might feel embarrassed to be seen there, so Harry tries to find a way to distract the others. Harry likely would not do that if there were no stigma to mental illness and hospital residency. Harry fails to distract his friends and Ron calls out to Neville, leading to an interaction with Neville and his grandmother. Neville’s grandmother quickly discovers that Neville has not told his friends about his parents’ residency in St. Mungo’s – a result of a Cruciatus Curse from Bellatrix Lestrange that caused permanent brain damage. Neville’s grandmother accuses him of being ashamed of his parents when he should instead feel proud. Although Neville declares he is not ashamed, he does so “very faintly” and refuses to make eye contact with his friends. Neville’s response is not a consequence of any character flaw on his part; rather, he is simply acknowledging the social reality of the stigma against disability and mental illness in the magical world (OOTP 514).
Sickness and Healing at Hogwarts
Whenever students at Hogwarts become sick or injured, they are sent to see Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse. It is not clear what training is involved in becoming a nurse or how nurses differ from healers. Madam Pomfrey operates the Hogwarts hospital wing, which includes a ward of white-linened beds and the nurse’s office. Harry and his friends spend a lot of time in the hospital wing over the years. At times, they end their harrowing adventures with a visit to Madam Pomfrey, as Harry did at the end of his first year at Hogwarts. At other times, the hospital wing is the scene of the adventure itself, as we see when the hospital wing is the site where Hermione gives her Time-Turner three turns so that she and Harry can rescue Buckbeak and Sirius Black.
But the hospital wing is otherwise a place for rest and healing. Madam Pomfrey is very protective of her patients’ rest, though usually stern in her delivery of that protection. Her treatments are often as abrasive as her demeanor, but they nearly always work – except for one occasion when Madam Pomfrey was unab
le to help Marietta Edgecombe with the pimples that spelled out SNEAK across her face after she told Dolores Umbridge about Dumbledore’s Army (in violation of an enchanted list of DA members). Although Professor McGonagall is transferred to St. Mungo’s after she is hit by four stunning spells, most patients are successfully treated at Hogwarts by Madam Pomfrey.
Healing at Home
In the wizarding world there are many moments of injury when wizards and witches heal themselves and each other. Mrs. Weasley often heals her children’s and their friends’ injuries. For example, she attempts to heal Hermione of a bruised face caused by a trick telescope made by Fred and George. Part of the trick, though, is that the bruise cannot be easily removed. Mrs. Weasley relies on a home remedy book The Healer’s Helpmate, referencing a chapter on “Bruises, Cuts, and Abrasions”. The existence of such a book indicates that the medical field includes the publication of self-healing books.