Reading Harry Potter as a child leads to a vast number of questions. The young readership may ask themselves how somebody could become a wizard or a witch and whether someday they would receive a letter from Hogwarts and become wizards or witches, too. The books taught us that not only children of other witches and wizards can obtain the ability to use magic, but “regular” human offspring, too, so the question about how magic finds its way into the human body is arises. Since the novels show that there is a high importance of who the ancestors of somebody are, it can be concluded that genetics might be behind the appearance of magic. In fact, the family tree of the respective characters is highlighted enormously; not as much by the narrator as by the other characters through dialogue. Although the novels are highly imprecise about the genetics of wizards, the importance of ancestral history shows that the genetic background of a wizard is still of utmost importance in the wizarding society and that, consequently, the relationship between the different types of wizards can definitely be compared to the harsh and tensed interrelations between people in the Third Reich.
In order to find out how magic is passed on and to what extent the relationships between the different wizards are analogue to those of the interrelation of people in the Nazi regime, two aspects will be analysed. The first and more detailed aspect will be the analysis of the information about inheritance of magical gene using the information that is given in the novels, newspaper articles and textbooks on human genetics. The basis of this analysis will be the ground-breaking work of Gregor Mendel, who decoded the inheritance of certain features from one generation to the other by (cross-) breeding differently looking plants. The second aspect will be the interrelation between the different kinds of wizarding humans and their analogy to the Nazi regime. Due to the limited length of this term paper, the object of analysis will primarily be the first novel of the “Harry Potter”-series, the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”, however the other six books will also be considered in the argumentation and partly cited in order to demonstrate developments that were not mentioned in the first book, but are too important to ignore.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Basic Genetics in the World of Harry Potter
2.1. Mendel in Theory
2.2. Mendel and Magic
3. Relationships based on Genetics
3.1. National Socialism and Pure Blood
3.2. Blood in “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”
4. Conclusion
Research Objectives and Themes
This paper examines the inheritance of magical ability within the Harry Potter series and investigates the thematic parallels between the wizarding society's obsession with ancestry and the ideology of the Third Reich. It seeks to determine whether genetics can explain the appearance of magic in Muggles and if the resulting social hierarchy reflects historical fascist power structures.
- Mendelian genetics applied to the magical world
- The biological classification of wizards, Muggles, and Squibs
- Parallels between "Pure Blood" ideology and National Socialism
- The role of ancestral history in wizarding social status
- The evolution of discrimination from the first to the final novel
Excerpt from the Book
2. BASIC GENETICS IN THE WORLD OF HARRY POTTER
People often hear about them looking just like their parents and grandparents or sharing some special traits with their relatives. As it is already commonly known, living organisms do indeed share the basis of their existence – their genes – with their ancestors. Genetics are an extraordinarily wide field of research, but the basics, Mendel’s laws, are as easily comprehendible as relevant for the first steps of analysing the origin of features a living being shows. To understand the following analysis of the genetic heredity of magical powers, a few key words of genetics have to be defined.
The first important distinction to define is the difference between “genotype” and “phenotype”. While describing one’s phenotype, being solely the appearance and physical features of an organism, is very simple, someone’s genotype, the genetic composition of the pertained object, is highly complex. Two objects with the same phenotype might have very different genotypes, that just turned out to appear in a similar way. The reason why one phenotype can have more than one genotype is that there are the different “alleles” that are responsible for the outcome of the genetic combination a child inherits from its parents. One gene always consists of two copies, which are the aforementioned alleles. One copy, or allele, is inherited from the father and the other one from the mother.
Summary of Chapters
1. Introduction: This chapter contextualizes the rise of right-wing extremism in Germany and introduces the core research question regarding the biological and ideological similarities between the Harry Potter series and the Third Reich.
2. Basic Genetics in the World of Harry Potter: This section defines essential genetic terminology and applies Mendelian principles to explore how magical powers might be inherited, addressing the specific statuses of Muggles, wizards, and Squibs.
3. Relationships based on Genetics: This chapter analyzes the historical parallels between Nazi racial ideology and the "Pure Blood" hierarchy in the wizarding world, examining how blood status influences social standing.
4. Conclusion: The concluding chapter summarizes the evolution of discrimination within the novels and poses further research questions regarding the paradox of a half-blood leader promoting pure-blood supremacy.
Keywords
Harry Potter, Mendelian Genetics, Pure Blood, National Socialism, Third Reich, Magic, Wizarding Society, Alleles, Genotype, Phenotype, Ancestry, Discrimination, Muggle-born, Squib, Bloodline
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the primary focus of this academic paper?
This paper explores the intersection of genetics and social hierarchy in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, specifically drawing comparisons between the wizarding world’s "Pure Blood" obsession and the ideology of the National Socialist regime.
What are the central thematic fields discussed?
The paper covers human genetics, literary analysis, and historical sociopolitical parallels, focusing on how ancestry determines status and social treatment within the fictional narrative.
What is the main research question of the work?
The research investigates how magic is passed on through generations and to what extent the relationships between different types of wizards mirror the discriminatory structures of the Nazi regime.
Which scientific methodology is utilized in this analysis?
The author applies the foundational work of Gregor Mendel regarding inheritance to the fictional biology of wizards, while using qualitative literary analysis to examine parallels with historical political documents.
What content is covered in the main body of the text?
The main body defines genetic concepts such as genotype, phenotype, and alleles, then analyzes how these apply to magical inheritance, followed by an exploration of how wizarding society replicates fascist exclusionary practices.
Which keywords best characterize this research?
Key terms include Mendelian genetics, Pure Blood, National Socialism, wizarding society, ancestry, discrimination, and blood status.
How does the author explain the existence of Muggle-born wizards?
The author proposes a theory based on recessive alleles, suggesting that magical ability is a recessive trait inherited from heterozygous parents who carry both a dominant human allele and a recessive magical one.
What is the significance of the "Pure Blood" movement in the context of the paper?
The paper argues that the Pure Blood movement functions as an analogy to Nazi "Aryan" ancestry requirements, where genealogy is used to enforce social control and justify the exclusion of those deemed genetically "impure."
- Quote paper
- Emilia Schwebel (Author), 2018, The Gene of Magic and Its Importance in the Fascist World of Harry Potter, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/458769
