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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Grand Ambitions:
In Chapter 3, the narrator graduates and tells his mother about his plans to be a distinguished Black man who "reflect[s] credit on the race." He comments that he would not come up with a real plan for doing so until years later, both foreshadowing his success as a ragtime musician and satirizing his own position as an "ex-colored man:"
For days I could talk of nothing else with my mother except my ambitions to be a great man, a great colored man, to reflect credit on the race, and gain fame for myself. It was not until years after that I formulated a definite and feasible plan for realizing my dreams.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—City Life:
In Chapter 6, the narrator arrives in New York and uses a simile to foreshadow the dangerous life he will live at the "Club":
Unlock with LitCharts A+My blood ran quicker, and I felt that I was just beginning to live. To some natures this stimulant of life in a great city becomes a thing as binding and necessary as opium is to one addicted to the habit. It becomes their breath of life; they cannot exist outside of it; rather than be deprived of it they are content to suffer hunger, want, pain and misery; they would not exchange even a ragged and wretched condition among the great crowd for any degree of comfort away from it.
Related Themes:
