Literature Focus: Foreshadowing

Literature Focus: Foreshadowing
In order to build suspense and make a story more interesting, writers often use a technique called foreshadowing, which gives hints and clues of events to occur later in the plot. When authors give these hints and clues, we can make a prediction, or an educated guess, as to what will happen next.
It is often difficult for a reader who has not read a book or play before to recognize an author’s use of foreshadowing. Once we have read the book or play, we can think about the entire story and realize that there were clear hints along the way. So how do you know when something is foreshadowing? The truth is, you probably won’t recognize all hints until you finish the book. However, once you learn to recognize that most authors (including Shakespeare) use a great deal of foreshadowing, you can start to become a more active reader in the process.
With The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare used a technique that was a little different. The prologue of Romeo and Juliet doesn’t hint at the end of the play-it tells the ending.
The second quatrain of the Chorus’ sonnet sums up the plot of the play: From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do ·with their death bury their parents’ strife (Prologue, 5-8)
Directions: Below are several examples of foreshadowing in Romeo and Juliet. First, now that you have read most of the play,for numbers 1-3 (Part A), use what you have learned in your reading to help you tell what event is being foreshadowed. For numbers 6-10 (Part BJ, the clues given are foreshadowing events that will not happen until Act Five. For these, make a prediction as to what you believe might happen, based upon the clue given. An example for each section has been done for you. Once you have completed your predictions, answer the questions that follow in Part C, using complete sentences.
Part A Example: Benvolio advises Romeo to try to get over Rosaline by attending the party: “Take thou some new infection to thy eye, / And the rank poison of the old will die” (1.2-49-50).
What event is being foreshadowed? When Romeo attends the party, he immediately falls in love with Juliet and forgets all about Rosaline.
Part B Example: In Act One, Scene 5, after meeting and falling in love with Romeo, Juliet says, “If he be married./ My grave is likely to be my wedding bed” (1.5.135). .
Prediction: Juliet’s grave will be her wedding bed, as she will die in the arms of her husband at the end of the play.

1. Before entering the party, Romeo has doubts: I fear, too early: for my mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels and expire the term Of a despised life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death. (1.4.104-113)
What event(s) is being foreshadowed?

2. . At Capulet’s party, Capulet stops Tybalt from attacking Romeo. To this, Tybalt replies: “I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall/ Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall” (1.5.91-92).
What event(s) is being foreshadowed?

3. Before Romeo and Juliet are officially married, Romeo says: “Do thou but close our hands with holy words, / Then love-devouring death do what he dare; / It is enough I may but call her mine” (2.6.6-8).
What event(s) is being foreshadowed?

4. Friar Lawrence warns Romeo and Juliet before they are married: “These violent delights have violent ends … Therefore love moderately” (2.5.9-14).
Prediction:

5. In the balcony scene, Romeo states that he would rather die by Juliet’s kinsmens’ hand at that moment, than never feeling Juliet’s love. “And but thou love me, let them find me here: / My life were better ended by their hate, / Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love” (2.2.77-78).

Prediction:

6. After he has fought and killed Tybalt, Romeo cries: “O, I am fortune’s fool!”
(3.1.136).
Prediction
7. After spending the night together, Juliet, looking down at Romeo, says: “Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, / As one dead in the bottom of a tomb/ Either my eyesight fails, or thou look’st pale” (3.5.55-57).
Prediction
8. After being told she must marry Paris, and her father threatening to disown her, Juliet pleads: “O, sweet my mother, cast me not away! / Delay this marriage for a month, a week/ Or, if you do not, make the bridal bed/ In that dim monument where Tybalt lies” (3.5.198-201)
Prediction
9. As a “backup plan” in case the potion does not work, Juliet has a knife with which to kill herself. “What if this mixture do no work at all?/ Shall I be married then to-morrow morning? / No, no: this shall forbid it. Lie thou there. [Laying down a dagger] (4.3.21-23)
Prediction
10. Why do you think Shakespeare told the end of the story in the Prologue?
11. Why do you think Shakespeare included so much foreshadowing in his play?

12 H.ow do you think the story would have been different if he hadn’t told the ending? Do you think the story would have had as much impact? Why?

13. Now that you know most of the instances in which Shakespeare used foreshadowing, which of them do you think you may have recognized in your reading?
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14. There is a more “advanced” version of foreshadowing used in the “Queen Mab” speech in Act One. What do you think this speech is saying, and what event(s) do you think it foreshadows?
15. Another instance of foreshadowing is in Friar Lawrence’s speech about herbs and potions at the beginning of Act Two, Scene Three. What do you think this speech is saying, and what event(s) do you think it foreshadows?

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