Being Critical: Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets

Marginalization of Hermione Granger

In JP Rowling’s Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets we are introduced to the amazing fictional world of magic, adventure, wizardry and so much more. Although we do not have magic in our lives, we still have many similarities to Harry Potter. The book and the movie take us to an entirely different world of magic with people having different skills and abilities, but despite being a different and a magical world it still carries some stark similarities to the common prevailing culture of the human societies in the contemporary human world. While the emphasis of the story is upon the use of magic and wizardry, the story unravels some significantly similar positive as well as the negative ethos of human societies. We see the emotions of jealousy, friendship, love and hatred that are like any other society with humans in it. One of the striking similarities to contemporary human society, which we will discuss with you in the essay, the story contains is the phenomenon of “marginalization”. The word marginalization is defined in Merriam Webster Dictionary as “to relegate to an unimportant or powerless position within a society or group”. In the story we see Hermione Granger becoming a victim of marginalization. At multiple events throughout the story, we witness that she is being treated differently and…