Use of Foreshadowing (3)

The final use of foreshadowing that Findley used in the novel is right at the developing stages of the story. The reader is just starting to get to know Robert, and Findley throws a curve ball into the picture, when he embeds the possibility that Robert did something mad through a transcript of another person’s point of view describing Robert’s life.

“There are enmities in families that have to be foreborne. But oh… when it turns to hate. I gather he refuses to speak to you. ‘That’s right.’ ‘I don’t understand. It’s as if Robert did something evil.’ ‘Some say he did.’ ‘Some maniacs. Oh yes- I’ve heard that too.’” (Findley 98)

Through the use of another’s point of view in the novel, Findley is able to foreshadow that Robert went mentally insane throughout the war. As said in the quote, many people heard that Robert did something evil, something of that a maniac would perform. In the simplicity of this dialogue, it foreshadows a major plot structure that Robert is challenged with in the final chapters of the novel. In the end of the novel Robert does indeed go insane which leads to his death. Findley used this technique in the beginning of the book to try to get the reader thinking and to get the reader to develop parts of the novel where Robert went insane. Findley did an amazing job with this literary device, capturing the reader’s interest right at the beginning of the novel.

Through all the death and rumours laid upon Robert throughout the war, Findley foreshadowed that Robert would end up going mentally insane, in which he did and led to his death. Findley was able to show that Robert was developing insanity even at the early stages of war with hints every so often, that the reader may have picked up that led to the final actions of Robert going mad, leading to his death.