by Unknown
The unenthusiastic response of some to mixed race relationships reaches an apex of intensity when marriage occurs. Even the idea of interracial marriage can be considered outrageous. Professor Dumbledore revealed in his notes on Beetle the Bard’s tale The Fountain of Fair Fortune that “more than one parent has demanded the removal of this particular tale from the Hogwarts library” because it “depicts interbreeding between wizards and Muggles” (TBB 39-40, emphasis added). Some parents, exemplified by Lucius Malfoy’s letter to the late Hogwarts headmaster, do not want their children “to be influenced into sullying the purity of [their] bloodline by reading stories that promote wizard-Muggle marriage” (TBB 40). Mr. Malfoy and the other parents who wanted The Fountain of Fair Fortune censored were, unfortunately, not asking for anything too farfetched. In the Muggle world, organized bodies such as the USA’s Motion Picture Association banned depictions of interracial romantic relationships until well after World War II (Gaines and Leaver 2002).
Yet, if children do nonetheless “sully the purity of their bloodline” by marrying outside their race, parental and familial care and concern could sometimes vanish. In the Muggle world, cases of children being disowned for marrying outside their race are sadly common place. Maria P. P. Root’s (1999) book Love’s Revolution draws on research with 175 Muggle families and documents the heartache and rejection that people (disproportionately white women) sometimes face from their families for crossing the color line. George Weasley did not suffer any such consequences for marrying Angelina. But Andromeda Black Tonks can relate to these Muggles all too well.
Born into the aristocratic pureblood Black family, Andromeda nonetheless chose to marry a Muggle-born man, Ted Tonks, rather than making a “lovely respectable pureblood marriage” like her sisters Bellatrix and Narcissa (OOTP 113). For this transgression, Andromeda was disowned by her parents and cut off by her sisters, who “never set eyes on [her] since she married the Mudblood” (DH 10). Root (1999: 57) explains that in the Muggle world, white parents sometimes see a son or daughter’s marriage to a non-white person “as a significant breach of their identity and possibility also their status as ‘white people.’” Disowning those who interracially marry makes the family “able to maintain its racial authenticity.” In Andromeda’s case, her Aunt’s burning her off of the Black family tree and Bellatrix’s murder of her half-blood niece can be seen as physical manifestations of the Black’s attempt to remain “Toujours Pur.”
Conclusion
Looking at who is considered to be racially “mixing” can expose the major social divisions in a given society. With regard to the wizarding world, juxtaposing the complete normality of black/white and white/Asian couples with the excessive attention and sometimes violence that is directed at pureblood/Muggle-born couples demonstrates that the manner in which British Muggles and British witches and wizards construct race differs. Most importantly, however, it reiterates sociologists’ assertion that race is not biological or genetic, but socially constructed.
References
Fujimura, Joan, Troy Duster, and Ramya Rajagopalan. 2008. “Race, Genetics, and Disease: Questions of Evidence, Matters of Consequence.” Social Studies of Science, 38, 643-656.
Gaines, Stanley O., Jr. and Jennifer Leaver. 2002. “Interracial Relationships.” Pp. 65-78 in Inappropriate Relationships: The Unconventional, the Disapproved, and the Forbidden. Edited by R. Goodwin and D. Cramer. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlabaum Associations.
Gordon, Milton. 1964. Assimilation in American life: The Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Graves, Joseph L., Jr. 2001. The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Office of National Statistics. 2005. “Focus on Ethnicity and Identity.”
Omi, Michael and Howard Winant. 1994. Racial Formation in the United States from the 1960s to the 1990s. New York, NY: Routledge.
Root, Maria P. P. 1999. Love’s Revolution: Interracial Marriage. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
“An owl OR a cat OR a toad”
Animals as Substitutions
in the Wizarding World
Anna Chilewska
C. Wright Mills in his book The Sociological Imagination asks us to look at a structure of a society as a whole and to consider its components as well as the relationship between components in order to understand it. One of the main components of the wizarding world is the various animals that interact with wizards and witches. Where do those animals belong, what are their functions, and does a wizard’s choice of an animal companion reflect the wizard’s positioning within his or her own society? To answer these questions, in this chapter I explore the position of non-human animals, both magical and non-magical in the wizarding society. I argue that animals hold a fixed place that is imposed by members of the wizarding world and that their primary purpose is their servitude as food, ingredients, clothing, ornaments, study aids and entertainment. I also argue that relationships between human and non-human animals are formed mostly out of human necessity to create bonds and substitute absent humans with those animals that are best suited to fill the gaps of individuals who are outsiders within their own wizarding society.
Moreover, wizard society is highly stratified, where the hierarchical rankings of individuals are based on certain characteristics that are closely connected to one’s ancestry, parentage, abilities and physical qualities. I will examine the social stratification in terms of how individuals fit into set positions in wizarding hierarchies and whether their positioning (willed or imposed) plays a role in their human-animal interfacing. Within the same society, the ideology displayed by most wizards towards animals is that of anthropocentrism and speciesism, meaning that wizards hold the power over most non-human beings.
Animals as Ingredients
The position that most animals occupy in the wizarding society is that of commodity. The wizarding world uses animals mainly as food, clothing and ingredients. When Harry first arrives at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he partakes in a welcoming feast, which consists of “roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak” (SS 123). For the annual Christmas Feast the school offers “a hundred fat, roast turkeys” (SS 203). The slaughtering and consuming of animal flesh is an everyday occurrence that is not questioned by anyone. And the presentation of animal foods is in chops, parts and slabs. The entire animal is rarely displayed because displaying only parts distances the consumer from it and does not prompt a reflection on one life sacrificed for the sake of another. Furthermore, the anthropocentric attitude allows the wizarding society to use other species for their own purposes and value other species in terms of their usefulness.
In addition to consuming the flesh, the wizarding society uses animal parts for objects of everyday use. Dragons serve as an example of such practices. Before beginning the first year at Hogwarts, Harry must purchase gloves that are made of “dragon hide” or something similar to it (SS 66). Dragon blood, as the Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore discovers, has twelve human uses, one of which is an oven cleaner. Dragon meat is used by Hagrid as a healing agent to reduce swelling. Dragon heartstring is used as the core of a wand, and both Hermione Granger and Lucius Malfoy have dragon heartstring in theirs.
And even though the utilization of animal parts is so widespread in the wizarding society, Harry does not seem to make a connection between a dead animal and its parts he has been using in his potion class. For example, in addition to Dragon heartstring, magic wands are filled with other animal parts such as unicorn hair or phoenix feathers. Yet when a unicorn is slain and one of the centaurs asks Harry if he knows what unicorn blood is used for, Harry, in his ignorance, is startled by “the odd question” and answers that he has used only “the horn and tail-hair” (SS 258). It is interesting that Harry finds the question about blood “odd” but does not find the practice of using horn and tail-hair p
eculiar. Because Harry’s contact is reduced to horns, hairs, or other parts, the entire animal does not appear to hold any meaning to the boy. The anthropocentric community, to which he belongs, readily dismisses or ignores the life that lies beneath the useful parts.
Animal Experimentation
One of the skills that students learn at the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is transfiguration. This class, more so than the others, resembles an animal experimentation laboratory. For example, the students are asked to transfigure a live hedgehog into a pincushion. The troubling fact here is not that only Hermione Granger is able to do this satisfactory, but rather that other students’ pincushions curl up “in fright if anyone approaches [them] with a pin” (GOF 233). The fear and potential pain of the hedgehog is never questioned and students move on to other assignments. In the first year Transfiguration exams, students have to transfigure a mouse into a snuffbox. If the box is pretty, marks are awarded. If the box still has whiskers, marks are deducted. In the second year of schooling, students must transfigure a beetle into a button and two white rabbits into a pair of slippers. In the sixth year syllabus, an owl is to be changed into a pair of opera glasses. In addition to transfiguring animals, students also learn to “vanish” them. Part of the fifth year curriculum is to vanish snails and mice; and again, the troubling fact is not that Hermione is the only one able to perform the magic (and advance to vanishing kittens), but rather that no one pauses to consider the ontological fate of the animals. Other classes also are unkind to non-human animals. For example, during potions lessons students behead and slice dead caterpillars or watch their teacher – professor Snape – test out a potentially poisonous potion on a toad belonging to Neville Longbottom (POA 126-127).
The lack of empathy and the clear positioning of non-human animals at the level of test objects and study aids are further illustrated when the imposter professor Moody demonstrates a Cruciatus Curse on a live black spider. Harry recalls:
At once, the spider’s legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but [he] was sure that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently. (GOF 214)
As Moody tortures the spider, Hermione Granger yells “Stop it!” (GOF 214). However, she does this not because she is looking at the struggling spider but at the horrified Neville Longbottom and wants his fear to cease. Hermione’s aim is clearly to protect the life and well being of her classmate even though it is a spider who suffers the most for no reason that can be justified. During the same lesson professor Moody kills a spider to show a killing curse known as Avada Kedavra. As he concludes the presentation, Moody sweeps the spider’s lifeless body onto the floor as if it were a mere speck of dust. Again, no one questions the events, and no one mourns the creature’s passing. It appears to be taken for granted within the school walls that animals’ lives do not belong to them but to the teachers, students and lessons and may be used in any fashion.
Animals as Entertainment
In a world where animals occupy the lowest level of social hierarchy, it is not surprising that they are treated as entertainment. When Hogwarts hosts a Triwizard Tournament, one of the tasks that each champion must complete is to retrieve a golden egg from a dragon. In order for the task to be as challenging as possible, the school requests nesting dragon mothers and puts them in an enclosure. During the tournament, Harry tries to lure the mother away from her nest so he may capture the golden egg, but he needs all his persuasive techniques to do so as she remains “too protective of her eggs” and is “afraid to move too far away from them” (GOF 355). If one were to strip away the scales and the fiery breath, one would understand that this is a mother – like any other mother – whose purpose is to protect those lives she created. But because the dragon is not a human-animal, she is seen by all participants and spectators as an obstacle that needs to be conquered. The wizarding society seems to be practicing an old belief that “Nature is a piece of property, an inheritance, owned and operated by mankind, a sort of combination park, zoo and kitchen garden” (Wischnitzer 1985: 165). Therefore, the entire tournament becomes a gaze and the dragon an actress that is expected to perform a task; but she is also expected to fail her task so that the superior being – Harry – may succeed at his.
The Substandard Society and Non-Human Animals
The wizarding world is divided into social classes, although the boundaries between each are not always clearly defined. As Lucius Malfoy and his son Draco would want many to believe, at the top of the social ladder stand those wizards who come from pure wizarding families (where both parents are wizards). Second in status are half-blood wizards, those who have one magical and one Muggle (non-magical) parent. Finally, Muggle-born wizards, offspring of two parents with no magical abilities, rank at the bottom of the hierarchy. The Malfoys, the Blacks, and other elitists families view Muggle-born wizards as being “just not the same” as purebloods and point out as often as they can that wizards from Muggle families have not been “brought up to know our ways” and should not be allowed to attend Hogwarts (SS 78).
In addition to pureblood and mixed-blood wizards, Harry’s magical world hosts a number of individuals who exist somewhere on the periphery. They form a “substandard society” because they are rarities who do not fit in with the rest of the wizards and witches. These are individuals who are born to wizard families but possess no magical abilities, known as Squibs, and individuals who come from families where either one or both parents are non-humans, known as half-breeds. The substandard society can also be viewed as individuals whose characteristics often do not allow them to be fully realized beings in their own world or whose needs must be satisfied elsewhere.
Filch’s Cat
In Harry’s world, the type of interaction that one has with animals is largely dependent on the social class to which one belongs as well as to the social marker by which one is defined. Squibs have a strong connection with animals and treat them as friends and companions. Argus Filch, who is a caretaker of Hogwarts, is a product of a rare incidence of someone being born in a wizard family who does not have any magical powers. In his own society, Filch is a person whose existence is constantly marked by his difference. Because he is part of the wizard society he would not be comfortable in the Muggle world; on the other hand, as a failed wizard, he cannot be fully integrated into the wizard society either. Filch is an unattractive man whose sole purpose in life is to catch students in the act of doing something wrong. He has no friends and his only companion is a female cat called Mrs. Norris, described as “a scrawny, dust-coloured creature” (SS 132). Filch is not a caring, compassionate person; he misses the days when corporal punishment was inflicted on students and he reminisces of the time when a student could be hung by his “wrists from the ceiling for a few days” (SS 248). And, the only occasion when students are exposed to Filch’s softer side is when he interacts with Mrs. Norris. He calls her “my sweet” and is inconsolable after Mrs. Norris is petrified by a Basilisk.
The relationship that Filch has with his cat is multilayered. She might be his only friend but she is also a reflection of Filch and everything that makes him a part of the substandard society. She shares his characteristics: they are both unattractive and scrawny “with bulging, lamplike eyes” and are both hated by all students (SS 132). Moreover, both Filch and Mrs. Norris are inconsequential to students’ lives. Their interaction with them is limited to catching students wandering the halls after hours and breaking school rules. Just as his cat, Filch lives and lurks in the shadows to emerge unexpectedly out of the dark, his face often “loom[s] suddenly” (SS 241) only to hide again and remain in the shadows. Everything that makes him an outsider is contained within Mrs. Norris’s characteristics. She is not only his friend and his reflection, but also a substitution for a human friend or a human companion. Sir Keith Thomas, a Welsh historian, desc
ribed pets in relation to the social predicament of their owners: “The pet is a creature of its owner’s way of life” and suggested that “people feel it necessary to maintain a dependent animal for the sake of emotional completeness” (Thomas 1983: 119). Given that Filch’s social status of a Squib makes it difficult for him to form relationships, the cat’s title Mrs suggests that Filch has created a metaphorical marriage between himself and the only female who would have him, and who willingly runs to him every time he calls.
Hagrid and his Beasts
Formation of bonds within the substandard society involves much more than a preference for certain animal species. The American scholar John Eisenberg (1971: 132) suggests that “in order for bonding to take place, it would appear that the organism must be able to perform some satisfying act of a self-reinforcing nature with the bonded object.” In short, a person will seek out some sort of “reward” that will result out of the bonding experience. Whereas Filch creates a metaphorical marriage in order to fill the void created by the absence of a human companion, Rubeus Hagrid becomes a “collector” of non-human animals who are outsiders in their societies in the same way that he is in his.
Hagrid is the school’s groundskeeper and gamekeeper. He lives away from the castle in a run-down shack. He is a giant man, with a “face almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and wild, tangled beard” (SS 46). Furthermore, Hagrid is prone to drink, speaks in an ungrammatical way and his writing is “a very untidy scrawl” (SS 135). Juxtaposed to the elite institution of magical higher learning next to which he lives, everything about Hagrid suggests outsider. He is uncomfortable with most people, in large part because of size. And like Filch, he lives alone, with only animals for company. Also like Filch, the company he keeps is a reflection of his belonging to a substandard society.