“A River Runs Through It” The short story “A River Runs Through It” is written by Norman Maclean. This book is the life story of Norman Maclean attempting to better understand his brother, Paul Maclean. During the time, Norman realizes that Paul is an artist in his own way. Norman, as the author, uses flashbacks, has a point of view, and foreshadowing. These methods keep the reader intrigued during the story. Flashback is “an interruption of narrative to show an episode that happened before that particular point in the story" (Scott, Foresman 889). Also “painted on one side of our Sunday school wall were the words, God Is Love” (Maclean 7) is an example of a flashback used in the book. This illustration is a flashback because Norman …show more content…
A definition of foreshadow is “a hint given to the reader of what is to come” (Scott, Foresman 889). A writer can use foreshadow in an intriguing way. “Paul gave himself a stretch as soon as it was not immediately after dinner, and said, ‘I’ll run over town and see some old pals. I’ll be back before long, but don’t wait up for me.’” (Maclean 87). Paul gave a clue that he was going to go and party. As the reader reads on, they find out that Paul is hungover the next morning. Another foreshadowing example is “So he made the arrangements for what turned out to be our last fishing trip together” (Maclean 86). The reader does not find out until later that Paul is killed. Norman gave the hint that Paul, Norman, and their father were never going to go fishing together again. Later in the story, the reader finds out that Paul was killed by being hit in the head with a gun. The short story of “A River Runs Through It”, written by Norman Maclean, uses many literary elements. Three common ones are flashback, point of view, and foreshadowing. Every story has a point of view. Flashbacks and foreshadows can give readers an interesting time of the story. A flashback is when an author goes back into time. Foreshadowing is when an author gives a clue to what is going to happen in the future. There are about four different types of point of views. Norman Maclean uses first person. First person point of view is when the author uses pronouns like I, me, my, and