Foreshadowing is usually used at the beginning of a story and helps readers build up expectations about forthcoming outcomes, writes Roopa Banerjee

Foreshadowing is a literary device used by writers to convey a hint of what is to come later in a narrative. It is usually used at the beginning of a story, and arouses reader expectations about forthcoming outcomes.

Foreshadowing is done in several ways — through dialogues of characters or plot settings. Sometimes, the chapter title gives indication and intimation of what’s to follow. If done rightly, foreshadowing can add drama to a story and considerably increase readers’ expectation and enhance the reading experience.

But foreshadowing can be mistaken for other literary devices such as red herring and Chekhov’s gun. A red herring is a hint that is devised to confuse the audience while foreshadowing is a true hint of what is to come in the future.
Likewise, Chekhov’s Gun refers to an unspoken agreement that a writer won’t make “false promises” to a reader by introducing elements that are unexplained. And if she does draw readers attention to something, she will eventually reveal why it’s worth noticing. On the other hand foreshadowing is about insinuations that aren’t false promises. The opposite of foreshadowing is side shadowing, the practice of including scenes with no relevance to the plot.
Writers often use motifs and symbols to create foreshadowing. Dialogues such as “I have a strong feeling this will lead to no good”, is usually a forecast of something ominous. Symbols such as blood and weapons forecast dreadful happenings. Storm clouds, broken mirrors, and settings of graveyards are some other examples of foreshadowing.
Book titles are popularly used for foreshadowing. Two excellent examples: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie and As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Also in Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare uses foreshadowing when Romeo says “Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.” Juliet also has a vision of Romeo: “As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.” This intense foreshadowing of the lovers’ deaths emphasises that they are confined by their destinies.

In Macbeth too Shakespeare uses this device skilfully. For example, when the witches first meet Macbeth, they hint that he will be king someday, but they don’t indicate that he will achieve his ambition by murdering Duncan.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm also makes heavy use of foreshadowing. Each chapter foretells an event that is to happen in the next. For example, Napoleon’s decision to execute other animals is foreshadowed in Chapter 1, when Old Major says: “You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year.”

Likewise in Great Expectations, Charles Dickens uses descriptions of the weather to forecast the sad turn Pip’s story will take: “So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck and death.”

The best writers provide hints and warning signs early in their narratives to engage readers. They scatter hints far and wide in a plot, rather than pile them all up in one chapter.

So look out for foreshadowing in the next thriller/crime novel you read. Catch the hint before the ending takes you unawares!

Exercise
Here are some famous books whose titles are examples of foreshadowing. Name the authors of these literary works.
1. The Fall of the House of Usher
2. Murder on the Orient Express
3. Love in the Time of Cholera
4. The Story of an Hour
5. Roger Malvin’s Burial

Answers:
1. Edgar Allan Poe
2. Agatha Christie
3. Gabriel García Márquez
4. Kate Chopin
5. Nathaniel Hawthorne