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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 1, Chapter 1: The Eve of the War
Explanation and Analysis—The Novel's First Line:
The War of the Worlds often includes ominous foreshadowing of future events. For example, the first line of Book 1, Chapter 1 foreshadows the arrival of intelligent aliens on Earth:
No one would have believed in the last years of the 19th century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 2: What We Saw From the Ruined House
Explanation and Analysis—Microorganisms:
Early in the novel, Wells hints at the aliens' eventual death from earthly bacteria. This point suggests that all creatures, no matter how advanced they seem, are vulnerable in their own way. In Book 2, Chapter 2, the narrator mentions that Mars lacks microorganisms, which foreshadows the Martians' eventual downfall:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The last salient point in which the systems of these creatures differed from ours was in what one might have thought a very trivial particular. Micro-organisms, which cause so much disease and pain on earth, have either never appeared upon Mars, or Martian sanitary science eliminated them ages ago. A hundred diseases, all the fevers and contagions of human life, consumption, cancers, tumours and such morbidities, never enter the scheme of their life. And speaking of the differences between the life on Mars and terrestrial life, I may allude here to the curious suggestions of the red weed.
Related Themes:
