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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
Prologue
Explanation and Analysis—The Chorus's Opening :
In the Prologue to the play, just before Act 1, the Chorus foreshadows Romeo and Juliet's eventual deaths, and describes an ironic end to the plot to come:
Two households, both alike in dignity
(In fair Verona, where we lay our scene),
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
Related Themes:
Act 1, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Romeo's Moment of Doubt:
In Act 1, Scene 4, Romeo has misgivings about attending the Capulets' ball and ends up foreshadowing his own "untimely death":
Unlock with LitCharts A+I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Love Like Lightning:
In Act 2, Scene 2, Juliet uses both simile and metaphor to characterize her fledgling relationship with Romeo—a characterization that actually functions as an instance of foreshadowing, given the play's tragic conclusion:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I have no joy of this contract tonight.
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say “It lightens.”
Sweet, good night.
This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,
May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 4
Explanation and Analysis—Mercutio's Joke:
Mercutio often jibes Romeo for his obsession with Rosaline, as in this moment from Act 2, Scene 4, which simultaneously functions as dramatic irony and foreshadowing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Alas, poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye, run through the ear with a love-song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s butt shaft.
Related Themes:
Act 2, Scene 6
Explanation and Analysis—Friar Laurence's Warning:
In Act 2, Scene 6, as Friar Laurence prepares to marry Romeo and Juliet, he unknowingly foreshadows their future deaths and uses oxymorons to characterize their passion for each other:
Unlock with LitCharts A+These violent delights have violent ends.
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 2
Explanation and Analysis—Juliet and the Night:
In Act 3, Scene 2, Juliet invokes the night, which she is looking forward to as the time when she can consummate her marriage to Romeo. This soliloquy serves as another instance of foreshadowing, while also personifying the night as a "sober-suited matron all in black":
Unlock with LitCharts A+Come, civil night,
Thou sober-suited matron all in black,
And learn me how to lose a winning match
Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods.
Hood my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks,
With thy black mantle till strange love grow bold,
Think true love acted simple modesty.
Related Themes:
Act 3, Scene 5
Explanation and Analysis—Juliet's Vision:
In Act 3, Scene 5, Juliet sees Romeo for the last time before his exile to Mantua. As he leaves her house, she has a vision of him dead in a tomb, unwittingly foreshadowing the closing scene of the play:
Unlock with LitCharts A+O God, I have an ill-divining soul!
Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,
As one dead in the bottom of a tomb.
Either my eyesight fails or thou lookest pale.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Juliet's Plea :
In Act 3, Scene 5, Juliet entreats her mother to release her from her arranged marriage with Paris, inadvertently foreshadowing her own death:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Delay this marriage for a month, a week,
Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed
In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
Related Themes:
Act 5, Scene 1
Explanation and Analysis—Romeo's Dreams:
In Act 5, Scene 1, Romeo, who is now in exile in Mantua, awakes from a dream in which a tragic event—his own death—is miraculously resolved. This foreshadows the circumstances surrounding his eventual death in real life:
Unlock with LitCharts A+If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.
My bosom’s lord sits lightly in his throne,
And all this day an unaccustomed spirit
Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
I dreamt my lady came and found me dead
(Strange dream that gives a dead man leave to think!)
And breathed such life with kisses in my lips
That I revived and was an emperor.
Ah me, how sweet is love itself possessed
When but love’s shadows are so rich in joy!
Related Themes:
