Previous
Ethos
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
Part 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Only a Loving Wife:
One of Humbert’s journal entries foreshadows Charlotte Haze’s later discovery of his sexual interest in Lolita:
Saturday. (Beginning perhaps amended.) I know it is madness to keep this journal but it gives me a strange thrill to do so; and only a loving wife could decipher my microscopic script. Let me state with a sob that today my L. was sun-bathing on the so-called “piazza,” but her mother and some other woman were around all the time. Of course, I might have sat there in the rocker and pretended to read.
Throughout his time in the Haze household, Humbert keeps a small journal in which he writes about his desire for Lolita and his attempts to pursue her. Though he acknowledges that it is “madness to keep this journal,” as it might expose his pedophilia and ruin his reputation, he nevertheless feels that there is little risk, as “only a loving wife could decipher” the “microscopic script” in which he has written his journal entries. Here, he foreshadows Charlotte’s later discovery of his journal. Indeed, it is Humbert’s “loving wife,” who later finds the key to the chest where he hides his journal and learns of his sexual pursuit of her adolescent daughter. Her discovery has major consequences in the novel. She leaves the house in a distracted state and is hit and killed by a car, creating the conditions under which Humbert is able to abduct Lolita from summer camp.
Related Themes:
