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Foreshadowing is one of the stylistic tools in literature employed by many authors. It involves giving the reader hints of what is likely to happen later in the story as it unfolds. It is therefore employed to create suspension and tension. It also prepares the reader for a shocking turn of events later in the story.
Flannery Conner uses this stylistic device quite effectively in her literary works. ‘A good man is hard to find’. This essay critically analyses how the author has used this tool in one of her short stories. Foreshadowing has been used in the story “a good man is hard to find.”
The reader is introduced to a nuclear family that wants to go on a vacation to Florida. However, the grandmother who is to be part of the vacation is against going to Florida, she prefers Tennessee. She happens to be aware of a killer called Misfit, who is on run to Florida and is afraid they may meet him. The family however ignores her view. Foreshadowing is used effectively as the grandmother advises her son Bailey about Misfit, telling him “what he did to those people” (Kennedy & Gioua 117). The grandmother is predicting that just as it happened to those other people, it may happen to them. The author thus creates the suspense of what is bound to happen later in the story.
The grandmother still agrees to go for the vacation. She is the first in the car, and June Star states “she has to go every where we go” (Kennedy & Gioua 118). This foreshadows that as the family is killed, the grandmother will not be spared. Later, despite the grandmother’s plea, she is still killed, true to the young girl’s statement; the grandmother follows the rest in death.
Grandmother dressed in her Sunday best. Her choice of colors is quite striking, as described. According to Kennedy & Gioua (118), she looked nice dressed in a navy blue straw sailor hat with a cluster of white violets on the edge and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. These color combinations are usually worn in burial services. This color choice, therefore, foreshadows the death that follows later. This is strongly supported by the grandmother’s motive for wearing that dress. According to her, the dress would assist in her identification in case of an accident. The dress would automatically help one recognize her to be a lady. The grandmother strongly predicts her death, she doesn’t think just of an accident, but one that leaves her dead on the highway. It is quite capturing, how the grandmother is so clear in her mind, that she is not dressing to look good, but in case of a death eventuality on here during the trip.
During the trip, “the family passed by a cotton field with five or six graves fenced in the middle of it like a small island” (Kennedy & Gioua 118). This foreshadows the death of all the family. There are five grown-ups in the car and the baby, who is not fully developed hence the phrase “five or six”. Further, the grandmother foreshadows as she talks of how the “plantation gone with the wind” (Kennedy & Gioua 120). This predicts the fate of how their lives would be gone at the end of the story.
The name of the place where the family is killed –Toomsboro also predicts their ending. The story has been written in English, and the name of the place sounds close to “tombs” and “bury”, which have to do with death and burial. It, therefore, predicts the family death within that town.
The Misfit’s words in the description of a cell in the prison also foreshadow the death. He says, “turn right, it was a wall, turn left was a wall, look up it was a ceiling, look down, it was a floor” (Kennedy & Gioua 130). This description fits a grave, where they would have to be buried after their death. Grandmother’s death is again foreshadowed by the misfit during their conversation as he asks her if it seems right to her and which one is punished (Kennedy & Gioua 131). This means that despite the grandmother’s plea, just as the others have been killed, she would also be killed.
Foreshadowing has effectively been used in the story right from the start to the end. Just as the grandmother foreshadows her death and dresses appropriately, it happens. They die in the town of Toomsboro. Despite grandmother’s plea, she is killed; following the others as said earlier that she would always follow them. The number of people killed is five grown-ups and a baby, just as there were five or six graves at the cotton field.
Works cited
Kennedy, Joseph and Gioia, Dana. Literature, an introduction to fiction, drama and Poetry, 11th Ed New York: Longman Publishers. 2008.
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