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Foreshadowing In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

Decent Essays

William Shakespeare utilized the use of foreshadowing to predict future events of Romeo and Juliet. Romeo expressed how he would rather have her love and die sooner than not have her love and die later in the Balcony scene. At the end he receives her love and dies for it. In the famous novella Of Mice and Men the author cues the reader with his literary device in several ways. Steinbeck introduces foreshadowing in his novella by comparing Lennie to an animal, representing Curley’s wife as darkness and trouble, and using a circular plot by showing the same setting in the beginning and ending of the story.
As a result of the author’s foreshadowing, Lennie is constantly compared to a living creature. Specifically Steinbeck states, “Lennie dabbled his big paw in the water” (3). This manifests the idea that Lennie possesses animal instincts and performs daily tasks like an animal. When killing Curley’s wife Lennie uses his primitive instincts to murder her.
Considering Lennie’s primitive actions, Curley’s wife is represented as murk and danger. The novella communicates numerous examples of this, I can point to “Both men glanced up, for the rectangle of sunshine in the doorway was cut off” (Steinbeck 31). Showing and predicting that Curley’s wife removes the …show more content…

Steinbeck reveals, “The deep green pool of the Salinas River” (99) and “The Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green” (1). As shown the quotes describe the setting of the story to be the same in the pages shown. Using the Salinas river as a meeting places in George and Lennie in the beginning of the story foreshadows the event of the companions returning back to the location. After all the readers meet George and Lennie’s friendship at the Salinas River, the reader can watch it perish as George kills his best

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