Home to Harlem Literary Elements

Fictional autobiography

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

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

The tone and mood used in the novel is depressing.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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