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Dialect
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 15
Explanation and Analysis—Everything Will Change:
In Chapter 15, the morning after Vernal Conclave where Rowan and Citra learn one of them will have to glean the other, the two apprentices share a silent breakfast with Scythe Faraday. Faraday says he will again go out gleaning alone. Then he makes some "enigmatic" statements that foreshadow the coming events of the plot:
“I will go out alone today. The two of you will attend to your studies.”
“Yes, Scythe Faraday,” Citra said, with Rowan saying the same in a half-second echo.
“For you nothing has changed.”
Citra looked down into her cereal. It was Rowan who dared to state the obvious.
“Everything has changed, sir.”
And then Faraday said something enigmatic that would only resonate with them much later.
“Perhaps everything will change again.”
Then he left them.
As Rowan says, "everything has changed" after the Vernal Conclave. But Faraday seems to know that something else is going to happen that day, causing him to cryptically say "everything will change again." Later this same day, Faraday allegedly self-gleans himself by throwing himself in front of a train. Faraday's supposed death sets off the conflicts of the remainder of the book, with Rowan and Citra's reassignment to Scythes Goddard and Curie. This is also the beginning of one of the novel's subplots, in which Citra investigates Goddard's corrupt plan with Xenocrates to eliminate Faraday. It is true that "everything will change" when Faraday seems to die; he foreshadows his own death in the narrative.
But these statements also foreshadow the end of the novel. The narrator notes that Faraday's musings "would only resonate with them much later." This refers to the novel's unexpected conclusion, in which it is revealed that Faraday is in fact alive and only secretly retired in the Chileargentine region. When Faraday says "everything will change again," he refers also to the changing dynamics of the Scythedom, which over the course of the novel become increasingly corrupt and antagonistic. The full consequences of these changes are only visible by the end of the novel, which Faraday foreshadows just before his self-gleaning.
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