In Lex Populi [“law of the people,” playing off of vox populi], William MacNeil looks at how popular culture portrays and interacts with ideas of jurisprudence, examining Fight Club, The Lord of the Rings, the debate over Terri Schiavo’s right to die, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When discussing Harry Potter, MacNeil draws our attention to the existence of house elves, small creatures who are enslaved to do their human masters’ bidding unless freed by being presented with clothing.
Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire reveals that there are hundreds of house
elves working at Hogwarts
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the shining light of all that has been
good in Harry’s life. While Harry’s friend Hermione tries to free
the house elves from their enslavement, the other students seem unconcerned, as
do the house elves themselves, who appear to relish the opportunity to serve
well and regard freedom with horror.
MacNeil
contrasts the reactions of two house elves to freedom to show the difficulty of finding a legal system
that meets the rights of all members of a community. Dobby relishes his freedom, but
he “feels that, as far as freedom goes,
there can be too much of a good thing. For instance, when Dumbledore offered to pay
him ten Galleons a week—a standard wizarding wage… Dobby ‘beat... him down’
to one Galleon. Winky,
on the other hand, perceives her freedom as a “‘disgrace’ and a source of
‘shame.’”
MacNeil argues that the novel shows “that rights discourse, and indeed the law itself, might be highly problematic strategies for change, something that you can’t live with, and can’t live without. For how do you change a system’s status inequities—its gender, race, and class ‘intersections’ overdetermined in the figure of Winky—through the very instrument of those inequities, namely the law?”
Great article, teach us law from the characters of Harry Potter.
I'm a big fan of HP and trying to start an
International Holiday, Please stop by my site and
sign my Petition
Harry Potter
Posted by: espice | December 21, 2007 at 07:58 AM