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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
Part 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Christminster:
The university town of Christminster is a "golden city" to Jude Fawley in Hardy's novel, often described using the visual imagery of jewels and precious metals. The first time that Jude searches for it from a distance in Part 1, Chapter 3, he sees that:
Some way within the limits of the stretch of landscape, points of light like the topaz gleamed. The air increased in transparency with the lapse of minutes, till the topaz points showed themselves to be the vanes, windows, wet roof slates, and other shining spots upon the spires, domes, freestone-work, and varied outlines that were faintly revealed. It was Christminster, unquestionably; either directly seen, or miraged in the peculiar atmosphere
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Obscurity :
In Jude the Obscure Hardy foreshadows his characters' hopeless prospects through the visual imagery of darkness "obscuring" the world. For example, in Part 4, Chapter 3, Mr. Phillotson returns from teaching to his cold home with Sue. He gazes blankly out of the window at the Vale of Blackmoor, a wide and spacious valley:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] pressing his face against the pane, gazed with hard-breathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which now covered the far-reaching scene.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Samson and Delilah:
Hardy foreshadows Jude's marital misery in a scene from Part 1, Chapter 7, in which Jude and Arabella eat at an inn. He does so by alluding to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, making this allusion in relation to a painting of Samson and Delilah hanging above the table at the inn:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The maid-servant recognized Jude, and whispered her surprise to her mistress in the background, that he, the student, ‘who kept hisself up so particular, ’ should have suddenly descended so low as to keep company with Arabella. The latter guessed what was being said, and laughed as she met the serious and tender gaze of her lover – the low and triumphant laugh of a careless woman who sees she is winning her game.
They sat and looked round the room, and at the picture of Samson and Delilah which hung on the wall.
Related Themes:
Part 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Samson and Delilah:
Hardy foreshadows Jude's marital misery in a scene from Part 1, Chapter 7, in which Jude and Arabella eat at an inn. He does so by alluding to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah, making this allusion in relation to a painting of Samson and Delilah hanging above the table at the inn:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The maid-servant recognized Jude, and whispered her surprise to her mistress in the background, that he, the student, ‘who kept hisself up so particular, ’ should have suddenly descended so low as to keep company with Arabella. The latter guessed what was being said, and laughed as she met the serious and tender gaze of her lover – the low and triumphant laugh of a careless woman who sees she is winning her game.
They sat and looked round the room, and at the picture of Samson and Delilah which hung on the wall.
Related Themes:
Part 2, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Hymn to Proserpine:
In the third chapter of Part 2, Hardy alludes to a poem by a Victorian contemporary of his, foreshadowing Sue Bridehead’s later encounters with death and the extreme highs and lows of her life. When Sue can't sleep after an awkward interaction with Jude, she turns to a book of poetry by the Victorian writer Algernon Swinburne. It falls open to these lines from "The Hymn to Proserpine":
Unlock with LitCharts A+– ‘Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean
The world has grown grey from thy breath!’
Related Themes:
Part 2, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Crushed Gods:
Hardy foreshadows Sue's pivot to conservative values when her landlady smashes her statues of Roman gods. In Part 2, Chapter 4, Sue describes this unpleasant interaction to Jude:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘Well – I must go, ’ she continued. ‘Miss Fontover, one of the partners whom I serve, is offended with me, and I with her; and it is best to go.’
‘How did that happen?’
‘She broke some statuary of mine.’
‘Oh? Wilfully?’
‘Yes. She found it in my room, and though it was my property she threw it on the floor and stamped on it, because it was not according to her taste, and ground the arms and the head of one of the figures all to bits with her heel – a horrid thing!’
Related Themes:
Part 4, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Obscurity :
In Jude the Obscure Hardy foreshadows his characters' hopeless prospects through the visual imagery of darkness "obscuring" the world. For example, in Part 4, Chapter 3, Mr. Phillotson returns from teaching to his cold home with Sue. He gazes blankly out of the window at the Vale of Blackmoor, a wide and spacious valley:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] pressing his face against the pane, gazed with hard-breathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which now covered the far-reaching scene.
Related Themes:
Part 6, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Obscurity :
In Jude the Obscure Hardy foreshadows his characters' hopeless prospects through the visual imagery of darkness "obscuring" the world. For example, in Part 4, Chapter 3, Mr. Phillotson returns from teaching to his cold home with Sue. He gazes blankly out of the window at the Vale of Blackmoor, a wide and spacious valley:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] pressing his face against the pane, gazed with hard-breathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which now covered the far-reaching scene.
Related Themes:
