What Does the Literary Device Foreshadowing Mean?

Foreshadowing is one of many literary devices used by authors, television writers, and filmmakers to enhance the storyline and to create more suspense. There are several different ways to provide a foreshadowing, each providing a different way to direct the reader's attention.

Foreshadowing occurs when a writer gives the reader a hint, or shadow, of what will happen later in the story. It can make the story more real and create more suspense. Mystery writers use foreshadowing a lot to give the reader clues as to the identity of the murderer.  

The part of the story that the foreshadowing is referring to may come soon after the foreshadowing or much later. Occasionally an author will foreshadow with a false clue or hint which is called a red herring. It is a deliberate attempt to mislead the reader, and is widely used by mystery writers.  

Ways to Implement Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing can be accomplished in a variety of ways:

• It can be seen through a prediction by a character
• It can come up in the dialogue between characters
• It can be an object, like a loaded gun, that will lead to the killer’s identity.

Foreshadowing can also be very subtle or symbolic of future events, like a neighbor, a disagreement, or an event that seems inconsequential at the time. An example would be a character that complains of a headache and turns out later to have a brain tumor. However, the author may not want the audience to guess the outcome, so he would have to be careful and not make the foreshadowing too obvious.

Elements of a Plot

To understand the foreshadowing literary device we need to examine elements of the plot of a story. The five basic sections of a plot are:

• Exposition - The beginning of the story. This section gives information about the setting and characters, sets the mood of the tale, and basically introduces the story. It gives the reader any background facts which are necessary. There is at least one event during the exposition that causes the story to develop and puts events in motion.
• Rising action - Things that happen before the climax of the story. The bulk of the story happens as rising action.
• Climax - The high point of the story. The most exciting part of the story. The conflicts and crises lead up to this point. Many times, it is a very dangerous part of the story. In a mystery, it is when the murderer is identified.  
• Falling action - The after-effects of the climax. This section is cathartic, meaning the audience will feel a release after the drama of the climax.
• Resolution - The things that come after the resolution, or denouement. The tale has reached its conclusion, and the answer to the mystery is revealed.

Examples of Foreshadowing

Shakespeare was a master at foreshadowing. One example comes from his play Romeo and Juliet where the main characters have a dialogue about dying. In Macbeth, the witches predict that bad things will happen.

In the movie, The Wizard of Oz, Miss Gulch changes into a witch which foreshadows her appearance later on as the witch in Oz.

In M. Night Shyamalan’s movie Signs, there was much foreshadowing, including the water glasses, the child’s asthma, and a character’s ability to be a hard hitter with a bat. These and other aspects of the movie foreshadowed the events that lead to the aliens being defeated.