The most obvious example of foreshadowing is the hat the mother buys for seven dollars. Even though she has second thoughts about it, the sales lady convinces her to buy because "at least you won't meet yourself coming and going," meaning that it is unlikely that anyone else would have such a hat. Of course, this means that she will most definitely encounter someone with the same hat, as she does on the bus.
Another moment that foreshadows the end of the story is when the son fantasizes about bringing home a "distinguished Negro professor" to spend the evening, but realizes the event would likely cause his mother to have a stroke. As it turns out, the mother does have a stroke. The stroke is not because of anything the son says, but because she meets her black double, the woman wearing the same hat.
In fact, Julian and his...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
mother share a common sense of destiny, although their attitudes towards life might be different. When the mother chastises the son for removing his tie, she is reacting to what they both recognize as the problem of their lost social position. While the mother retains her upper class identity and propriety despite her reduced circumstances, the son grimly embraces his identity as typewriter salesman, while silently mourning the grad house that was supposed to be his.
Julian’s mother in the story eventually has a horrific stroke. While there are many details that indicate she is in poor health, there are other examples of foreshadowing in the story.
The event that seems to shock his mother the most is when the black woman on the bus assaults Julian’s mother for trying to give the boy a penny from her pocketbook. Julian tried to dissuade his mother from doing so, but she persisted.
The woman punching his mother is foreshadowed in Julian’s observation that his mother uses her condescending yet polite smile when she speaks to the woman on the bus. He “could feel the rage in her at having no weapon like his mother's smile.” The diction in this quote is violent and conveys the woman’s mounting anger toward Julian’s mother. While his mother thinks her “graciousness,” as Julian calls it, is a mark of dignity, the woman sees it as nothing but racism dressed in seemingly benign trappings. This particular quote shows that when Julian’s mother attempts to give the boy a penny, the woman is not going to be happy.
Another way in which O’Connor foreshadows Julian’s mother’s stroke is in the midst of the young man’s musings. While he rides the bus in a seat opposite his mother, Julian ponders all the ways he could irritate her by becoming closely associated with a black person, whom he could bring home to astonish her. He says that he “could not push her to the extent of making her have a stroke,” as he considers the possibilities. This is explicit foreshadowing because Julian is the one who drives his mother to a stroke, as he berates her for being foolish and childish.
The very first details in the story foreshadow the end. In the first line, we learn that Mrs. Chestny suffers from high blood pressure and has been going to a class at the local YMCA to lose some weight. Her face gets redder and redder throughout the story, as Julian does things to purposely upset her, and this serves as more foreshadowing. At one point, her face is an "angry red," and soon after, it becomes "unnaturally red, as if her blood pressure had risen." All of this detail prepares us for her eventual stroke at the story's end.
Further, Mrs. Chestny first says that at least she "'won't meet [herself] coming and going,'" and then a short while later, she quotes the saleslady as having said precisely the same thing in the store. The repetition of the idea that Mrs. Chestny expects to be the only person she meets who has the financial resources to purchase this unique and costly hat seems to foreshadow the fact that she's about to meet someone else wearing the hat, someone she wouldn't expect to have the money for it.