Border Crossing Foreshadowing Analysis

This essay will focus on the foreshadowing and symbolism techniques found in Pat Barker’s book Border Crossing. It shows her intended message that relates to real life, especially in that moment of time when it was published as the book was written during a time when children who committed crimes was a big conversation topic. This was due to an unfortunate event, in which two 10-year-olds kidnapped, tortured and murdered a 2-year-old boy. The essay will discuss how Barker uses a quote from page 10 and uses mud to foreshadow the important events that come later on in the book. Also, how she used mud and fire to symbolise many things such as Danny’s problems, Danny’s personality and how it may feel to work with young criminal offenders.
Barker cleverly uses the phrase “Thank God, he could finally sign off now…” (Page 10) said by main character Tom Seymour to foreshadow the upcoming events that occur from then onwards. Since that small statement, Tom’s life flipped upside down. His love life diminished, his social life shrank and his work life took over. She used that one quote in a way that foreshadowed the very opposite event happening in the near future. The life of a psychologist, social worker or any other worker that works with troubled

The following quote from page 6 describes the mud in great detail “Thick, black, oily, stinking mud, not the inert stuff you encounter in country lanes and scrape off your boots at the end of the day, but a sucking quagmire, God knows how many feet deep.” Barker uses that event to foreshadow the “sticky” situation Tom is about to place himself in once he reconnects with main character Danny Miller. The author uses this dramatic event, to foreshadow the series of dramatic and confusing events that make up the story’s plot. Conveying her message of the messy work that clings to being a