What Is Foreshadowing – Examples in Film and Literature

Have you ever watched a movie or read a book where a plot twist completely shocked you, but when you went back to it, you noticed all the now-obvious clues that had been subverting the story all along? You’re not alone. These clues are a form of foreshadowing, a powerful storytelling technique that helps make an ending — no matter how wild — feel earned. Using foreshadowing in your own story can create anticipation and keep your audience engaged until the very end.

Foreshadowing

When used well, foreshadowing can be incredibly effective at drawing in your audience. If it’s too obvious, they may lose interest. If it’s too subtle, they might miss it entirely.

Before we look at examples of foreshadowing in film, we first need to define foreshadowing and its function. What exactly is foreshadowing? How does it help you tell your story?

What Is Foreshadowing?

Foreshadowing is a literary device used to hint at or signal future events in a story. It can be a highly effective tool for building curiosity, intrigue, suspense, or even a sense of narrative harmony by the end of a film or novel. Writers often use foreshadowing early in a story to set up later events. “Hinting” and “forecasting” are both synonyms for foreshadowing. While you can categorize types of foreshadowing based on how subtle or direct they are, its primary function is to hold the audience’s attention.

• Creating suspense
• Dramatic build-up
• Building anticipation

Two Types of Foreshadowing

Now that you know the definition of foreshadowing, you may already be thinking of examples from books or movies that come immediately to mind. All of these examples fall into one of two types of foreshadowing.

Direct foreshadowing is when an element in the story explicitly points to an upcoming event. This can be done through dialogue, a narrator, or a prophecy within the story.

You can find an example of direct foreshadowing in Macbeth.

In the opening, Shakespeare has the three witches clearly state Macbeth’s fate, that he “shalt be king hereafter,” while Banquo will be the father of future kings instead.

This is a clever use of direct foreshadowing, because it gives us information while also making both us and the characters want to know more. Why will Macbeth become king, and how will Banquo’s line ultimately take over the throne?

Indirect foreshadowing is when story elements hint at future events by leaving subtle clues about what is going to happen. These hints are not obvious, and they can only be fully understood once the foreshadowed event actually occurs.

Of Mice and Men is a great example.

Throughout the book, Lennie is repeatedly shown accidentally killing things he pets. This sets up the climactic moment between Lennie and Curley’s wife.

Although there may be two ways to categorize foreshadowing, both methods effectively serve the same purpose when used well. Capturing and guiding the audience’s attention lies at the heart of this technique.

Foreshadowing and Other Devices

Foreshadowing is often confused with, or used to refer to, several other literary devices. Let’s look at some of the terms most commonly associated with foreshadowing.

Chekhov’s gun is a very famous form of foreshadowing. The device comes from Anton Chekhov’s work and, put simply, it says that if a gun is shown at the beginning of a story, it must be fired by the end.

The point of the rule is that details you emphasize early on should pay off later. Sound familiar? That’s foreshadowing.

A red herring uses the audience’s familiarity with foreshadowing against them. Suppose we see a gun hidden under a pillow in the first act — we assume this is foreshadowing that the gun will be used later. If the gun turns out to be fake or is never used at all, that’s a red herring. Red herrings are elements designed to lead us in one direction so that we’ll be surprised later.

Foreshadowing hints at the future; a flash-forward shows us the future. But a flash-forward can be vague enough to function as foreshadowing. For example, we see a close-up of someone pulling a gun from under a pillow, but we don’t know who it is or why, and then we cut back to events before that reveal. This is still foreshadowing.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Literature

Foreshadowing appeared in books long before it ever showed up on screen. Writers in any genre can learn from the following examples.

There are several instances of foreshadowing in William Shakespeare’s famous tragedies. Romeo says, “Come, death, and welcome. Juliet wills it so.” This (fairly blatantly) hints at the fate of Romeo and his beloved.

Juliet also dreams of Romeo dead at the bottom of a tomb. This likewise foreshadows that things are not going to end well.

The ending of The Monkey’s Paw is also quite grim, and it doesn’t come without warning. The previous owner of the magical charm warns Mr. White: “I threw it on the fire. If you keep it, don’t blame me for what happens. Like a sensible man, throw it back on the fire again.”

Reading that, most readers will be on high alert, fearing that things will only get worse.

Here’s another bleak story. John Steinbeck hints at Lennie’s fate (spoiler alert) in his famous work. In the book, one character goes into detail about how animals too weak to survive in a harsh world should be killed for their own good. As the story progresses, George begins to realize that Lennie may fit that description as well.

Examples of Foreshadowing in Film

While there are essentially two main types of foreshadowing, filmmakers have found ways to use nearly every tool in cinema to foreshadow story events, from the title to the costumes. Analyzing and breaking down some of these examples will help you spot foreshadowing opportunities in your own stories that you may not have noticed before.

Sometimes, even a film’s title can foreshadow its plot. This form of foreshadowing has to be vague enough to arouse curiosity before the audience sees the movie, but clear enough that it makes sense once the credits roll. The Coen brothers did this perfectly in their 2007 film No Country for Old Men.

The title, taken from writer and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy, hints that Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) no longer fits into the new generation of crime he encounters.

“When you can’t sleep, nothing seems real.”

Fight Club is one of the clearest plot-twist films in recent years. On a second or third viewing, you might notice a series of subtle clues throughout the movie that foreshadow the fact that Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) isn’t real, including this line of voice-over.

If you’ve seen The Departed, you know the film is packed with twists and nearly every major character dies, but did you know that director Martin Scorsese left very explicit clues about which characters would die? Borrowing an idea from the 1932 film Scarface, Scorsese places an “X” in the frame for each character who will die.

This classic “whodunit” keeps audiences curious and absorbed until the very last moment. How? The Usual Suspects cleverly balances subtle, indirect foreshadowing throughout with quick, direct foreshadowing moments that tie all the plot points together. The result is a twist ending that still ranks among the best more than twenty years later.

The film’s incredible final scene has been copied and parodied for years after its release, largely because of how effectively it gathers all the foreshadowing clues to bring the story to a close.

The Prestige is a great example of including just enough foreshadowing to hook the audience without giving away the major twists. One of the film’s best scenes is Alfred performing the birdcage trick, in which he kills a bird and then “brings it back to life.”

Foreshadowing is one of the most effective tools filmmakers have to spark the audience’s curiosity and keep their attention. But it’s important to understand how much foreshadowing your story needs, and what kind. Too much foreshadowing can make a story predictable and cause the audience to lose interest. Too little can make it dull or confusing, with the same result.

Try looking for a few moments in your own story where you can apply some foreshadowing techniques and see which ones work for you.