page_title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
section_title: Christian allegories
hierarchical_section_title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows / Major themes / Christian allegories
caption_attribution_description: Emblem 21
context_page_description: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a fantasy novel written by British author J. K. Rowling and the seventh and final novel of the Harry Potter series. It was released on 21 July 2007 in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the United States by Scholastic, and in Canada by Raincoast Books. The novel chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the final confrontation between the wizards Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.
  Deathly Hallows shattered sales records upon release, surpassing marks set by previous titles of the Harry Potter series. It holds the Guinness World Record for most novels sold within 24 hours of release, with 8.3 million sold in the US and 2.65 million in the UK. Generally well received by critics, the book won the 2008 Colorado Blue Spruce Book Award, and the American Library Association named it the "Best Book for Young Adults". A film adaptation of the novel was released in two parts: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 in November 2010 and Part 2 in July 2011.
context_section_description: The Harry Potter series has been criticised for supposedly supporting witchcraft and the occult. Before publication of Deathly Hallows, Rowling refused to speak out about her religion, stating, "If I talk too freely, every reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books". However, many have commented on Christian allegories that appear in Deathly Hallows. For example, Harry dies and then comes back to life to save mankind, like Christ. The location where this occurs is King's Cross. Harry also urges Voldemort to show remorse, to restore his shattered soul. Rowling also stated that "my belief and my struggling with religious belief ... I think is quite apparent in this book", which is shown as Harry struggles with his faith in Dumbledore.
  Deathly Hallows begins with a pair of epigraphs, one by Quaker leader William Penn and one from Aeschylus' The Libation Bearers. Of this, Rowling said "I really enjoyed choosing those two quotations because one is pagan, of course, and one is from a Christian tradition. I'd known it was going to be those two passages since Chamber was published. I always knew [that] if I could use them at the beginning of book seven then I'd cued up the ending perfectly. If they were relevant, then I went where I needed to go. They just say it all to me, they really do".
  When Harry visits his parents' grave, the biblical reference "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26) is inscribed on the grave. The Dumbledores' family tomb also holds a biblical quote: "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", which is from Matthew 6:21. Rowling states, "They're very British books, so on a very practical note Harry was going to find biblical quotations on tombstones ... [but] I think those two particular quotations he finds on the tombstones at Godric's Hollow, they sum up – they almost epitomise the whole series".
  Harry Potter pundit John Granger additionally noted that one of the reasons the Harry Potter books were so popular is their use of literary alchemy (similar to Romeo and Juliet, C. S. Lewis's Perelandra and Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities) and vision symbolism. In this model, authors weave allegorical tales along the alchemical magnum opus. Since the medieval period, alchemical allegory has mirrored the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. While the entire series utilises symbols common in alchemy, the Deathly Hallows completes this cycle, tying themes of death, rebirth, and the Resurrection Stone to the principal motif of alchemical allegory, and topics presented in the first book of the series.
caption: The Philosopher's Stone as pictured in Michael Maier's 1617 alchemical work Atalanta Fugiens, similar to the presentation of the Deathly Hallows and Resurrection Stone.
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