The Yellow Sign Analysis
Foreshadowing gives readers of “The Yellow Sign”, by Robert W. Chambers, clues as to what will happen.
In “The Yellow Sign” the narrator, Mr. Scott, and the model, Tessie, both have recurring dreams about the watchman of the neighboring church. In the dreams he is the driver of a hearse with Mr. Scott in the coffin. In the dream Tessie is watching from a nearby building. The story ends with Tessie and Mr.Scott mysteriously dying because of the black onyx that Tessie had found. This is supposedly the yellow sign. One way that foreshadowing gives readers of “The Yellow Sign” clues as to what will end up happening is when the watchman is first introduced. “Instantly I thought of a coffin-worm. Whatever it was about the man that repelled me I did not
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Right away in the story Mr. Scott gets a bad feeling about the watchman.This helps the reader see that the watchman is not to be trusted. At the end of the story when the watchman is also known to be the hearse driver it is less of a surprise that he might have been working for the king in yellow. Another time the author includes foreshadowing is when the Mr. Scott is talking about his dream. He says, “After what seemed to me hours, I began to feel uncomfortable. A sense that somebody was close to me made me unclose my eyes. Then I saw the white face of the hearse-driver looking at me through the coffin-lid----“ (Chambers). Both Mr. Scott and Tessie had similar dreams about the watchman driving the hearse containing Mr.