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Dramatic Irony
Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Adam's Poisoning:
In Chapter 2, Robert Frobisher discovers part of Adam Ewing's journal in Ayrs's library. He is fascinated by Adam's narrative, finding it strange and compelling. He even remarks on an instance of dramatic irony from Chapter 1, noting the odd drugs Dr. Henry Goose gives to Adam—just as readers likely would have. Robert then speculates about Henry and Adam's relationship, foreshadowing the revelation in Chapter 11 that Henry has been administering his friend regular doses of poison:
From what little I can glean, it’s the edited journal of a voyage from Sydney to California by a notary of San Francisco named Adam Ewing. [...] Ewing puts me in mind of Melville’s bumbler Cpt. Delano in “Benito Cereno,” blind to all conspirators—he hasn’t spotted his trusty Dr. Henry Goose [sic] is a vampire, fueling his hypochondria in order to poison him, slowly, for his money.
Within the context of Cloud Atlas, foreshadowing becomes an odd device; here, Robert is talking abut something that has already happened, but he effectively reveals a dimension of that story that readers haven't yet read themselves. His reflections on Adam's story inform the way readers will approach the story themselves, adding tension by foreshadowing developments to come.
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Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Robert's Death:
In the following example of allusion from Chapter 10, Robert Frobisher muses on his surroundings as he works on the Cloud Atlas Sextet, laboring late into the night. The “church clock chiming at three A.M.” reminds Frobisher of a line from Mark Twain’s novel, Huckleberry Finn:
Spent last night working on a rumbling ’cello allegro lit by explosive triplets. Silence punctuated by breakneck mousetraps. Remember the church clock chiming three A.M. “I heard an owl,” Huckleberry Finn says, “away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die.” Always haunted me, that line.
Frobisher’s quotation from Huckleberry Finn carries with it a sense of doom: the owl, dog, and whippoorwill all “[cry] about somebody that was going to die.” In Chapter 10 of Cloud Atlas, Frobisher becomes that “somebody.” The line that “always haunted” Frobisher ultimately foreshadows the man’s future suicide.
It is further worth noting that the passage Frobisher selects from Huckleberry Finn contemplates the loneliness of its titular character. Huck is isolated from others, denied his comfortable habits (like smoking), and forced to live with a widow who constantly moralizes about his juvenile delinquency. Frobisher finds himself in a similar situation, emotionally and physically isolated in Belgium.
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