Review of Harry Potter

Harry Potter and friends are entering their last year of wizarding school. This time, however, the rules have changed. After the death of Albus Dumbledore, the late headmaster of Hogwarts, Harry has made it his goal to finish what Dumbledore started. He and his friends partake on a long adventure across the whole world to find what is known as Horcruxes. These contain Parts of Voldemort’s soul, and may be the key to defeating him. After tailing clues and leads about the first horcrux, they finally find it in the office of ministry official Dolores Umbridge.

They steal it and head back to their safe haven at Harry’s uncle’s house. However, they also bring a death eater back with them, and the safeguard enchantments break down. Throughout the week they are in hiding in the woods, surrounded by only what they can wield as enchantments. They do not know how to destroy the Horcrux and they seemed lost. Finally, Harry finds out that the Sword of Gryffindor can help them. After a little searching, they are able to destroy it and move on. They need to find the other horcruxes, and that they do. They find two more objects and destroy them. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are now at hogwarts. This is where the final battle will take place and is also where Harry has come to die. We find out from Snape that harry and Voldemort’s Snake are the final horcruxes. Neville Longbottom kills the snake, and Harry is presumably killed by Voldemort. However, we find out this is not the case, and it was only the Horcrux inside of Harry that was killed. In a great duel to end the book, Harry Potter finally kills Voldemort once and for all, now that all of the Horcruxes are finished. I really enjoyed this book, even more than I enjoyed watching the movie. It felt so good to know that Voldemort couldn’t come back, because after 7 years of fighting, even the final chapter of hogwarts for the kids is extremely rough. You can feel their pain and their triumph equally, and that is what I loved about this book.

Characterization:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is full of characters. The characters that changed the most, or the round characters, were Voldemort and Harry Potter. These happen to be the Protagonist and antagonist through the whole series, including the final chapter: the Deathly Hallows. At the beginning of the book Harry believes that to kill Voldemort, he has to hunt down the horcruxes and destroy them. Even after this long in the wizarding world, he is naive to the fact that he might have to sacrifice something to finish off the dark lord. “Yeah” said Harry, “then we’ll have nothing to do but hung horcruxes… It’ll be like a holiday won’t it?” (At the end of the second act he learns that he too, is one of the horcruxes, and must die in order for Voldemort to be destroyed. HE shifts his whole mindset from ‘I have to be the hero”, to “I have to die in order for others to live”. While he doesn’t end up dying, he is willing to make that sacrifice, and therefore becomes a round character. The flat characters include people like Hermione Granger, the Dursleys, and other side characters whose motivations and alliances never change.

Themes:

Some of the basic themes in this book include: “Mortality”, “Love”, and “Good vs. Evil”.

Author:

J.K. Rowling is a world renoune author from Great Britain.

Symbolism:

This book is full of symbols. I think the most obvious ones are the deathly hallows. More specifically: the Elder wand. The elder wand is the most powerful wand in all of the Harry Potter book history. Its wielder has the power to beat everyone they face, if used right. However when you dive in to what the elder wand might actually stand for, it gets far more interesting. In the deathly hallows story, we are told that the first brother wanted absolute power. In hearing so, master death gave him the elder wand, so he could defeat all of his opponents. So in conclusion, the elder wand must symbolize power above all other, which in turn might equal death.

Voice:

The point of view used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is first Person. We are told the whole story through Harry Potter’s point of view and we only know and learn as he does. This helps us a lot, because through the story, Harry Potter finds out things that make for great plot twists. We wouldn’t have much of a story if we knew that voldemort had to kill Harry. It only turns interesting when Harry finds out this information as it’s almost too late.

Setting:

The story mainly takes place in scotland at the Hogwarts. It also shifts to the woods as thats where Harry Ron and Hermione are hiding. It takes place in what would have been present day when the book was released. The setting really has little to do with the story, except for at one point or another, almost all of the wizards had passed through Hogwarts.

Conflict:

The center conflicts are mainly man vs man. The good vs the evil takes a dominant role in the story. However, there are some points where Harry will break out into a fight with himself, or with Ron. The fights would be considered man vs self.

Irony:

An example of situational irony in Deathly Hallows is when we find out Snape was a double agent working for Dumbledore the whole time. We get to see, along with Harry after Snape dies, how much he loved Lily Potter, and how much work he did to make sure Dumbledore and Harry were set up for success.

Relevance:

The closest relation from the book to the real world is the theme of Power. We see all the time the mad scramble for Power, money, or a piece of both. This is also evident in the book, where it’s not just the bad guys going after full power and authority, it is some of the good people as well. It seems to be not only a shifting theme throughout the series of books, but it tends to affect the general population as well, as it does when there is a presidency change in the United States.

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