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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
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Loss of Control:
During Richard's first day in Julian's class, the professor gives a lengthy speech on the idea of control, thus foreshadowing the Greek students' murderous Dionysian ritual:
"We don’t like to admit it,” said Julian, “but the idea of losing control is one that fascinates controlled people such as ourselves more than almost anything. All truly civilized people—the ancients no less than us—have civilized themselves through the willful repression of the old, animal self. Are we, in this room, really very different from the Greeks or the Romans? Obsessed with duty, piety, loyalty, sacrifice? All those things which are to modern tastes so chilling?”
Julian’s speech on the loss of control in Greek mythology leaves the students, particularly Richard, speechless. By suggesting that all individuals repress their animals selves and are mesmerized by the Dionysian idea of losing control, Julian foreshadows the novel's events. Per Julian's misplaced advice, Henry and the other Greek students conduct a Dionysian ritual in an attempt to unleash their animal selves, accidentally murdering someone in the process.
While the Greek students' attempt to lose control results in a farmer's death, their true dissolution occurs when they murder Bunny. Killing someone intentionally represents a greater loss of moral control than killing someone unintentionally.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—A California Cult:
When Richard thinks back on his days in California and his transition to Vermont, he foreshadows his illicit activities at Hampden and hints at the situational irony at the heart of these activities:
This, I think, is pretty rough stuff. From the sound of it, had I stayed in California I might have ended up in a cult or at the very least practicing some weird dietary restriction. I remember reading about Pythagoras around this time, and finding some of his ideas curiously appealing—wearing white garments, for instance, or abstaining from foods which have a soul. But instead I wound up on the East Coast.
Referring to journal entries that he wrote in California, Richard admits that he probably would have joined a cult had he not left for Hampden. The situational irony of this belief is that Richard effectively ends up joining a cult in Hampden by enrolling in Julian's Greek classes. Richard fled the cults of California only to drive himself deep into a tight-knit, exclusive, and sinister group tainted with murder.
This statement also offers the reader a hint towards his future, cultish life at Hampden: wearing nothing but bedsheets, being covered in blood, fasting for days at a time, ingesting "blackish water." All of these rituals that the Greek students partake in for the Dionysian ritual are parallel to the Pythagoras ideas that Richard used to find appealing.
Related Themes:
