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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
Book 6, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Falling Asleep:
As the hobbits near the Shire, Gandalf warns them to hurry, and Merry remarks that it feels as though they are waking from a dream. Frodo counters that to him it feels more like falling asleep. Tolkien frames this moment as foreshadowing, using Frodo’s words to hint at his coming estrangement from the Shire and eventual departure for the Grey Havens.
‘Well here we are, just the four of us that started out together,’ said Merry. ‘We have left all the rest behind, one after another. It seems almost like a dream that has slowly faded.’ ‘Not to me,’ said Frodo. ‘To me it feels more like falling asleep again.’
Merry’s description reflects a sense of closure and return. For him, the quest is fading into the distance, and homecoming feels like awakening into a familiar reality. Frodo’s response, however, reverses the simile. Home no longer feels like waking life but like the unreality of sleep, suggesting that his truest experience occurred on the road, not in the Shire.
This inversion foreshadows Frodo’s inability to reintegrate into hobbit life. The very comforts that Merry and the others crave—rest, peace, and familiarity—become, for Frodo, suffocating. His sense of “falling asleep again” signals that the Shire can no longer hold his spirit, which has been shaped and scarred by the Ring.
The dreamlike imagery also anticipates the Grey Havens, where Frodo will leave Middle-earth entirely. His comparison of homecoming to “falling asleep” gestures toward the kind of final rest he will seek across the sea. In this way, Tolkien plants subtle narrative foreshadowing: Frodo’s words prepare readers for his eventual realization that he cannot stay, that his story belongs to a different ending than his friends’.
By contrasting Merry’s hopeful metaphor of awakening with Frodo’s darker metaphor of sleep, Tolkien underscores the divide between those who can resume ordinary life and those whose wounds run too deep. This moment of foreshadowing quietly marks Frodo’s separation from the Shire long before his final farewell.
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