Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Literary Elements

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Literary Elements

Genre

Fantasy, Adventure

Setting and Context

Wizarding World, present day of 1998

Narrator and Point of View

Third person narrator showing Harry Potter’s thoughts.

Tone and Mood

Suspenseful, emotional

Protagonist and Antagonist

Harry Potter is the protagonist and Lord Voldemort is the antagonist.

Major Conflict

Harry and his two best friends are on a quest to find Voldemort’s hidden Horcruxes, but Dumbledore’s instructions are cryptic for them to understand.

Climax

Harry learns the true allegiance of Professor Snape and that Dumbledore knew that he had to die in order to kill Lord Voldemort.

Foreshadowing

Bill Weasley remembering Harry that goblins can’t keep their promise. Later, Griphook left Harry and his friends to almost die in Gringotts Bank.

Understatement

"Then we'll have nothing to do except find Horcruxes … It'll be like a holiday, won't it?" Ron said this quote at the beginning of the novel sounding as if finding Horcruxes were easy to find, but he later learns that they aren't.

Allusions

Harry visits his parents' graves at Godric's Hallow and sees two biblical references on his parents' tombstones, reading: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death," and "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." These are quotes from the bible: 1 Corinthians 15:26 and Matthew 6:19.

Imagery

The Deathly Hallows: The Resurrection Stone, The Elder Wand and the Cloak of Invisibility.

Paradox

The prophecy itself is a paradox. After learning about it Lord Voldemort tried to kill the boy that the prophecy refereed to. As the story progresses we learn that Harry Potter or Neville Longbottom could have been the boy that the prophecy foretold. But Voldemort tried to kill Harry resulting in his demise.

Parallelism

The character of Lord Voldemort is parallel to the real life person, Adolf Hitler. Both wanted to create a perfect race, in Voldemort’s case he wanted to live in a magical world where wizards came from a Pure-Blood line.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

The character of Olivander refers to wands as people, they talk to him, and they have the right to choose the wizard.

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