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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 26: Death
Explanation and Analysis—Eva's Death:
In the beginning of Chapter 26, Eva foreshadows her death:
"Uncle Tom,” said Eva, “I’m going there." “Where, Miss Eva?” The child rose, and pointed her little hand to the sky; the glow of evening lit her golden hair and flushed cheek with a kind of unearthly radiance, and her eyes were bent earnestly on the skies. “I’m going there,” she said, “to the spirits bright, Tom; I’m going, before long.” The faithful old heart felt a sudden thrust; and Tom thought how often he had noticed, within six months, that Eva’s little hands had grown thinner, and her skin more transparent, and her breath shorter; and how, when she ran or played in the garden as she once could for hours, she became soon so tired and languid.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Eva's Locks:
In Chapter 26, Eva uses a metaphor when she jokes with Miss Ophelia and likens her hair to a sheep’s fleece:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Come, aunty, shear the sheep!
Related Themes:
Chapter 32: Dark Places
Explanation and Analysis—Legree Plantation:
In Chapter 32, the narrator uses imagery to describe the Legree plantation:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The house had been large and handsome. It was built in a manner common at the South; a wide verandah of two stories running round every part of the house, into which every outer door opened, the lower tier being supported by brick pillars. But the place looked desolate and uncomfortable; some windows stopped up with boards, some with shattered panes, and shutters hanging by a single hinge,—all telling of coarse neglect and discomfort. Bits of board, straw, old decayed barrels and boxes, garnished the ground in all directions; [...].
Related Themes:
Chapter 40: The Martyr
Explanation and Analysis—Tom's Death:
Beecher Stowe uses vivid imagery and figurative language to emphasize and foreshadow Tom's death throughout Chapter 40, which is fittingly titled "The Martyr." In the passage below, note how Beecher Stowe uses simile to underscore Uncle Tom’s intense emotions once he hears he is to be murdered:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The savage words none of them reached that ear!—a higher voice there was saying, “Fear not them that kill the body, and, after that, have no more that they can do.” Nerve and bone of that poor man’s body vibrated to those words, as if touched by the finger of God; and he felt the strength of a thousand souls in one. As he passed along, the trees and bushes, the huts of his servitude, the whole scene of his degradation, seemed to whirl by him as the landscape by the rushing car.
