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Dramatic Irony
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
Book 1, Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—"King Arthur"?:
If a reader were to open The Once and Future King and not know what it was about, the character of Wart in The Sword and the Stone might be rather confusing. If that reader were to have accidentally skipped the first page in the novel, they would have no idea whatsoever who Wart is or why they should care about this wayward boy from medieval England. Only offhand, on the first page, does White give a quick sense of who Wart is: "The Wart was called the Wart because it more or less rhymed with Art, which was short for his real name." This is the only indication whatsoever, in the early part of the novel, that Wart is King Arthur. Without it, the reader might think this is just a random boy.
So it is quite jarring when, in Chapter 14, seemingly out of nowhere, White foreshadows with unbothered certainty who the Wart will grow up to be:
In other parts of Gramarye, of course, there did exist wicked and despotic masters––feudal gangsters whom it was to be King Arthur's destiny to chasten––but the evil was in the bad people who abused it, not in the feudal system.
Related Themes:
