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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—Tom Playing Dead:
In Chapter 3, several chapters before Tom feigns his death by running away to Jackson’s island (and then returns to the village to witness his own funeral), he fantasizes about how much Aunt Polly would miss him if he died. This is an example of foreshadowing:
Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more!
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—A Death-Watch:
Before Tom leaves for the graveyard with Huck to do a ritual with a dead cat, he hears the sounds of a “death-watch” (a type of beetle), foreshadowing the murder the boys will witness that same evening:
Unlock with LitCharts A+And now the tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the bed’s head made Tom shudder—it meant that somebody’s days were numbered.
Related Themes:
Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Tom Playing Dead:
In Chapter 3, several chapters before Tom feigns his death by running away to Jackson’s island (and then returns to the village to witness his own funeral), he fantasizes about how much Aunt Polly would miss him if he died. This is an example of foreshadowing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more!
Related Themes:
