Weather Symbolism

Chapter ten of How to Read Literature Like a Professor explains the important role weather plays on literature. For instance, snow is not just snow in a novel. It symbolizes so much more in both positive and negative ways; it is stark, filthy, playful, and clean, and you can do just about anything with it. In “The Dead,” Joyce breaks his main character down until he can look out at the snow, which is “general all over Ireland,” and then the reader realizes snow is like death. It paints the image that “upon all the living are the dead.”

Weather demonstrates the boys’ declination into savagery. Rain only occurs a few times throughout the novel, one being Simon’s death.

To any regular student, two and two equals four, analyzing is a chore, and George Orwell’s 1984 is nothing more than the psyche of the novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith. However, when such a student disregards a mundane way of thinking and adheres to Thomas C. Foster’s, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines, it becomes blatantly obvious that two plus two could indeed equal five as Smith’s psyche could very well as easily become theirs. No novel is ever simply just a novel and with chapters such as “Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires”, “It’s All Political”, “Yes, She’s a Christ Figure Too”, and “...Except Sex” from Foster’s literary guide provide insight into the abstractness

In Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, numerous references are made to different conditions of weather. Even the title of the novel suggests the storminess present in nearly the entire book. The often-changing weather serves to signify the characters’ personalities, as well as the changes that they go through during the course of their lives.

Foster’s insights about seasons and weather in literature change the story’s interpretation by clarifying their purposes. Foster’s main idea in the chapter It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow is weather always has a purpose; for example, rain, which has an “association with Spring,” can allow a “character to be cleansed symbolically” and “can bring the world back to life.” This insight is clear in the short story as outside Mrs.Mallard’s room the “trees were all aquiver with the new spring life” and “the delicious breath of rain was in the air.” The rain and spring weather may be dismissed as merely setting, but Foster’s insights allow the deeper meaning behind the inclusion of rain and spring to be clarified. The rain and spring show how Mrs.Mallard was cleansed

When it comes to literature, weather can be used in many different ways. It can symbolize theme, set the mood of the story, and even affect the plot. In Tangerine by Edward Bloor, the weather acts as a plot device and as a symbol.

Unquestionably, all novels can convey multiple meanings depending on a variety of factors with the most important being the manner in which the audience interprets the author’s words. More importantly, to professionally draw conclusions concerning the message the author demonstrates throughout a text, it is essential to discuss and apply the five literary elements of literature to the text. In greater detail, when a work itself is criticized or evaluated, usually one literary element is focused on to prove an argument pertaining to a novel. To bring the topic into focus, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 possesses many points that could be argued in contradictory ways based upon factual

One of the first items the author states is that all symbolism is intentional, there are no accidents when it comes to analyzing famous literature. He describes certain authors like James Joyce and T.S. Elliot as “intentionalists” or writers who purposely try to control every part of the story through symbolism. The author Thomas Foster teaches us never to overlook anything in a novel even if it be little things like the color shirt they are wearing or what the weather is like outside. Building more off the last statement, precipitation, whilst being a little detail added into a story, holds a lot of important roles in moving the story along and even providing hardships for characters to overcome. Even more than that though, he says “It’s never just rain”, rain provides as a symbol in the story so that if someone is in the rain it’s almost as if they are being cleansed.

Chapter 9 of Foster’s book is all about the weather and how it affects the story. Foster claims that “weather is never just weather” (Foster, 70). As he says this, he also explains how rain carries a deeper meaning when it is presented in a setting, and that is the same for fog, lightning, and sunshine. In Frankenstein, weather promotes a deeper meaning when Victor’s brother dies. Victor exclaims, “William, dear angel! This is thy funeral, this thy dirge...a flash of lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to me: its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect, more hideous than belongs to humanity,” (Shelley, 77). This quote shows how a scary scene is accompanied by lightning to add to the spookiness. This

Weather can influence many things in literature. It can influence the mood, plot, characters, & setting. Foster makes it very clear to us that an author will never put weather into a story with no reasoning behind it. Weather is not just simply a setting in literature.

In the natural world, weather is unpredictable and can strike at any moment. However, in literature the author has the power to decide when a storm will hit. As explained in Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, the author always has a purpose behind a weather occurrence. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger has instances of snow and rain that undoubtedly serve a deeper meaning than just drenching the protagonist. The instances of snow and rain in Catcher in the Rye bear symbolic representation of struggle, which ultimately leads to a cleanse.

As Thomas C. Foster states in his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, if a reader is analyzing a work, "one does well to remember, as one starts reading a poem or story, to check the weather" (Foster 75). If there's one element of a literary work that can easily affect a scene, it is the weather. Weather in literature can vary greatly from rain to snow to hail to fog and onwards. There is one type of weather, however, that is prominently featured within Albert Camus' novel The Stranger, and that is hot, sunny weather. The novel's protagonist Meursault frequently makes remarks of the weather surrounding him, from the blazing sun at his mother's funeral to the blinding light on a beach in Algiers where he shoots a man dead. If connected, the reader can understand that the weather is simply not there to set the scene -- it is there to affect Meursault's feelings and actions in the moment.

It bores me and makes me want to not finish the rest of the novel. I did, despite my lack of love for lengthy setting descriptions and repetitiveness, finish the book, and continued to complete the rest of my summer homework. While reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C Foster, I made quite a few discoveries. In chapter ten: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow, Foster emphasizes that weather is never just weather. Because of Thomas C Foster, I had learned that Russell Banks talks about the weather so much for a reason.

Foster points out that the weather plays a critical role in a work of literature. Whether it be for plot development or for a democratic reason, rain, snow, or fog plays a significant role in literature. In general, rain can bring about enlightenment and restoration, and snow can bring abstract thought. What an author does with rain, snow, or fog in the novel can signify a change in character or parallel the atmosphere or what is happening in the novel. For much of A Thousand Splendid Suns, the characters must withstand a drought.

In literature, weather is a mechanism used to enhance and create mood. In the novel Life of Pi, it is used successfully in this way. However, Yann Martel’s use of weather in the story also portrays the overwhelming commotion in Pi’s subconscious as he undergoes 227 days at sea. The parallels between the weather and Pi’s journey of transcending his safety net, his normalcy, and his childhood are evident throughout the novel. Weather is a representation of the wholehearted connection Pi has with nature, as it often accurately represents his thoughts and emotions. Yann Martel uses weather as a medium to encapsulate the reader and put them in the novel, but also to convey the dire circumstances of Pi’s mind.