Sunday, February 7, 2010

Research Paper Topic

For my research paper I want to deal with the issue of how authors are presenting themes about discrimination different ways than the typical methods like books that kind of go straight at the topic. I reviewed two books that I think cover this topic very will while doing my book reviews. These books are Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and New Moon. Both authors present underlying themes about discrimination and they deal with this theme in a unique way. I want to examine these unique ways of promoting this particular theme. For instance, in the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling presents this idea through the idea of the pure-blood and muggle situation in the book. The pure-bloods think that muggles aren't worthy, basically, of being called wizards and think that muggle-borns shouldn't be allowed into Hogwarts, and some of the more hardcore supporters of the muggle discrimination even think that they should be ruled by wizards. This is similar to what minorities go through today. It doesn't quite go as far as wanting to rule over a specific people, even though there is probably still a place somewhere where that might be wanted, but it does kind of deal with the ideas of what children go through to today in schools if they are minority students. This same idea is also dealt with in New Moon through the prejudice that the vampires and werewolves have against each other. Through the way that Stephenie Meyer depicts these two sides even, though they don't come into too much contact in the book, she shows that both sides have similar ideals and that they just don't really know enough about each other to like each other. This deals with some of the ignorance that leads people to have contempt for people of other races. There are also other things like the persecution of the house-elf Dobby in Chamber of Secrets that deal with this theme.

1 comment:

  1. You might also bring in the Volturi in your discussion on the Meyer books; they are the nobility of the vampire world, and, as such, they consider themselves to have the right to punish/kill other vampires when necessary. (You might also talk about how cold they are when they do it. They are also very cold when they bring in the group of tourists that they are about to slaughter.) Their status/power appears to grant them the right to kill Resesme, if they so choose, at least from their perspective. Meanwhile, in Harry Potter, you have similar situations. Draco considers himself to be noble, in a sense, like the Volturi. For this reason, he mistreats students who are not pure-blooded, like him.

    However, in each of these series, people who have been discriminated again stand up against those who are discriminating against them. So, the protagonists overcome the oppressors. By doing so, they empower themselves, making it harder for others to discriminate against them in the future.

    This sounds like an interesting topic, and I look forward to reading the paper.

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