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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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Forever Strangers:
At the end of Chapter 1, Richard describes how, after he left the orphanage, he briefly visited his father at his new home, where his father lives with a "strange woman," his girlfriend. Richard then foreshadows the future, to a moment not seen elsewhere in the novel:
A quarter of a century was to elapse [before] [...] I was to see him again, standing alone upon the red clay of a Mississippi [...] when I tried to talk to him I realized that, though ties of blood made us kin, though I could see a shadow of my face on his face, though there was an echo of my voice in his voice, we were forever strangers, speaking a different language, living on vastly distant planes of reality.
Richard, now a well-educated grown man, meets his father again. Richard's father "tried to make it in the city, but failed," and came back to the country to work as a sharecropper on a plantation. The description of what remains of the relationship between Richard and his father is described in metaphor. Richard sees some similarities between himself and his father: their voices and their faces are similar. These are concrete, physical attributes which they share, like the "red clay" upon which the father stands. But they differ on more abstract things like "language." Richard thinks that the inciting problem in his father's life was his lack of education. Richard, who works throughout the novel to improve his "language," sees this as a fundamental difference between himself and his father. As a result they are "living on vastly different planes of reality." This statement is true literally, as Richard and his father live far apart by this point in the future. It is also true metaphorically, as Richard understands that his education, which so influenced his worldview and disposition, causes him to live in a different world than his father.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Faces That Hurt Me:
In Chapter 2, Richard is so excited to leave for Arkansas that he doesn't shake hands with any of the other boys in the orphanage, then notes how this occasion foreshadows his later life:
As I shook the dingy palms extended to me I kept my eyes averted, not wanting to look again into faces that hurt me because they had become so thoroughly associated in my feelings with hunger and fear. In shaking hands I was doing something in the years to come: acting in conformity with what others expected of me even though, by the very nature and form of my life, I did not and could not share their spirit.
Richard, in the retrospective style of the memoir, often remarks when a certain event reverberates through the rest of his life. This is one such event, and it allows Richard to foreshadow his own character in the rest of the memoir. Richard describes how, in his life, he tries to conform to society and to act as others expect. But he doesn't actually feel connected with people around him. He feels different from White people, of course—but more importantly, as shown here, he feels different from Black people, too. This passage then goes into a discussion of Black brotherhood. Richard thinks Black communities have a "strange absence of real kindness," an issue that will trouble him for much of the memoir.
Related Themes:
