Foreshadowing in a piece of literature involves clues which hint toward future events. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Julietit is revealed in the very opening lines, called the Prologue, that Romeo and Juliet will die. In Act I, however, there are two points at which the characters themselves seem to predict their own deaths. In Scene 4, just after Mercutio has given his Queen Mab speech, Romeo, in an aside (a short speech which can...
Foreshadowing in a piece of literature involves clues which hint toward future events. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet it is revealed in the very opening lines, called the Prologue, that Romeo and Juliet will die. In Act I, however, there are two points at which the characters themselves seem to predict their own deaths. In Scene 4, just after Mercutio has given his Queen Mab speech, Romeo, in an aside (a short speech which can only be heard by the audience and not the other characters on stage), reveals that he fears attendance at Capulet's party will lead directly to his death:
I fear too early, for my mind misgives
Some consequence yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night’s revels, and expire the term
Of a despisèd life closed in my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
In Scene 5 Juliet, also in an aside, hints at her death after asking the Nurse to find out the name of the man she had been speaking with. She had met Romeo but has no idea who he is. She claims that she would die if she found out he was married:
Go ask his name. [The Nurse goes.] If he be marrièd,
My grave is like to be my wedding bed.
When the Nurse returns she informs Juliet that he is Romeo, the son of "her only enemy."