Blog 5 Clare Loftus

Weather is essential in understanding the text because it not only directly affects the setting, but also weather influences the way people, or in this characters, act and the decisions they make. I think that weather can have a direct impact on society and our overall culture. For example, Florida has some of the highest crime rates in the United States. This is also the case in literature, but weather can be so much more than just an additional layer to the setting. It will set the mood for the entire story, but it also can be personified. There is a short story by Ray Bradbury called The Long Rain, the story is set on Venus where four astronauts have crash landed into a perpetual rain storm. Eventually the rain becomes this brooding force that ultimately causes the death of three of the four. At the end of the story the fourth finally reaches refuge at the Sun Dome; however, Bradbury hints that it may have just been a hallucination. This story is significant when discussing the literary benefits of weather because it is an excellent example of when the weather is the force to be reckoned with or the antagonist.

Another example where weather is personified and plays a crucial role in the plot of the story is The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen. It seems as if weather rarely has a positive influence when personified. In this story a young child is homeless on the streets on New Year’s Eve. She was selling matches, but she soon lights them to keep herself warm. In the matches she sees hallucinations of her dead grandmother. After the last match burns she dies overnight of Hyperthermia. These two stories are prime examples where weather has taken on the role of antagonist and become more than just added detail to the setting.