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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 4: South Carolina
Explanation and Analysis—Flailing Gertrude:
Ominous foreshadowing takes place in the novel’s South Carolina chapter. During a dance night organized by the dormitories, Cora witnesses a sudden outburst from one of the women:
The woman ran through the green near the schoolhouse. She was in her twenties, of slender build, and her hair stuck up wildly. Her blouse was open to her navel, revealing her breasts. For an instant, Cora was back on Randall and about to be educated in another atrocity.
It is a startling, unexpected moment—Gertrude, distressed and disheveled, raves about her captured babies and has to be restrained by two men. The scene foreshadows in two senses: Cora discovers shortly after that the proctors have been supervising a mass-sterilization project under the cover of hospitals. Gertrude’s cries also plant an acute awareness of tragedy. While Cora herself doesn’t lose any children, the devastated mother momentarily brings Cora “back on Randall”; the resulting effect almost seems as though Gertrude has anticipated Ridgeway’s arrival. The fear proves to be prophetic: months after that dance, the slavecatcher comes and sets Sam’s house aflame.
Gertrude wails about the loss of her children, but she unexpectedly speaks to the threat of Cora’s own recapture. The screams keep Cora awake at night, wrestling with “ghosts” as she decides whether she should move on. Gertrude’s hysteria suggests the impossibility of ever erasing slavery’s trauma. The scene at the dance reminds Cora that the “plantation” lives on within the members, no matter the miles between them. Even in freedom, she and the millions of other runaways live in the constant fear of capture. Gertrude speaks to a paranoia and foreboding that can never be banished.
Related Themes:
Chapter 6: North Carolina
Explanation and Analysis—Night Riders:
Another instance of uneasy foreshadowing takes place in the novel’s North Carolina chapter, while Cora tucks herself in Martin and Ethel’s attic and witnesses Louisa’s hanging at the town park:
The lanky boy bobbed his head. His youth and slight frame reminded Cora of the engineer of her last train trip, inducted by circumstance into the work of men. His freckled skin was lighter-hued, but they shared the same fragile eagerness. Born the same day, perhaps, then steered by codes and circumstances to serve disparate agencies.
"It’s not every rider who makes a catch his first week out," Jamison said. "Let’s see what young Richard has for us."
This scene hauntingly prefigures Cora’s eventual re-capture at the hands of the nightriders. Like Cora, Louisa is a runaway who had seemingly “escaped the logic of our system” along her trip towards Tennessee. Standing immediately across the street, Louisa foretells Cora’s own capture through the disturbing parallels provided by her narrative. Cora is still safely hidden at this moment, but the novel communicates the understanding that Martin and Ethel’s smuggling project is already doomed. She is effectively watching a glimpse of herself weeks into the future, when night riders will drag Martin and Ethel out onto the streets and place her in that same spot.
In addition to foreshadowing, the scene briefly scares the reader. With his “slight frame” and “freckled skin,” the newest night rider initiate seemingly invites suspicion through his apparent resemblance to the railroad engineer. The comparison nearly tricks the reader into anticipating betrayal from the engineer, as though suggesting that the same boy who helped Cora may have been operating as an undercover night rider.
This fear doesn’t come to pass, but its lingering sense of skepticism does. The comparison between the night rider and engineer ultimately reveals the impact of “codes” and “circumstances” on an individual’s worldview. But through its false alarm, it also shows how slavery scars its participants with a deep paranoia. A world where faith is no more than a step away from treachery requires everyone to keep a sharp lookout—priming the reader at once for Fiona’s betrayal and the fatal night at the Wellses’.
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