Definition of Foreshadowing
Klara and the Sun introduces its central anxiety through an early moment of foreshadowing. Resolved to keep herself available for Josie, Klara resists another customer’s advances by refusing to “gaze to her or smile.” The Manager chides her in turn:
Children make promises all the time. They come to the window, they promise all kinds of things. They promise to come back, they ask you not to let anyone else take you away. It happens all the time. But more often than not, the child never comes back. Or worse, the child comes back and ignores the poor AF who’s waited, and instead chooses another. It’s just the way children are.
The novel’s earliest moments of foreshadowing take place immediately outside the store display window. Having assumed that Beggar Man and his dog are dead one afternoon, Klara expresses her surprise when they spring back to life the next day in Part 1:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The next morning the grid went up and it was a most splendid day. The Sun was pouring his nourishment onto the street and into the buildings, and when I looked over to the spot where Beggar Man and the dog had died, I saw they weren’t dead at all—that a special kind of nourishment from the Sun had saved them. Beggar Man wasn’t yet on his feet, but he was smiling and sitting up, his back against the blank doorway, one leg stretched out, the other bent so he could rest his arm on his knee.