Is Foreshadowing A Rhetorical Device

Definition of Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is a literary device that writers employ as a means to betoken or hint to readers something that is to follow or appear after in a story. Foreshadowing, when done properly, is an first-class device in terms of creating suspense and dramatic tension for readers. It tin can prepare up emotional expectations of character behaviors and/or plot outcomes. This tin raise a reader'south enjoyment of a literary work, enhance the piece of work's meaning, and assist the reader make connections with other literature and literary themes.

nathaniel hawthorne utilizes foreshadowing effectively in his short story "Young Goodman Brown." The title character'southward rendezvous with the devil is foreshadowed by many plot elements, including the example that his nighttime companion carries a kleptomaniacal staff that resembles a "keen blackness serpent." This foreshadowing indicates for the reader not only that the devil is Goodman Brown's companion, but a sense of the impending temptation and exam of faith to follow in the story. The serpent-like staff used by the devil in the story allows the reader to connect Hawthorne's tale and themes with those of the book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden.

Common Examples of Foreshadowing

Writers and storytellers utilize recurring symbols, motifs, and other elements as foreshadowing. Readers and audiences frequently recognize these elements as hints of what might be to come in a story. Here are some common examples of elements used as foreshadowing:

Dialogue, such as "I have a bad feeling virtually this"
Symbols, such as blood, sure colors, types of birds, weapons
Atmospheric condition motifs, such as storm clouds, wind, rain, immigration skies
Omens, such as prophecies or broken mirror
Character reactions, such as apprehension, marvel, secrecy
Time and/or flavour, such as midnight, dawn, spring, winter
Settings, such every bit graveyard, battlefield, isolated path, river

Examples of Titles with Foreshadowing

The title of a literary piece of work can be used to foreshadow its plot events. Here are some examples of titles that comprise foreshadowing:

The Fall of the House of Usher
Murder on the Orient Express
Love in the Time of Cholera
The Story of an Hr
Roger Malvin's Burial
The Crying of Lot 49
A Telephone Call
Equally I Lay Dying
A Romantic Weekend
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Rex

Famous Examples of Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is an constructive device for nearly whatever type of literary work and well-nigh forms of storytelling media. This includes poetry, short fiction, drama, novels, television, and movies. Here are some famous examples of foreshadowing from these forms of narrative:

Poetry

The killing of the albatross in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
The nighttime, dour, midnight setting in "The Raven"

Short Fiction

Apprehension felt by the townspeople in "The Lottery"
Buy of arsenic past Emily Grierson in "A Rose for Emily"

Drama

Romeo'due south statement "My life were better concluded by their detest, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love" inRomeo and Juliet
The hint of expectation in the title of Waiting for Godot

Novels

"the leaves fell early that twelvemonth" (foreshadowing death) in A Bye to Arms
The symbolic pain of Harry's scar in theHarry Potter series

Television

Firm of Stark words "Winter Is Coming" inGame of Thrones
The advent of Kenny'south character inSouth Park

Movies

Dorothy singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" inThe Magician of Oz
The just person who replies to the therapist is the male child who "sees" dead people inThe Sixth Sense

Difference Between Foreshadowing, Flashback, and Flashforward

Foreshadow indicates the future through a seamless narrative happening. A flashback is a retention remember device that occasionally brings some happenings into the narrative having no chronological social club or sequence. Foreshadowing just describes what is going to happen in the story, while flashback presents what has happened in the story and has just come up into the mind of the narrator.

Some readers may confuse foreshadowing and flashbacks every bit literary devices. Both techniques are designed to enhance the narrative of a literary work. However, foreshadowing is intended to provide readers with just a hint or sense of what is to come in a story. Flashback is intended to direct provide readers with exposition, or background information in terms of plot and/or grapheme evolution.

Flashback interrupts a narrative plotline to present an earlier scene or episode in order to provide clarification or information for the reader. This works equally a means of promoting and enhancing reader understanding of a literary work by setting forth context and exposition cues. Foreshadowing besides enhances the reader's agreement of a literary work. Foreshadowing is generally more than subtle than flashback and is not intended for expository or clarification purposes. Rather than interrupting the narrative, proper foreshadowing is artfully woven into the story when done properly.

Flashforward, otherwise known equally prolepsis, is mostly used to narrate possible events or a storyline that is expected or imagined to happen in the almost or distant future. Different flashbacks, they reveal significant parts of the story that did not happen yet. Flashforwards are written in greater particular. While information technology is similar to foreshadowing, in which future events are not shown but somewhat hinted and readers are left to understand it.

Writing Foreshadowing

Overall, as a literary device, foreshadowing functions equally a means of focusing a reader's attention and/or setting upwardly anticipation of a narrative revelation or plot twist. This is effective for readers in that foreshadowing primes their emotions and expectations for something to be revealed. This can heighten the enjoyment, meaning, and understanding of a literary work when foreshadowing is properly used.

Writers tend to employ i of two forms of foreshadowing in their work:

Direct foreshadowing: This form of literary device is used by writers who wish to direct and pointedly hint at or indicate a particular consequence for readers. At times, it benefits writers to explicitly reveal what happens in a story through directly foreshadowing. This allows the reader to focus on other aspects of the narrative besides plot outcomes.
Indirect foreshadowing: This course of literary device is used by writers who wish to indirectly and subtly hint at or bespeak a detail event for readers. When it comes to indirect foreshadowing, it is often so effective that it may non exist credible to readers until after the issue has taken place. In addition, readers may not realize the significance or meaning of indirect foreshadowing until the outcome reveals it.

Unfortunately, when foreshadowing is used poorly, inadequately, or improperly, information technology can go out readers feeling disappointed and/or confused. This tin undermine the effectiveness of a story's plot, character evolution, theme, and artistic quality. Therefore, writers must consider the use of foreshadowing carefully and artfully, so that it is not misconstrued, too overt, or too subtle to be recognized.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Literature

Foreshadowing is an effective literary device in terms of preparing readers for events to come or narrative reveals. This device is valuable, as it allows readers to make connections between themes, characters, symbols, and more–both within a literary work and between works of literature. Here are some examples of foreshadowing and how information technology adds to the significance of well-known literary works:

Example one:Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

You seen what they washed to my dog this night? They says he wasn't no good to himself nor nobody else. When they can me hither I wisht somebody'd shoot me. But they won't do cipher like that. I won't have no place to go, an' I go no more jobs."

Steinbeck utilizes foreshadowing inOf Mice and Men is very subtle. Most readers are shocked past the catastrophe of the novel. However, Steinbeck incorporates an earlier scene in the story that mirrors and hints at the concluding outcome. This foreshadowing takes identify when the grapheme Candy's dog is shot as a "mercy killing." Like Candy himself, his dog is growing old and has outlived his usefulness in the eyes of the ranch hands. Candy confesses to George the agony of his decision to let Carlson impale his canis familiaris, the regret of non having done so himself, and his fearfulness that he will have nobody to put him out of his ain misery when the time comes. This scene foreshadows the decision George must brand regarding Lennie at the end of the novel.

Example 2:Macbeth(William Shakespeare)

By the pricking of my thumb,
Something wicked this mode comes.

In Shakespeare's play, the 2nd witch makes this pronouncement at Macbeth's approach. Her statement indicates an intuitive sense of foreboding, symbolized by the witch's physical awareness in her pollex. This is foreshadowing for the reader of the events to come in the story and Macbeth'due south true nature as someone who is capable of betrayal and murder as a means of keeping his ability equally king.

Shakespeare'southward utilize of straight foreshadowing in this scene confirms for the reader Macbeth's guilt and corruption. Throughout the play, the witches speak "indirectly" through their prophecies and veiled predictions, all of which are subtle examples of foreshadowing that must be deciphered and interpreted by the reader. However, with this pointed and directly argument of foreshadowing, there is no uncertainty for Shakespeare's audience that Macbeth deserves his outcome in the play.

Case 3:A Good Man Is Difficult to Find (Flannery O'Connor)

'[I]t would have been better for all of y'all, lady, if you hadn't of reckernized me.' Bailey turned his head sharply and said something to his female parent that shocked even the children. The old lady began to weep and The Misfit reddened.

In O'Connor's short story, the news of a recently escaped murderer called "The Misfit" is mentioned many times by several characters, before and during the family's holiday journeying. In fact, the grandmother's graphic symbol seems preoccupied with The Misfit's story, which calls the reader'due south attending to it as well. This is a clever use of foreshadowing on the part of O'Connor in the sense that information technology appears to be about too direct of a hint for the reader that the family will see this criminal.

As a result, the reader is simultaneously prepared for yet surprised by the plot reveal that the family does meet The Misfit and that he is recognized and acknowledged by the grandmother. The resulting violence in the story, still, remains a daze despite the fact that the grandmother and her entire family, likewise as O'Connor'due south readers, are familiar with The Misfit'due south background and his crimes. O'Connor's foreshadowing of The Misfit equally a murderer has an near opposite event on the reader's expectations for the upshot of the story.

Synonyms of Foreshadowing

Foreshadow, similar to many literary devices, does non take directly meaning. The closest synonyms include augur, presage, portend, prognosticate, foreshow, foretell, indicate, propose, herald, signal, forewarn, forebode, anticipate, warn of, and harbinger.

Ezoic