Portraying the Protagonists: A Study of the Use of Adjectives in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Abstract

The protagonists play important roles in any novel.  In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels, they were presented in the most vivid of ways so as to make the characters alive and memorable. One of the strategies used by the author to make the protagonists so lively is through the use of adjectives. This study was conducted to find out the frequency of adjective that was used to describe three protagonists in the novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  These adjectives are then divided into two categories for easier scrutiny which are features and traits. A further analysis was done to see whether the usage of these frequently recurring adjective could contribute to the depiction of heroic characters. The analysis was done by using concordancer tools called AntConc 3.2.4 and CLAWS. The result of this study shows a very distinctive recurring adjective for each characters which suggest that each one of them are a different unique entity. However, further examination suggest that by looking at the character’s adjectives alone would not be intuitive in finding the deeper characterization of these individuals. More parts of speech must be considered, such as verbs and adverbs, for future analysis so as to get a deeper understanding of these characters.