Foreshadowing | Meaning, Definition & Examples

Foreshadowing is a literary device that is found in novels, plays, films, television shows, and even narrative poems. Foreshadowing is when the author includes a hint (sometimes very vague or disguised) about what will happen later in the work. Very often, the audience will not realize that there was foreshadowing until the event hinted at has taken place.

What is foreshadowing?

In the same way as your shadow precedes you if you are walking with the sun behind you, foreshadowing gives a hint, an outline, of what is to follow. Sometimes, foreshadowing is subtle and will not be realized by the audience until later.

In John LeCarré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Jim Prideaux’s military and espionage history is hinted at when the narrator writes, “Roach decided later that (Jim) must have made a reconnaissance or studied maps.” It is not until later we find out the extent of Prideaux’s accomplishments.

At other times, the foreshadowing is not in the least bit subtle. Gabriel García Márquez’s novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold opens with the striking line, “On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on.”

Very often, the foreshadowing will fall between those two extremes, as with the opening of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes: “My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.” It tells the reader enough to know that what will follow will be bad, without giving away the depth or extent of the misery about to unfold.

How does foreshadowing work?

There are several ways that an author can use foreshadowing in their work, including:

• Title: The title of a work can sometimes foreshadow what will happen in the course of the action. Whether it is Frederic Henry’s desertion in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Yossarian’s entanglement in the awful brilliance of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, or the terrible exploration of the human soul in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness—in each case the reader is gradually led to the revelation of the title’s significance.
• Dialogue: Sometimes a remark by one character to another can be used for foreshadowing. This can be of minor importance—the cab driver’s warning to Paul Pennyfeather in Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall “Gardez bien votre chapeau,” foreshadows the imminent theft of that item by a prostitute seeking to entice Pennyfeather into her accommodation—or it can be more serious, as moments before his arrest and downfall, Pennyfeather toasts his best man. “To Fortune, a much-maligned lady.”
• Symbolism: Symbolism can be a very effective way of foreshadowing events. In Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, rain can be seen as symbolizing death. In the opening chapter, as the fighting starts: “There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain.” At this point it is unlikely that the reader realizes the close connection between rain and death, but by the end of the book, when Catherine and the baby die, Henry’s account closes with this: “But after I had got them out and shut the door and turned off the light it wasn’t any good. It was like saying good-bye to a statue. After a while I went out and left the hospital and walked back to the hotel in the rain.” The rain is both a symbol and a pathetic fallacy.
• Prophecies: Perhaps a less subtle way of foreshadowing is through the use of prophecies. In Act I Scene iii of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the single line prophecy from one of the weird sisters, “All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!” is arguably the most important 11 syllables in the whole play, catalyzing the action from thereon. This is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Dreams: Partly because they are so mysterious and perplexing in real life, dreams make an ideal vehicle for foreshadowing in writing. Unlike real dreams, we can be certain that the details are important and have been deliberately selected by the author. In Part One, Chapter Four of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Alex dreams he is being assaulted by Dim and Georgie, which foreshadows his droogs turning against him at the end of Part One.
• Setting: Authors can use the setting of their work to create foreshadowing. The bleakness of the set in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, for example, prepares us for the bleak despair of the play.
• Pathetic fallacy: This is where the weather or landscape reflects (or in the case of foreshadowing, predicts) the tone of the action. The text of Macbeth suggests that the weather reflects the highs and lows of the strife-torn kingdom when Macbeth himself declares, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen,” shortly before meeting the weird sisters.

Foreshadowing examples

In Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, even a simple description can offer foreshadowing: 

As well as the title of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the opening description foreshadows the gloom of the novella:

Other literary devices

There are some other, related literary devices that involve suggesting something to the audience, but that are not quite the same as foreshadowing:

• Dramatic irony: When the audience knows something that a character doesn’t yet know, this is dramatic irony. This can be at the same time as foreshadowing (as in the example from Macbeth, where the audience knows that Macbeth is considering murdering the king, while Duncan himself foreshadows that he is about to make the same mistake of trusting a traitor once again).
• Red herring: A red herring takes advantage of the fact that an audience might be looking for clues about what will happen in the plot, but, instead of doing so, the author suggests things that aren’t actually going to happen. Murder mysteries and whodunnits are often awash with red herrings, that try to lead the audience down any number of incorrect paths.

Frequently asked questions about foreshadowing

How do you use foreshadowing in a sentence?

An example of how to use foreshadowing in a sentence is:

“In Frank McCourt’s memoir, ‘Angela’s Ashes,’ he uses foreshadowing to hint at the hardships of his childhood in the very first sentence: ‘My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.’”

Other sentences that use foreshadowing include:

“Authors use foreshadowing to give subtle clues about what will happen later in the work.”

“Sometimes foreshadowing is actually quite explicit, as with the opening lines of ‘Chronicle of a Death Foretold’ by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: ‘On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning …’”

What is an example of foreshadowing?

There are many examples of foreshadowing in literature, such as this prophecy given to Macbeth by one of the weird sisters:

“All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!”—Macbeth by William Shakespeare.

Sometimes a work’s title can be an example of foreshadowing, for example Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, or Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms.

The opening of Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes includes this example of foreshadowing that hints at the terrible circumstances about to be retold: “My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born.”

What are some foreshadowing examples in movies?

One powerful example of foreshadowing in the opening sequence of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now! 

We see a montage of a napalm attack on the treeline, with Captain Willard’s face or the ceiling fan superimposed. All of this is backed by stylized helicopter sounds and “The End” by The Doors.

These images and sounds foreshadow one of the major scenes, as well as creating an appropriately apocalyptic vision that represents Coppola’s view of the US involvement in Vietnam.

Christopher Nolan’s Memento, with its plot-in-reverse structure, provides constant foreshadowing as the details of the action are revealed in reverse order.

In Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, Chief Brody trips on a pressurized air tank early in the film. Later, that same tank becomes instrumental in his battle for survival.

Foreshadowing is a powerful tool for movie-makers, engaging the audience and keeping their attention.