Foreshadowing - in which a certain image or event may hint at something that becomes more significant later on in the story.
Authors often use different literary devices to grab the reader's attention, or to establish basis for plot development later on in the novel. In Herman Melville's Billy Budd, Melville uses the literary device of foreshadowing to allow the audience to be aware of Billy's inevitable fate before the characters in the novel, thus creating a feeling of suspense within the novel.
In chapter one, the incident with the Red Whiskers (12) functions as a foreshadowing of Bi…
