by C.J. Dawson

Created on: January 28, 2009   Last Updated: October 02, 2011

Even though the world of Harry Potter is not based in our sense of reality, the magical world still has to deal with the same issues that we do. One of these issues is prejudice due to social class and lineage.

Harry Potter grew up in the non-magical world, and was used to how others around him - those that were supposed to care for him - treated him because he was different, poor, and an uninvited addition. But when Harry began his attendance at Hogwarts, the only thing that changed was the presence of magic. Still, within the bounds of the wizarding world, prejudice abounds.

Right from the beginning of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' by J.K. Rowling, we see how Mr. Dursley, Harry's uncle, discriminates against those who he perceives as inferior, those not in his inflated, self-perceived social class. Mr. Dursley sees people (witches and wizards) walking through the streets in cloaks and just can't bear to be civil, especially in his thoughts.

"Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes - the getups you saw on young people! Mr. Dursley was enraged to see that a couple of them weren't young at all. The nerve of him!" (Sorcerer's Stone, 3). This was Harry's upbringing; the Dursleys looked down on anyone that was different from themselves. And Harry was different, not only in the non-magical world, but in the magical world as well.

The Dursleys looked down on those who didn't have a lot of money and everyone that possessed a magical ability. The reader later finds out that Aunt Petunia and Harry's mom, Lily, are sisters. When Lily turned eleven, she was accepted to Hogwarts - even though she came from a non-magical family. Petunia was not. This caused a great deal of contention between them, and guided the Dursleys down the road to hating everyone and everything to do with the magical world.

Petunia expresses her experience to Harry by screaming, "Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? I was the only one who saw her for what she was - a freak! And of course I knew you'd be just the same, just as strange, just as abnormal" (53). This led them to deny Harry the knowledge of his parents' true gifts and the world to which he belongs, a world in which he is already famous.

The reader soon discovers that that is one reason the Dursleys treat Harry as badly as they do - because he is of wizarding blood. Uncle Vernon took it upon himself to end such nonsense, in regards to magic,

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