Flashforward

A flashforward (also spelled flash-forward; also called a prolepsis) is a scene that temporarily takes the narrative forward in time
from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media.[1] Flashforwards are often used to represent events
expected, projected, or imagined to occur in the future. They may also reveal significant parts of the story that have not yet occurred,
but soon will in greater detail. It is similar to foreshadowing, in which future events are not shown but rather implicitly hinted at. It is
primarily a postmodern narrative device, named by analogy to the more traditional flashback (or analepsis), which reveals events that
occurred in the past.

Contents
Examples in literature
Examples in television
Examples in film
See also
References
External links

Examples in literature
An early example of prolepsis which predates the postmodern period is Charles Dickens' novel A Christmas Carol, in which the
protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge is shown the future following his death. The subsequent events of the story imply that this future will
be averted by this foreknowledge.

Terry Brooks' Word & Void series features a protagonist who, when he sleeps, moves forwards and backwards through time to before
and after a great cataclysm. This is bothanalepsis and prolepsis.

Muriel Spark makes extensive use of prolepsis in her novelThe Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Examples in television
Every season of Damages makes an extensive use of flashforwards, revealing the outcome of the season to the viewer. The whole
season then revolves around discovering the circumstances that led to this outcome. For instance, the first season starts with a
flashforward of the protagonist, Ellen Parsons, running in the streets of New York, covered in blood. 6 months earlier, she was only a
naive young woman who had just become a lawyer in the firm of a powerful attorney, Patty Hewes. What led Ellen to the situation
presented in the flashforwards is revealed little by little throughout the season. Furthermore, the series is known for its misleading use
of flashforwards, which are often examples of thered herring device.

After making extensive use of flashbacks in the first two seasons, the TV series Lost used flashforwards throughout the remainder of
the series. The first use of this was in the third-season finale: what appeared to be a flashback to before the characters were stranded
on the island, was revealed at the end to be a flashforward of them returned to civilization. A later episode featured what appeared to
be flashforwards involving the couple Jin and Sun, showing them safely returned home and awaiting the birth of their baby, but it is
then revealed that Jin's scenes were flashbacks and only Sun's were flashforwards.
The series finale of Star Trek: Voyager, "Endgame", uses a technique similar to a flashforward. It depicts a future in which the U.S.S.
Voyager has returned home after decades lost in deep space with various personal tragedies, prompting the ship's captain to use time
travel to return to the timeframe of the series and return the crew home more directly
.

The U.S. sci-fi TV series FlashForward revolves around everyone on Earth losing consciousness for 137 seconds, during which each
person experiences a glimpse of events 6 months in the future.[2] The series was itself based loosely on the novel Flashforward by
Robert J. Sawyer.

[3]
British soap opera Hollyoaks flashed forward six months in May 2010 for a special episode.

The last episode of Six Feet Under has an extensive flashforward depicting the deaths of all the central characters for several decades
in the future.

Breaking Bad uses flashforwards throughout its second season showing a mystery regarding debris and corpses in Walter White's
house and neighborhood, revealed to be the result of two planes crashing overhead. The first half of the fifth season begins with a
flashforward one year into the future where Walter is fifty-two years old, and the second half begins with a continuation of the story,
where he returns to his abandoned home. The plot of these flashforwards is resumed in the
series finale.

How to Get Away with Murder uses in every episode flashforwards of scenes from future episodes until episode 9.

Quantico used flashforwards in order to unravel the future events that have occurred in the first and second season.

Examples in film
Midway through the film They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, there is an abrupt flashforward when Robert, the character played by
Michael Sarrazin, is seen being thrust into a jail cell by a police officer, even though he has done nothing to provoke such treatment.
The audience is notified, later in the story,that Sarrazin's character would have indeed made choices that warrant his arrest.

The film Arrival relies extensively on prolepsis throughout the movie. The main character gains this ability after learning the
language of the aliens, and proceeds to use it to prevent the outbreak of war. She uses information revealed to her in the future to
convince an important official not to attack the aliens, and to give her said information in the future.

See also
Foreshadowing
Literary technique
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Timeskip
Epilogue

References
1. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/flash-forward
2. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1441135
3. Green, Kris (15 December 2009)."Hollyoaks to air flashforward episode"(http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s13/holly
oaks/news/a191387/hollyoaks-to-air-flashforward-episode.html). Digital Spy. Retrieved 2009-12-15.

External links
The dictionary definition offlashforward at Wiktionary

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Flashforward&oldid=848034182

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This page was last edited on 29 June 2018, at 11:07(UTC).

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