Prejudice vs. Respect Theme Analysis

The wizarding world, though certainly magical, is not flawless. Just as in the Muggle world, prejudice is rampant throughout the wizarding community. Many wizards exhibit prejudice against a variety of groups for two main reasons: they do not like those who are different from themselves, and they feel that people within those other groups are inferior. Rowling thus demonstrates that prejudice is based on unfounded and often dangerous assumptions about groups of people, whereas the respect that Harry, Ron, and Hermione show towards others is based on their ability to see people as individuals: they understand that being different is not the same thing as being inferior.

The primary prejudice explored within The Chamber of Secrets is the idea that Muggles and Muggle-borns (wizards who have two Muggle, or non-magical, parents) are inferior to wizards who come from “pure-blood” wizard families (where both parents possess magical abilities). This assumption becomes incredibly harmful and Rowling shows it to be deeply misguided. Partway through the book, the History of Magic professor, Professor Binns, gives some of the background on this prejudice, detailing how Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founding members of Hogwarts, wanted to be more exclusive about the students who were admitted to the school. He did not want to allow Muggle-born students in, believing them “untrustworthy,” an enormous generalization. When the other Hogwarts founders disagreed with this idea, Slytherin created a secret chamber within the school that only his heir would be able to open, releasing the monster within (which turns out to be a basilisk). That monster would then be able to “purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.” Thus, Slytherin’s deep bias escalated into a desire to kill Muggle-borns, an action akin to genocide. Later generations of wizards pick up on the generalizations and biases stemming from Slytherin’s idea, believing that they are superior to Muggle-born wizards and Muggles. Tom Riddle, a Hogwarts student from fifty years before Harry’s time who is revealed to be the heir of Slytherin, also carries these beliefs. He unleashes the basilisk during his time at Hogwarts, which ultimately kills a Muggle-born student named Myrtle. Lucius Malfoy and his son Draco also share this prejudice. Lucius derides Hermione for being “of no wizard family,” and Draco later picks up on this. He calls Hermione a “Mudblood”—an extremely derogatory term for wizards who are Muggle-born. Lucius and Draco behave this way toward Hermione because they believe, as Ron explains later, that they’re better than everyone else. Their prejudice is so fierce that Lucius sneaks Tom Riddle’s diary, which holds his memories and can communicate with anyone who writes in it, to Ron’s sister Ginny. Riddle then possesses Ginny, getting her to open the Chamber of Secrets once more. The attacks resume on those who are Muggle-born, and though fortunately no one is killed this time, the prejudice behind Lucius’s actions is both palpable and nearly lethal.

By contrast, Harry, Ron, and Hermione respect everyone around them who behaves with kindness and decency, even if they are different from themselves, because they understand the value of not making generalizations about a group from any one individual. Hermione, herself a Muggle-born student, completely defies any stereotypes that Muggle-borns are not as talented with magic as so-called “pure-blood” students. Despite the fact that others like Draco look down on her, she gets the best grades in the class, and as Hagrid mentions, “they haven’t invented a spell that Hermione can’[t] do.” Harry grows up with Muggles, and even though he hates living with the Dursleys (as some students point out), he knows his judgement about Muggles as a whole should not be based on his experiences with his horrible family. He and Hermione are also best friends, demonstrating that Harry knows that biases against Muggle-borns are unfounded. Ron, for his part, understands that Muggles are very different from wizards, since he is from an all-wizard family. But Ron’s father Mr. Weasley, unlike Draco’s father, is amazed at the inventive things Muggles have come up with in order to live without magic. Thus, the Weasleys see difference not as something that makes Muggles inferior, but rather as something that simply allows them to have different strengths than wizards do.

In addition to Muggles and Muggle-born students, Harry and his friends also treat members of several other mistreated groups with respect. While the Malfoys deeply abuse their house elf, Dobby, who is essentially a slave, Harry is extremely polite to him, making Dobby cry with gratitude. Harry helps trick Lucius in order to free Dobby at the end of the book. Likewise, while other students are indifferent to ghosts or even make fun of them, Harry accepts a party invitation from a ghost named Nearly Headless Nick because he knows that accepting will make Nick happy.

By illustrating prejudices within the wizarding world, Rowling implies a connection to the dangers of racism and other forms of prejudice in the real world. She regards prejudice as unequivocally evil and also baseless throughout the Harry Potter series: not only is it typical of the “bad” characters in the books, but it is also what allows Voldemort to rise to power, as he gains followers by espousing these harmful prejudices. In contrast, Harry understands the value of being kind and showing respect to any individual he comes across—as long as that person values kindness as he does. And because he is the protagonist of the book, his values exemplify the ideals that Rowling suggests people in the real world should also aspire to.