《哈利波特》系列小说中的社会等级架构
关键词 《哈利•波特》 身世背景 意识形态 社会等级
毕业论文外文摘要
Title The Social Hierarchy in Harry Potter Series
Abstract
Harry Potter series written by English female writer J.K. Rowling has enjoyed great popularity around the globe for several years. As one of the themes of the story, the conflict between justice and evil is by its nature the question of blood—pure magical blood, half-blood and non-magical blood. The main characters with distinguishing features are representatives of different social classes. Focusing on the blood issue, the essay discusses social hierarchy in the novels by analyzing the family backgrounds, personal statuses and ideologies of characters, in order to figure out the author’s intention and the practical social meaning of the series.
Keywords Harry Potter family background ideology social hierarchy
Contents
1 Introduction1
2 “Hardware”—something about blood and money 1
2.1 About “pure-blood”: the high rank 2
2.2 About “half-blood”: the middle class 4
2.3 About “Muggle-born”: the lower class 6
2.4 About other intelligent creatures: slaves 6
3 “Software”—something about faith and belief 7
3.1 Pro-Muggles: Dumbledore and his followers 7
3.1 Anti-Muggles: Voldemort and Death Eaters 8
Conclusion 10
Acknowledgements 11
Bibliography 12
1 Introduction
J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series have been highly praised for a long time. In this wonderful magical land, characters are endowed with different kinds of natural gifts, and driven to experience incredible incidents which common non-magical people (“Muggles” as they are called in the story) would never encounter during their whole lifetime. In these books, not only characters themselves are attractive, but also the social rank hidden behind them are quite revealing. Apparently, when it comes to social constitution and background setting, there is a correspondence between the fantasyland and the real world. Westman (2007) claims that “Rowling introduces social, political, and economic realities as they affect her main character’s life”, which is quite reasonable. In Harry Potter series, no matter how powerful a character is, he or she has to obey unwritten rules, which are closely connected with aristocracy. Even the dark lord has limited leeway to do whatever he likes: he has to rely on the influential Malfoys to regain his power though he knows the Malfoys are not absolutely faithful.
Ren Shaoyun (2010) states that the magical world and the practical world are harmoniously united and concordant. The magical world, to some extent, is the reflection of the real world. Hu Yue (2011) also mentions that Rowling puts the magical world under the coat of the common world. Power is the essential element to distinguish different social classes. As we all know, people in power usually come from “wealthy” and “decent” families. In the magical world created by Rowling, the word “blood” plays an important role in the game of power. Blood is a topic discussed from time to time in HP series. At the beginning of The Sorcerer’s Stone, the leading role Harry Potter is introduced as a survivor of a magical battle, or slaughter, which is exactly concerned with blood. The war plotted by Lord Voldemort (the No.1 villain of the story) is intended to wipe out all “rebelling” Muggle-born wizards and witches.