Portrayal Of The Issue Of Marginalization In Harry Potter Series By J.k. Rowling

The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling gives us information about the magical world of wizards, a world which is totally different from the real world. In each book, they have an adventurous journey. Everythings depends on magic in that world. Harry Potter is the main character in the series, with his friends, Ron and Hermione. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is one of the famous movies of the Harry Potter series. This movie shows us about the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts School. The Harry Potter series contains many social issues and somehow these books are connected with some big serious real-world issues. There are so many positive and negative aspects. The one big social issue that is described in the movie is the marginalization.

Marginalization is the process of ignoring some individual people or groups because of some criteria like age, race, homelessness, and religion. People in society create a barrier of discrimination because of these criteria. There are so many characters in the movie that are being marginalized but the character that affected me the most is Hermione Granger. Hermione is Harry’s young muggle-born friend at Hogwarts School. Muggles are the non-magical people. Hermione was marginalized based on her race because her parents are Muggles.

Her classmates who belonged to the pure-blood or half-blood family used to call her as mud-blood in front of other students. Those students hurt Hermione's feelings, emotions, and self-esteem. Despite all these inappropriate acts by the people, she made herself a high-achieving student. Overall, In the movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Hermione proved that in spite of the discrimination and humiliation you can emerge as a strong and successful person As a result of her marginalization, she was the most intelligent student at Hogwarts school because of her hard work.

The main reason for Hermione's marginalization was her race. She faces ignorance and disgrace because of racism. In the Hogwarts School, most of the students were either pure-blood or half-blood. So there was a barrier of the race that stood between Hermione and the other Hogwarts students. That's why they discriminate against her. It was their mentality that because she is a Muggle-born and raised in a non-magical family, she was somehow worse than they were. They always keep reminding her about it.

In the book Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban, when Ron and Hermione were discussing for the classes, Ron told Hermione, “You’re Muggle-born! Your mum and dad are Muggles! You already know all about Muggles!”(Rowling 57). This shows how Ron made her realize that she didn’t belong to magical parents. He tried to made her feel that she is not a part of the magical world. Ron taunts Hermione because she was not of the same blood type. This is how people get marginalized by discrimination. Even in our world students marginalized other students because of their family status and race. Despite all these things, Hermione didn’t lose her patience. She ignored that kind of bullshit and always focused on her studies to learn about the magic.

The other way that she got marginalized was the name given to her “Mud-blood”. Basically, Muggle-borns were labeled in Hogwarts school. They referred to them by the name of mud-blood because of their dirty blood. Most of the students called Hermione mud-blood to insult her. They always ignored her ideas and suggestion in the class. They believed that they are capable of doing so many things that she couldn’t. For them, she was just a second-class citizen. The pure-bloods and half-bloods think that they are smarter than her and their magical powers are stronger than hers as they were raised in pure-blood or half-blood family. While arguing with Hermione in the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Draco told her, 'No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mud-blood.' These words hurt Hermione's self-esteem and later her anger turned into tears. Draco made her feel abused about being a muggle-born by calling her mud-blood. It is hard to tolerate this kind of linguistic insult. It is really so painful when someone humiliates you because of your race.

Another example from the movie Chamber of Secrets is when professor McGonagall was describing the danger of opening of the chamber of secrets. Draco told Hermione “ Of course! You heard him: ‘You’ ll be next, Mudbloods’!”. In this quote, he insulted Hermione once again, calling her mud-blood. He marginalized Hermione by teasing her again and again. This marginalization affected her mind but she couldn’t tell her feelings to others. These things always make her feel guilty inside but she didn’t show it and always tried to be strong in front of others. In our world, people also do that. The rich don’t let the weak poor speak for there problems and always ignore them as they are not as wealthy like them. People give them weird names like slave and helot to show them their social status. They keep them away from society and marginalized based on the money and class. However, despite this kind of unfair treatment from others, she didn’t let it impact her mental growth. She was a wise, clever and smart girl in Hogwarts School. These all qualities of Hermione made her a stronger person than others.

As Hermione continued to bear that humiliation with time, she made her turned herself perfect in many areas such as magical studies and how to deal with the humiliation. She was not afraid of the bullies anymore and started to respond to them at the same time. She stopped crying. She proved that it is not important to born in a pure-blood or half-blood family to be a wizard or witch. She was the most intelligent magician in her class and knew all the magical tricks. She gave the response to her marginalization by her success in the magic.

The marginalization made her more devoted to her studies in magic and she rose up as the most powerful and intelligent witch compared to all other pure-blood and half-blood students. She worked hard for studies. She always had the solution to all problems. For example-- during the Quidditch match when because of heavy rain Harry was not able to see properly through her glasses, She spells the magical word “Impervious” and after that Harry's glasses were not affected with the water anymore. She was helpful for everyone even they disrespected her. She always helped the poor creatures, for example -- house-elves and hippogriff. She helped Hagrid to save his hippogriff. Hermione’s kindness, hard work, and dedication were her merits. These all qualities of Hermione made her different from others.

In our social world marginalization occurs almost in every field whether it is race or employment. There are many people like Hermione in this world who suffer from marginalization. Even though most of the people are educated in this world, there are still some orthodox people. We can see marginalization based on racism in the United States. There are some specific groups of people like Black Americans and Asians who have to face this humiliation. Most of the time these people are put behind everything. Black and Asians kids have to suffer from humiliation in schools. As the author, Anderson mentions in his article “How the Stress of Racism Affects Learning” that “The fact is now I’m [tardy] because I’m being scanned four times because of the metal in my necklace or my keys. I missed whatever [the teacher] was explaining … a lot goes on in [chemistry], and because of that I'm behind.” This is an example of marginalization with Black students, like how they have to face the suspicious eyes of people. In this quote, the people judge a student named Zion based on his race. They checked him every day like a criminal before he starts school because he was a Black- American. People often judge other people by their color, race, appearance and social status. Thus Zion is marginalized the same way as Hermione.

Some people might have different views on Hermione's marginalization. They do not think that she is marginalized by the Hogwarts' students because of her blood type. Additionally, they think that Hermione deserved to be treated like that as she didn't belong to the pure-blood or half-blood group. We can consider this three mud-blood, half-blood and pure-blood groups as racial groups like Black-Americans, Asians, and White. In this way, the people are judging these three groups with racial difference. So, according to them because Hermione belonged to the second class, that’s why she had to face all those comments, disrespect, and yellings. I totally do not agree with this kind of people. These people are the stereotype. They are the main reason for marginalization because they don't want to bring change in their mentality. These people don't want to treat everyone equally in society, that's why they are in favor of marginalization. We need to make these people realize how wrong they are and should bring change in their narrow thinking.

After describing Hermione's marginalization, I realized the fact that the marginalization that happens in Harry Potter's world also happens all over the real world in the way of gender inequality, social discrimination, and racism. There are so many people in the real world who are suffering from that kind of marginalization like Hermione. Because of some stereotyped people, there is a barrier of marginalization between different types of people in society. Hermione had been marginalized because of her race. She continued to suffer at Hogwarts school because of the pure-blood and half-blood students.

Despite all the humiliation, racism, prejudice, and insult, Hermione didn't let it get her down. She proved herself best among all the students at Hogwarts School. She responds to her marginalization with her high achievements in magical studies, but people in the real world are not always strong enough to bear marginalization, which leads to suicide. People commit suicide because they don't want to live in guilt and humiliation. So, for our society, it is really important to stop the marginalization, but as long as people are not going to change their mentality, it is not possible. So, we need to make the people of society realize that they are supposed to treat everyone equally regardless of their race, class or gender. we have to take a stand for those people who are marginalized. This the way how it is going to work, and we can save our society from marginalization.