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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
Key Examples in Snow Falling on Cedars
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dante's Dark Wood:
This quotation appears at the very start of the novel and alludes to the opening lines of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem Inferno, where the poet’s narrator takes a long journey through hell. Through the allusion in this epigraph, Guterson foreshadows the novel’s preoccupations with self-knowledge and with prejudice:
In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost. Ah, how hard a thing it is to tell what a wild, and rough, and stubborn wood this was, which in my thought renews the fear!
Related Themes:
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Safety of the Cedar:
During the years before the war, Ishmael and Hatsue would meet in secret in the cedar tree, where they would try to create a space that protected them from the rest of the world. The scene revolves around flashback and foreshadowing to show Ishmael and Hatsue’s early closeness as teenagers and to establish the cedar tree as a place to retreat from the world:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The inside of the tree felt private. He felt they would never be discovered here. […] The rain afforded an even greater privacy; no one in the world would come this way and find them inside this tree.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Lease-To-Own:
This testimony takes place during Kabuo’s trial, as Etta Heine describes the land deal she and her husband made years before. Guterson uses foreshadowing and allusion in this courtroom scene to outline the original lease agreement between the Miyamotos and Carl Heine and to hint at the legal and racial tensions that later shape Kabuo's trial:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The arrangement, she explained at the behest of Alvin Hooks when the court had been called into session again, included a five-hundred-dollar down payment and an eight-year “lease-to-own” contract. Carl to collect two hundred and fifty dollars every six months, June 30 and December 31, with six and a half percent interest figured annually. Papers to be held by Carl, another set by Zenhichi, a third set for any inspector wanted to see them. The Miyamotos—this was back in ’34, said Etta—couldn’t really own land anyway. They were from Japan, both of them born there, and there was this law on the books prevented them.
Related Themes:
