Abstract
In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999), a monstrous animal necessitates both the care and the depredation of a monstrous plant. A basilisk, unleashed by dark forces, petrifies animals with its gaze, and these animals can be revived only by a potion made from the mandrake, an uncannily homuncular plant with a lethal cry. As more and more animals lose animacy—petrified into forms of immobile life—the animality and humanity of the plants grow. Like sacrificial virgins (albeit very ugly ones), the mandrakes are tenderly, painstakingly cared for until their eventual slaughter. In effect, the Harry Potter mandrake may be said to live like a human and die like a plant, fulfilling what is typically considered a plant’s sole purpose: to enable animal life.
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Chez, K.W. (2016). The Mandrake’s Lethal Cry: Homuncular Plants in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets . In: Keetley, D., Tenga, A. (eds) Plant Horror. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57063-5_4
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