Foreshadowing

Malcolm X uses foreshadowing to highlight how far his life has taken him as well as to prepare his readers for disappointment and trauma. For example, early in the book he speaks of his successes as well as of his less admirable points. When he moves to Boston, he relates, he hears about Harvard Law School. ' 'No one that day could have told me I would give an address before the Harvard Law School Forum some twenty years later," he continues. A few sentences down the page, he hints, "I didn't know how familiar with Roseland I was going to become," referring to the many nights he spent dancing and partying at the famed ballroom.

Malcolm X' s references to his death increase as the autobiography moves toward its finale. Much of this, of course, has to do with his awareness that some in the Nation of...