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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
Foreshadowing
Explanation and Analysis—Priestly Celibacy:
In Chapter 9, the narrator comments that the townspeople are relieved when Chillingworth moves in with Dimmesdale because the pastor refuses to marry anyone who could help take care of him. This refusal foreshadows the fact that Dimmesdale is fated to end up with Hester in the end.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—He Will Be Known!:
In Chapter 3, a "stranger" in the crowd (really this is Chillingworth, Hester's estranged husband) remarks that he approves of Hester's punishment. He says that he believes Pearl's father should be standing beside Hester, and his remarks foreshadow his obsession with torturing and exposing Dimmesdale:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“A wise sentence!” remarked the stranger, gravely bowing his head. “Thus she will be a living sermon against sin, until the ignominious letter be engraved upon her tombstone. It irks me, nevertheless, that the partner of her iniquity should not, at least, stand on the scaffold by her side. But he will be known!—he will be known!—he will be known!”
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Pearl's Recognition:
Pearl's eerie recognition of her parents and their adultery is a motif in the novel, even when Pearl is an infant. In Chapter 3, when Hester first stands with Pearl on the scaffold, Pearl is strangely responsive to Dimmesdale's sermon:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Pearl's Recognition:
Pearl's eerie recognition of her parents and their adultery is a motif in the novel, even when Pearl is an infant. In Chapter 3, when Hester first stands with Pearl on the scaffold, Pearl is strangely responsive to Dimmesdale's sermon:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur.
Related Themes:
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Dimmesdale's Health:
Dimmesdale's declining health foreshadows his eventual death from a guilty conscience. One example of this foreshadowing occurs in a moment of dramatic irony in Chapter 8, when the narrator describes the townspeople's reaction to Chillingworth's interest in Dimmesdale:
Unlock with LitCharts A+It was understood that this learned man was the physician as well as friend of the young minister, whose health had severely suffered, of late, by his too unreserved self-sacrifice to the labors and duties of the pastoral relation.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Pearl's Recognition:
Pearl's eerie recognition of her parents and their adultery is a motif in the novel, even when Pearl is an infant. In Chapter 3, when Hester first stands with Pearl on the scaffold, Pearl is strangely responsive to Dimmesdale's sermon:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Even the poor baby, at Hester's bosom, was affected by the same influence; for it directed its hitherto vacant gaze towards Mr. Dimmesdale, and held up its little arms, with a half-pleased, half-plaintive murmur.
Related Themes:
Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Inconsolable Brook:
Hester and Pearl go into the forest in Chapter 16, and Pearl is disturbed by the fact that the brook seems to be crying rather than laughing. The brook's personification as an inconsolable being foreshadows the difficult meeting Hester is about to have with Dimmesdale:
Unlock with LitCharts A+But the little stream would not be comforted, and still kept telling its unintelligible secret of some very mournful mystery that had happened—or making a prophetic lamentation about something that was yet to happen—within the verge of the dismal forest.
Related Themes:
