The Use of Symbolism to Foreshadow the Future in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour and Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

The Use of Symbolism to Foreshadow the Future in Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour and Toni Cade Bambara's The Lesson

Often authors use signs to foreshadow events that will happen in the future in their stories. For example an author might write "As he was walking down the dark eerie path dark skies began to form" . Here the writer uses a usually negative sign to foreshadow a negative future. This is the most common way for authors to foreshadow in a story, but it isn't the only way. In some instances authors use symbols to foreshadow the future of a character. Like foreshadowing with signs, symbols can also be used to foreshadow both positive and negative futures. In the two short stories "The story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara the authors use symbols to foreshadow both a positive and negative futures. In "The Story of an Hour" Chopin uses positive symbols to foreshadow a woman's future without her husband who was killed in a railroad accident. In "The Lesson" Bambara uses a toy sailboat to foreshadow both positive and negative futures of a little girl named Sylvia.

Chopin's story begins with a woman who has locked herself up in her room who stares endlessly out her window after getting word of her husbands death. As the woman is looking out of her window she begins to think about her new life and what is in store for her now that she is widowed. An important note about this story is that it takes place back in the 1890's. In the 1890's woman had very little rights and were very dependent

upon their husbands whether they loved them or not. As the woman stares out of her window the reader quickly learns about her true feelings. Through foreshadowing with symbolism we find out...

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...here the poor will stay poor and the rich will stay rich. It is wrong when a child's tyo cost more than any of the children's houses. Toys are toys therefore they should not cost large amounts of money, but since the toys in that store are for people who are wealthy and wealthy people only they make it impossible for poor families such as the childrens to afford them.

In both stories both authors effectively used symbolism to foreshadow their main characters futures. In Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" the symbolism was all positive and pointed to a positive future for the woman. On the other hand in Bambara's "The Lesson" the symbolism was very subjective and could be interpreted as either positive or negative symbolism. I feel that the subjectivity of Bambara's use of symbolism was more effective because it could be interpreted as positive and negative things.