Writer’s Craft: Foreshadowing in the Lord of the Flies
William Golding uses foreshadowing in Lord of the Flies right from the beginning to give subtle hints of what is going to happen in the future. “All round him [Ralph] the long scar smashed into the jungle was a bath of heat (pg.7).” The scar, made from the crash airplane foreshadows that something evil will occur or fall down upon them. This example foretells the gap that will be gradually widening between the boys’ beliefs and ethics. Another example of prediction appears in: “...the eye was first attracted to a black, bat-like creature that danced on the sand, and only later perceived the body above it. The bat was the child's shadow (pg. 20).” The boy's shadow is compared to a bat’s shadow which is sometimes linked with the night. This hint occurring early in the novel may foreshadow the dark- nature of man.
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Then the creature stepped from mirage on to clear sand, and they saw that the darkness was not all shadow but mostly clothing. The creature was a part of boys (pg. 20).
Hereafter, the lack of light and the predominance of shadows will pervade the novel. The darkness, shadows and the color black are used in this book to suggest the darkness that resides in Jack’s heart.
Another example of foreshadowing appears in the description of the boys' first exploration of the