How To Read Literature Like A Professor Prompt #5

     I definitely agree with Foster that weather is a very important factor in literature.   It sets the mood for the audience and makes them feel a certain way before the plot thickens or, in some cases, begins.  Like Foster mentioned, storms are used a lot in mystery novels to make the audience feel on edge and unsafe.  Branching out into seasons, summer is often a parallel of freedom and having no cares.  Sometimes, the weather is used to display irony; such as a death happening on a sunny day or in spring. 

     In Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, one of the sisters, Beth, dies in early spring.  Usually spring is the time of rejuvenation and happiness.  However Alcott manipulates our feelings associated with spring to make the sister’s death hit harder.  It causes an abrupt change of feeling while reading the book, which is exactly what Alcott was aiming for. 

     Other times, weather is used in a cliché manner.  In the Twilight Saga (this goes into geography as well), the story is set in Forks, Washington; a place that is always foggy and rainy.  This corresponds with Bella Swann’s inner psyche; she is a lonely girl who is trying to escape her mom and stepfather’s situation by moving in with her father.  She ends up falling in love with a vampire, the only person she feels accepts her.  The foggy and rainy weather also ties into the secrecy of the vampire clan along with their seclusion.  Overall, weather is very important in order to get the readers in a certain state of mind before anything really interesting happens in the story.