Foreshadowing in Hamlet Essay

Literature constitutes a wide variety of authors from different eras with different writing techniques. It reflects the authors goal and techniques and what philosophy they are portraying to the reader. Considering the works from our reading list for this course, Hamlet by William Shakespeare is truly a popular fiction and has unique literary techniques. Shakespeare foreshadows quite frequently throughout this piece of literature.

When Hamlet is talking to the ghost of his father, their conversation reflects what doom and gloom will ultimately come at the end of the story. Shakespeares goal is to keep the audience referring back to the different acts and scenes to pull together what is presently taking place in the play. When Shakespeare inserts the play within the play, it displays his ability to put irony in his work. Another area of irony is when Hamlet is sent away with two of his so-called friends that are to ultimately put him to his death. After the ship they are on is invaded by pirates the only one who survives from the three is Hamlet.

Another good example of foreshadowing is done by Flannery OConnor in her short story, A Good Man is Hard to Find. From the beginning of the story when the grandmother reads about the misfit, that sets the tone of what will transpire in the end. The grandmother did not want to go to vacation in Florida and was complaining continuously about it. Maybe if the family would have listened they would still be alive. Irony is also portrayed throughout this story in various sections. An example is when the grandmother was so sure the house she wanted everyone to see was in Georgia, when if fact, later on she experiences the angst, dread and pain of the truth that the house was in Tennessee.

For the poetry part of the readings we did for this course the Romantic Authors from the New England area displayed special techniques. William Carlos Williams, A Red Wheelbarrow, displayed simplicity in words with deep underlying meaning. This eight line poem was focused around the wheelbarrow. If the wheelbarrow was not there, the dew from the rain and the white chickens would have no meaning. By focusing on the wheelbarrow the rain and chickens had numerous meaning and concepts.

Emily Dickinsons poem, Some Keep the Sabbath is fine example of this author using nature to relate to religion and God. She compares the customary church of the people to her church, which is the beautiful garden in her backyard. She replaces the customary bell of the church with a bird singing in her garden.

The best literary techniques were used in the poem, Emperor of Ice Cream. After reading and analyzing this poem it is established that this poem is about a wake. The kitchen represents life and is where the ice cream is kept. The ice cream represents a type of comfort food at the wake because of all the mourning. The muscleman with the mustache represents the good distributed in life. The dead womans thorny feet sticking out off the end of the bed represent that she was a hard working woman on her feet constantly. The bedroom represents death. The flowers rolled up in last weeks newspaper and given to the woman represent that they are wenches and the dead woman is perhaps the madam.

I truly enjoyed the reading in this course and have obtained much insight in the analysis of novels, short stories and poems. I now possess the literary tools to read, evaluate and understand the vast variety of authors with all their unique writing techniques and goals from the past up until the present.