A dramatic device is a conve

ntion
used in drama as a substitution for reality that the audience accepts as
real although they know them to be false. These techniques give the audience
information they could not
get from straightforward presentation of action

Foreshadowing
An author’s use of “hints” which prepare the reader for future events or
the
outcome

Foreshadow

a hint or warning of things to come, making specific events in the plot seem more probable as
they unfold.

Symbolism
Definition of Symbolism
Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic
meanings that are different from their literal sense.

Symbolism can take different forms. Generally, it is an object representing another to give it an
entirely different meaning that is much deeper and more significant. Sometimes, however, an
action, an event or a word spoken by someone may have a symbolic value. For instance, “smile”
is a symbol of friendship. Similarly, the action of someone smiling at you may stand as a symbol
of the feeling of affection which that person has for you.

Symbols do shift their meanings depending on the context they are used in. “A chain”, for
example, may stand for “union” as well as “imprisonment”. Thus, symbolic meaning of an object
or an action is understood by when, where and how it is used. It also depends on who reads them.

Common Examples of Symbolism in Everyday Life

In our daily life, we can easily identify objects, which can be taken as examples of symbol such
as the following:

 The dove is a symbol of peace.

  A red rose or red color stands for love or romance.
 Black is a symbol that represents evil or death.
 A ladder may stand as a symbol for a connection between the heaven and the earth.
 A broken mirror may symbolize separation

Foreshadowing
Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come
later in the story.

Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story or a chapter and helps the reader
develop expectations about the coming events in a story. There are various ways of creating a
foreshadowing. A writer may use dialogues of characters to hint at what may occur in future. In
addition, any event or action in the story may throw a hint to the readers about future events or
action. Even a title of a work or a chapter title can act as a clue that suggests what is going to
happen. Foreshadowing in fiction creates an atmosphere of suspense in a story so that the readers
are interested to know more.

Example #1

Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is rich with foreshadowing examples. One of which is the
following lines from Act 2, Scene 2:

“Life were better ended by their hate,

Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love”

In the balcony scene, Juliet is concerned about Romeo’s safety as she fears her kinsmen may
catch him. Romeo says, in the above lines, that he would rather have her love and die sooner
than not obtain her love and die later. Eventually, he gets her love and dies for her love, too.

Example #2

Charles Dickens in “Great Expectations” uses a description of weather in chapter 39 to

foreshadow the momentous changes in “Pip’s” life and outlook:

“Stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a
vast heavy veil had been driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East
there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, that high buildings in
town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; and in the country, trees had been torn up, and
sails of windmills carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of shipwreck
 and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages of wind, and the day just closed
as I sat down to read had been the worst of all.”

The above lines are Pip’s observation on the weather before Magwitch’s arrival. It is a
foreshadowing as well as a representation of Pip’s inner chaos. Just as the angry winds leaves a
trail of destruction in London, Magwitch’s disclosure opens a path of destruction in Pip’s life.

Example #3

Examples of foreshadowing are also found in mystery and detective stories. The kind of
foreshadowing usually found in mystery or detective novels is “Red-Herring” – a misleading
clue that distracts readers by giving them wrong hints about future events.

For example, the character of “Bishop Aringarosa” in “Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown is shown
to act in such a suspicious way that the readers are bound to suspect him to be the mastermind of
the whole conspiracy in the church. His mysterious actions seemingly foreshadow the exposure
of his crime in a later part of the narrative but later it was revealed that he was innocent and not
involved in any secret action. Characters like Bishop Aringarosa contribute to the mystery and
suspense of the novel.

Example #4

In John Steinbeck’s novel “Of Mice and Men”, George killing Candy’s dog foreshadows Candy
killing Lennie because Candy is identical to George and Lennie to the dog. Even the nature of
the death of the dog was the same as Lennie’s as both were shot in the back of the head. Candy
tells George, “I ought to of shot that dog myself”. He chooses to kill Lennie himself in order to
save him from being killed by a stranger.

Flashback
Definition of Flashback
Defining flashback, Merriam Webster says that it is:

“an interruption of the chronological sequence (as of a film or literary work) of an event of
earlier occurrence”.

Flashbacks are interruptions that writers do to insert past events in order to provide background
or context to the current events of a narrative. By using flashbacks, writers allow their readers to
gain insight into a character’s motivation and provide a background to a current conflict. Dream
sequences and memories are methods used to present flashbacks.

When I went out of the drawing room, first thing that came into view in the open corridor way was the
picture of my brother. [I just got the point why my mother used to see that portrait hours after he was
killed in the WWII, and she left only when she saw any one of us coming to her.] I just heard  steps and
when I looked back, there was nothing that I could see. It was just a feeling of the past.

Sentence enclosed in brackets is a flashback. It has interrupted the current event in form of a
sudden thought giving us an insight into the past of the narrator.

Examples of Flashback in Literature

Let us see some examples of flashback:

Example #1

The Bible is a good source of flashback examples. In the Book of Matthew, we see a flashback
has been used when Joseph, governor of Egypt, sees his brothers after several years, Joseph
“remembered his dreams” about his brothers and how they sold him into slavery in the past.

Example #2

Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman” uses flashback to narrate Willy Loman’s memories of the
past. At one moment, Willy talks with his dead brother while playing cards with Charley. He
relives a past conversation in the present. This demonstrates a character that is physically living
in the present but mentally living in the memories and events of the past.

Example #3

Another example is the ballad of “The Cruel Mother.” A mother remembers her murdered child.
While going to a church, she remembers her child’s birth, growing up, and death. Later, she
thinks back further to a distant time in her past to remember how her own mother was ruthless to
her.

Example #4

“Wuthering Heights” (a novel written by Emily Bronte) starts off with Cathy, one of the main
characters dead. Mr. Lockwood sees Cathy’s name written all over the windowsill and then has a
vexing dream about her. When he talks about the dream to Heathcliff, Heathcliff becomes too
distressed. Mr. Lockwood wants to know why the mention of Cathy upsets him. The flashbacks
are means to ‘bring Cathy back to life’ so Mr. Lockwood has a better perception of why
Heathcliff was so upset. The Flashbacks show the development of the love that Heathcliff and
Cathy had for each other grew and how their poor decisions separated them. It would not have
the same effect, if Ellen had only told Mr. Lockwood that Cathy was a person that Heathcliff
loved and that she died.
Example #5

Robert Frost, in his poem “Birches”, employs flashback. In this poem, a character sees swaying
birch trees and says, “So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back
to be.” He goes back to the days of his childhood, and then returns to the present and says, “I’d
like to get away from earth awhile, and then come back to it and begin over.” The narrator
remembers and desires for the freedom and joy he experienced as a child swinging on birch trees
and wishes to return to that moment of his childhood.