The Machiavellian Umbridge (Part 1: Entering Hogwarts as a Teacher)

    

 The Prince is a book written by Niccolò Machiavelli, and it outlines the qualities exemplified in a worldly-minded, corrupt leader. The sole reason for any descision made is for the benefit of the Prince, and all actions are commited with underlying deciet and master trickery.

    That being said, a couple months ago I wondered at the similarities between Machiavelli's Prince character and Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter. It's not surpising in a sense, because J. K. Rowling has a nack for effotlessly creating a very diverse character entourage to serve the storyline, and I thought this would be a good time to write up a mini-biography on the key events of Dolores Umbridge's life in the book The Order of the Phoenix. 

    Dolores Umbridge is a corrupt Ministry witch in a position of great power. She enters the book at the scene of Harry Potter's trial, and at once she communicates a negative attitude, added to but not subject to her ghastly appearance. 

"He [Harry] thought she looked just like a large, pale toad. She was rather squat with a broad, flabby face, as little neck as Uncle Vernon, and a very wide, slack mouth. Her eyes were large, round, and slightly bulging. Even the little black velvet bow perched on top of her short curly hair put him in mind of a large fly she was about to catch on a long sticky tongue.

“The Chair recognizes Dolores Jane Umbridge, Senior Undersecretary to the Minister,” said Fudge. The witch spoke in a fluttery, girlish, high-pitched voice that took Harry aback; he had been expecting a croak."

    Harry's trial is ultimately ended in his favour, and the plump witch does not re-enter any dialogue for a bit. However, she arrives back into the storyline once Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione return to Hogwarts. She is discovered to have taken on the vacant, supposedly jinxed position of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Snape now has another personal enemy. 

    Umbridge enters into this position under the guise of ministry aid in the effectiveness of Hogwarts DADA training. Her methods, however, seem to be more of a hinderance than a help. She has an afinity for book learning alone. 

"When they entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, they found Professor Umbridge already seated at the teacher’s desk, wearing the fluffy pink cardigan of the night before and the black velvet bow on top of her head. Harry was again reminded forcibly of a large fly perched unwisely on top of an even larger toad.

    The class was quiet as it entered the room; Professor Umbridge was, as yet, an unknown quantity, and nobody knew yet how strict a disciplinarian she was likely to be. 

“Well, good afternoon!” she said when finally the whole class had sat down. 

A few people mumbled “Good afternoon,” in reply.

“Tut, tut,” said Professor Umbridge. “That won’t do, now, will it? I should like you, please, to reply ‘Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge.’ One more time, please. Good afternoon, class!”

“Good afternoon, Professor Umbridge,” they chanted back at her.

“There, now,” said Professor Umbridge sweetly. “That wasn’t too difficult, was it? Wands away and quills out, please.”

Many of the class exchanged gloomy looks; the order “wands away” had never yet been followed by a lesson they had found interesting. Harry shoved his wand back inside his bag and pulled out quill, ink, and parchment.

Professor Umbridge opened her handbag, extracted her own wand, which was an unusually short one, and tapped the blackboard sharply with it; words appeared on the board at once:

Defense Against the Dark Arts: A Return to Basic Principles

“Well now, your teaching in this subject has been rather disrupted and fragmented, hasn’t it?” stated Professor Umbridge, turning to face the class with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. “The constant changing of teachers, many of whom do not seem to have followed any Ministry-approved curriculum, has unfortunately resulted in your being far below the standard we would expect to see in your O.W.L. year.

You will be pleased to know, however, that these problems are now to be rectified. We will be following a carefully structured, theory-centered, Ministry-approved course of defensive magic this year. Copy down the following, please.”

She rapped the blackboard again; the first message vanished and was replaced by:

Course Aims:

1. Understanding the principles underlying defensive magic.

2. Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic can legally be used.

3. Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use."

Umbridge sides with the idea that magic is not needed for the students at the moment, at least in what she tells her own students. Her face-level argument is summed up in her reply to Hermione's question on why her course aims doesn't include the use of defensive spells. 

"'I can’t imagine any situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell, Miss Granger. You surely aren’t expecting to be attacked during class?'"

Umbridge's refuting arguments stems around the fact that her students are, in fact, still children. 

“Are you a Ministry-trained educational expert, Miss Granger?” asked Professor Umbridge in her falsely sweet voice.

“No, but—”

“Well then, I’m afraid you are not qualified to decide what the ‘whole point’ of any class is. Wizards much older and cleverer than you have devised our new program of study. You will be learning about defensive spells in a secure, risk-free way—”

Anyways, as a conclusion, this is a multiple part Umbridge analysis that I may go more into during the next post. Buckle up for a familiar adventure as we pretend to have never read the book before and evaluate all we can know about Umbridge!