Foreshadowing by Gabby Yannotti

The novel that I am currently reading, Flowers for Algernon, uses foreshadowing. For those of you who don't remember, foreshadowing is when an author leaves clues as to what will happen next in the story, or how it will end. Flowers for Algernon was not a predictable book, but there was some foreshadowing. You see, the main character, Charlie Gordon, was a mentally retarded adult. Scientists had come up with a solution to cure his retardation. I can't go into detail about what they DID to cure him, (because I'm a bit unsure about that) but I know that they had to perform a surgery. But before they did the surgery on Charlie, they tested it on a rat named Algernon.

Algernon plays a key role because he is the source of foreshadowing. Everything that happens to Algernon happens to Charlie. When the experiment works, you are pretty sure that it will work on Charlie. Of course, its not always definite because Algernon is a rat, and Charlie is a human.

Another way that Daniel Keyes (the author of Flowers for Algernon) uses foreshadowing is through text. When Charlie begins to get smarter, he uses more advanced vocabulary in his log. Although Charlie doesn't see much of a difference at first, the readers can. It can be assumed that Charlie will continue to become smarter. This also happens around the end of the book. The readers can see the way Charlie writes change, and he begins to use simpler vocabulary. Even though Charlie describes what it is like for him to get smarter, and then for him to lose that intellect, the reader can understand better and make assumptions with Charlie's writing skills.