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Allusions
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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Dying in Small Doses:
In Orlando, Woolf foreshadows certain events in Orlando's life to deepen and expand upon Orlando's unique relationship to time and place. For example, when Orlando becomes ill after meeting Sasha in Chapter 1, Woolf writes:
Then a deadly sickness came over Orlando, and they had to lay him on the floor and give him brandy to drink before he revived.
Woolf's use of the word "deadly" appears to indicate that Orlando will not survive the illness, but he does: by drinking brandy in order to revive his body. Orlando, it seems, has died an emotional death of sorts, perhaps induced by Sasha's infidelity, which Orlando discovers soon before he falls ill. In Chapter 2, the narrator refers back to Orlando's "deadly sickness," confirming this moment of foreshadowing in the novel:
Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to time lest it rend us asunder? Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living?
The narrator's philosophical questioning reflects Orlando's earlier struggle, when he seems to take death in a "small dose[]" in order to regain the strength to live. In this case, Orlando's death seems literal, but Woolf also approaches the concept of spiritual rebirth through Orlando's transformation from man to woman in Chapter 3. For Orlando, perhaps the complex and frustrating "business" of living between and outside of social conventions requires temporary periods of nonexistence in order to shed one identity and adopt another. Or, perhaps Orlando's various rebirths are merely inevitable throughout the course of her extraordinary 300 year-long life—for she oversees immense changes in society during this lifespan and must eventually adapt to at least some of them.
Related Themes:
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Dying in Small Doses:
In Orlando, Woolf foreshadows certain events in Orlando's life to deepen and expand upon Orlando's unique relationship to time and place. For example, when Orlando becomes ill after meeting Sasha in Chapter 1, Woolf writes:
Then a deadly sickness came over Orlando, and they had to lay him on the floor and give him brandy to drink before he revived.
Woolf's use of the word "deadly" appears to indicate that Orlando will not survive the illness, but he does: by drinking brandy in order to revive his body. Orlando, it seems, has died an emotional death of sorts, perhaps induced by Sasha's infidelity, which Orlando discovers soon before he falls ill. In Chapter 2, the narrator refers back to Orlando's "deadly sickness," confirming this moment of foreshadowing in the novel:
Has the finger of death to be laid on the tumult of life from time to time lest it rend us asunder? Are we so made that we have to take death in small doses daily or we could not go on with the business of living?
The narrator's philosophical questioning reflects Orlando's earlier struggle, when he seems to take death in a "small dose[]" in order to regain the strength to live. In this case, Orlando's death seems literal, but Woolf also approaches the concept of spiritual rebirth through Orlando's transformation from man to woman in Chapter 3. For Orlando, perhaps the complex and frustrating "business" of living between and outside of social conventions requires temporary periods of nonexistence in order to shed one identity and adopt another. Or, perhaps Orlando's various rebirths are merely inevitable throughout the course of her extraordinary 300 year-long life—for she oversees immense changes in society during this lifespan and must eventually adapt to at least some of them.
Related Themes:
