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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 Wide Sargasso Sea
Foreshadowing
Explanation and Analysis—Blindness and Deafness:
In Wide Sargasso Sea, characters invoke deafness and blindness as metaphors for an unwillingness to confront the truth. While these conditions sometimes carry a negative connotation, characters at other times identify them as desirable qualities. In one instance, the motif coincides with dramatic irony and foreshadowing.
Related Themes:
Foreshadowing
Explanation and Analysis—No Use Praying:
In the pages leading up to the mob scene in the first part, Rhys gives the readers several hints that danger is looming. She achieves this foreshadowing through dialogue, interior monologue, and descriptions of the setting.
Related Themes:
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dreams:
Over the course of Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette has three prophetic dreams that foreshadow subsequent events in her life and the story. In addition, the unfamiliar surroundings of Jamaica make the husband repeatedly feel as though he is living in a dream or a nightmare. Rhys also folds England into the dream motif, as Antoinette and Christophine suggest at various points that the faraway land isn't real.
Early in the first part, Antoinette recalls her first prophetic dream, which she had when she was a child.
Unlock with LitCharts A+I dreamed that I was walking in the forest. Not alone. Someone who hated me was with me, out of sight. I could hear heavy footsteps coming closer and though I struggled and screamed I could not move.
Related Themes:
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Dreams:
Over the course of Wide Sargasso Sea, Antoinette has three prophetic dreams that foreshadow subsequent events in her life and the story. In addition, the unfamiliar surroundings of Jamaica make the husband repeatedly feel as though he is living in a dream or a nightmare. Rhys also folds England into the dream motif, as Antoinette and Christophine suggest at various points that the faraway land isn't real.
Early in the first part, Antoinette recalls her first prophetic dream, which she had when she was a child.
Unlock with LitCharts A+I dreamed that I was walking in the forest. Not alone. Someone who hated me was with me, out of sight. I could hear heavy footsteps coming closer and though I struggled and screamed I could not move.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Crowing:
The second part opens just after the newly married couple has arrived in the town of Massacre, in Dominica. The gloomy atmosphere of these early scenes does not bode well for the honeymoon or marriage, and is deepened when the husband hears a rooster crowing. This biblical allusion becomes a motif in the novel, foreshadowing subsequent misery and betrayal.
Related Themes:
