Examples Of Foreshadowing In And Then There Were None

Imagine knowing that you were going to be killed within the next few days. But you don’t know how. Paranoia. Schizophrenia. Maybe even insanity. All of these feelings would set in as you sit waiting to be the next victim. This is what the characters in the famous mystery novel, And Then There Were None, felt. The book is a famous mystery novel by Agatha Christie, who is known as the queen of mystery. This novel is seen as her masterpiece and was the hardest book for her to write. She builds suspense in And Then There Were None by using many examples of literary devices. Some of these examples include foreshadowing, characterization, and irony.

Foreshadowing is one of the examples. One of the first examples of foreshadowing is on page 24. When Vera sees the island for the first time, she says that “she had pictured it differently, close to shore, crowned with a beautiful white house. But there was no house visible, only the boldly silhouetted rock with its faint resemblance to a giant Indian's head.

After they realize that the assailant is one of them, and not someone hiding on the island, (on page 165) the first character introduced, Justice Lawrence Wargrave, said that “I reiterate my positive belief that of the seven persons assembled in this room one is a dangerous and probably insane criminal… From now on, it is our task to suspect each and every one amongst us.” While they do this, they believe that the murderer is one of the others (which is true), but their guesses are usually incorrect. For example, on page 169-170, Philip Lombard and Vera Claythorne discuss who they think the killer is and both of them are wrong. Philip suspects Judge Lawrence Wargrave and Vera suspects Doctor Armstrong, who Lombard soon begins to distrust as well. The use of irony adds to the suspense because it shows that the characters cannot escape their fate by reasoning out who the killer is, as they are always