Kill the Pig: Indirect Foreshadowing in Lord of the Flies
Foreshadowing is the warning or indication of a future event. Throughout William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, foreshadowing is used to create suspense throughout the novel. Symbolism and foreshadowing are two major literary devices used in Lord of the Flies. These literary devices ultimately help anticipate the tragic deaths of Piggy and Simon. In the first chapters of the novel, readers meet a group of unsupervised boys after a plane crashes on a stranded island. The boys quickly form a democracy, and with the formation of the democracy, chaos ensues. Golding evidently utilizes indirect foreshadowing for the prediction of Simon and Piggy’s demise by using diction, symbolism, and imagery
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On an island, one would expect bright, sunny weather, but the boys (and readers) are met with quite the opposite. The text states, “The undergrowth at the side of the scar was shaken and a multitude of raindrops fell pattering.” (Golding 4). Throughout the novel, the weather worsens two times; when the plane crashes and before Simon dies. Plane crashes and deaths are tragic events, and it seems as though every time something tragic happens, the weather is impacted as well. Prior to Simon’s death, readers can see the gradual change in weather, from hot and humid to stormy. The text states, “There was a blink of bright light beyond the forest and the thunder exploded again so that a littlun started to whine. Big drops of rain fell among them making individual sounds when they struck. ‘Going to be a storm,’ said Ralph, ‘and you'll have rain like when we dropped here.’” (Golding 117). The last sentence by Ralph is an example of indirect foreshadowing. Indirect foreshadowing is a subtle clue. It includes casual dialogue, seemingly unimportant details, and slight changes in a novel. Golding utilizes indirect foreshadowing to foreshadow Simon’s death through the weather. The weather is a seemingly unimportant detail that Ralph makes a casual comment about before Simon’s