Indirect Foreshadowing In Marie De France

Marie de France wrote several short poems, called lais. Many of these such as Equitan, Bisclavret, and Le Fresne focus on love that causes trouble for the characters. In Equitan, the main character falls in love with an Elven queen, a relationship about which he can tell nobody. Bisclavret falls prey to an unworthy wife and his beastly form. Le Fresne’s affair suffers due to her mother’s slanderous words and a lover who is ruled by his men. Marie de France uses both direct and indirect foreshadowing in these lais to imply that misfortune will fall upon the characters and each use works to keep readers intrigued in the story.
In the poem Equitan, Marie de France uses foreshadowing when she directly states that cataclysm is impending upon the characters. Marie says this about the wife, “As his wedded wife the seneschal had a woman who was to bring great misfortune to the land.” This statement proves true as both the wife and king die in the end due to their romance, thus causing a new king to be necessary. Marie tells the audience that a tragedy will occur, and that is used to draw the audience into the tale. By stating it

directly, she informs the reader of the importance of the wife before the story had even begun, causing wonder and pique the interest of what she would do to bring about misfortune to an entire land. By using direct instead of indirect, it creates a sense that the misfortune would be worse than if Marie had only hinted to the impending catastrophe.
The story of Le Fresne consists of mostly indirect foreshadowing, from which, by using context, the reader can infer that something will occur later in the narrative. The first case appears when the wife “spoke foolishly” that twins are never born from only one father. At this point readers can infer that, due to the word “foolishly”, the wife will most likely have twins. Her slander was to her own misfortune because she then indeed had twins, and was forced, in order to spare her reputation, to get rid of one of the girls. The second example of indirect foreshadowing used in Le Fresne was spoken by the lord, “Be sure I shall never fail you and shall provide for you well.” This quote was spoken as the lord was convincing Le Fresne to run away with him. In this context, the audience can assume that something will transpire that will not be good for the couple. As they couldn’t marry, the lord was forced by his subjects to take a worthy wife. Due to this, briefly, the lord is married to Le Fresne’s sister, causing her much distress, but soon settles to a happier conclusion as the mother recognizes her daughter after her original blunder.
The use of indirect foreshadowing in Le Fresne does more to allude to what would happen at a later time in the story, rather that stating the plot at the beginning.

This causes readers to have the feeling that something will occur without being completely sure, creating more intensity and more of a driving factor to finish the story. The finesse of the indirect foreshadowing causes the story to seem more elegant and gives more of a fairy tale quality rather than the disaster of Equitan. Indirect foreshadowing is much less drastic in how it informs readers that something will occur, and, in context, insinuates that the event will be less major that using direct foreshadowing. Though they are both foreshadowing, and ultimately have the same effect, the differences between the direct statement and the indirect suggesting alter the tone of the

stories.
In Bisclavret, the foreshadowing used is a mixture of direct and indirect. Direct in that what will happen is clearly stated, indirect in that it was intended to be a hypothetical. Bisclavret says to his wife, “If I tell you this, great harm will come to me, for as a result I shall lose your love and destroy myself.” This quote was in response to her question about where he disappears to for three days at a time. He eventually tells her that he turns into a werewolf, and then she proceeds to ask what he does with his clothes. He responds, “If I lost them… I should remain a werewolf forever.” And she convinces him that she is his wife, therefore trustworthy. However, both of quotes prove true, because she has a lover steal his clothes so that he remains a werewolf because she could no longer love him with the knowledge of what he becomes. “Thus was Bisclavret betrayed and wronged by his wife.” This last quote serves to sound as the conclusion to the foreshadowing. It is hinted with the indirect foreshadowing used previously, and then this definite statement acts as the denouement for the first section of the narrative where Bisclavret is in his human form. It achieves the same foreboding sense as the original foreshadowing, while confirming plot.
Therefore, the foreshadowing in three of Marie de France’s stories, Equitan, Le Fresne, and Bisclavret, are of two types, direct and indirect, but serve the same purpose and achieve similar effects. Though the indirect use is more subtle and requires a more vigilant recognition, even if it is not pointed out by the reader as foreshadowing, it gives same the sense of foreboding and expectation that direct foreshadowing creates. Each example suggests a misfortune to fall upon one or more characters and the fact that none of them are positive predictions is very telling of what was the driving force behind each of Marie de France’s lais.