Chapters One—Two
Standards Focus: Foreshadowing
An author frequently includes subtle details or clues which hint at, or foreshadow,
upcoming events in a novel. Foreshadowing allows an author to build a novel while laying
the groundwork for upcoming character and plot development. To utilize foreshadowing, an
author must plan the entire scope of a novel before he/she begins to write. Detailed
planning allows the author to include foreshadowing throughout the novel.
Directions: Below are some examples of foreshadowing in The Giver. For each example,
write a specific prediction about the character or plot development that you believe is
being foreshadowed. After you finish reading the novel, reread your predictions to see
how accurate they were. An example has been done for you.
Example. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.
Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown
the community twice. . . . He had never seen aircraft so close, for it was against the rules for
Pilots to fly over the community. (pg. 1)
Prediction: Planes flying over the community will frighten Jonas in the future. They may be
war planes about to attack the community.
Individual Practice:
1. Father was listening with interest. “I’m thinking, Lily,” he said, “about the boy
who didn’t obey the rules today. Do you think it’s possible that he felt strange and
stupid, being in a new place with rules that he didn’t know about?”
Lily pondered that. “Yes,” she said, finally.
“I feel a little sorry for him,” Jonas said, “even though I don’t even know him.
I feel sorry for anyone who is in a place where he feels strange and stupid.” (pg. 6)
Prediction:
2. Jonas and Lily nodded sympathetically as well. Release of newchildren was
always sad, because they hadn’t had a chance to enjoy life within the community yet.
And they hadn’t done anything wrong.
There were only two occasions of release which were not punishment. Release
of the elderly, which was a time of celebration for a life well and fully lived; and
release of a newchild, which always brought a sense of what-could-we-have-done.
This was especially troubling for the Nurturers, like Father, who felt they had failed
somehow. But it happened very rarely. (pgs. 7-8)
Prediction:
3. Jonas shivered. He knew it happened. There was even a boy in his group of Elevens
whose father had been released years before. No one ever mentioned it; the disgrace
was unspeakable. (pg. 9)
Prediction:
4. His father nodded. “His name—if he makes it to the Naming without being released,
of course—is to be Gabriel. So I whisper that to him when I feed him every four
hours, and during exercise and playtime.” (pg. 12)
Prediction:
5. The Receiver was the most important Elder. Jonas had never even seen him, that he
knew of; someone in a position of such importance lived and worked alone. (pg. 14)
Prediction: