Hope Leslie Literary Elements

Hope Leslie Literary Elements

Genre

Novel

Setting and Context

Massachusetts during the 17th century

Narrator and Point of View

Third-person and first-person narrators (who author letters) are utilized.

Tone and Mood

Viciousness, vengefulness, terrifying, suspenseful, heart-breaking, romantic

Protagonist and Antagonist

Hope Leslie (protagonist). Sir Philip (antagonist).

Major Conflict

The Native Indians versus the white settlers conflict. Another conflict relates to Hope and Everell’s romance which must rise above social, tribal and religious hindrances.

Climax

Mononotto’s incursion of Bethel and cold-hearted homicide he commits there.

Foreshadowing

Alice foreshadows her demise: “she was fully aware of her approaching death, and died as befits a child of faith, in sweet peace.”

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

Historical allusions such as the Massachusetts bay colony and Pequod War. The name “Bethel," the mention of martyrdom, and the invocation of God are overt Biblical allusions.

Imagery

Human sacrifices depict the ferociousness of the Native Indian tribes.

Paradox

The intersection between Christianity and slavery is paradoxical: “ She is the daughter of one of the chiefs, and when this wolfish tribe were killed, or dislodged from their dens, she, her brother, and their mother, were brought with a few other captives to Boston…Some by a Christian use of money, were redeemed, and others, I blush to say it, for it is god’s gift that every man should enjoy good of his own labour,' were sent into slavery in the West Indies." The captured Native Indians are enslaved by the whites, who are preachers of Christianity. Christians deem the Native Indians to be lesser humans.

Parallelism

William Fletcher employs parallelism when declaring his resolution: “I shall not again see my Alice…I have not the courage to meet her smiles; I have not strength to endure her tears.”

Metonymy and Synecdoche

‘The sovereign’ denotes the monarch. ‘sub rosa’ denotes secretly.

Personification

Liberty is personified by being described as “Daughter of disloyalty and mother of all misrule-who, from the hour that she tempted our parents to forfeit paradise, hath ever worked mischief to our race.”

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