Home to Harlem Literary Elements

Home to Harlem Literary Elements

Genre

Fictional autobiography

Setting and Context

The action described in the novel takes place in Harlem at the beginning of the 20th century.

Narrator and Point of View

The action in the novel is told from the perspective of a third-person objective narrator.

Tone and Mood

The tone and mood used in the novel is depressing.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist is Jake and the antagonists are the white people around him who refuse to get past his skin color.

Major Conflict

The major conflict is between Jake’s desire to be accepted as a person equal to any other white person and the society in general that tries to keep the black population powerless.

Climax

The story reaches its climax when Jake is reunited with the woman he loves.

Foreshadowing

Jake defecting from the army is foreshadows by the way in which he is treated once he arrives in France.

Understatement

In the beginning of the novel, Jake claims that now that he was accepted in the military, he will be treated just like a white person. This is however an understatement because the white soldiers were unable to accept Jake and tried to make him feel inferior.

Allusions

One of the main allusions transmitted through this novel is that there will never be true equality between the black and white community.

Imagery

The narrator describes in great details the conditions in which Jake worked while returning back home. This description is an important one because it shows the conditions in which black people were forced to live.

Paradox

One of the most paradoxical ideas is the fact that even though Jake knows he will never be accepted by the white community, he never stops trying to gain their favor.

Parallelism

N/A

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Money is used here as a general term to make reference to the idea of security.

Personification

We have a personification in the sentence “the earth shallowed them up”.

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