Prompt #5 The Weather

In Thomas Foster’s book How to Read Literature Like a Professor, he introduces many different elements of writing and affirms our knowledge about them right before he asks a very important question throughout the book: Why?  One of the more crucial instances in the book when Foster follows this MO is when he discusses the weather as a factor in a work of fiction.  Weather is an element that transcends the setting of a work.  It can become a strong symbol or archetype in a work rather than just create a scene or backdrop.  Various stories make use of the weather to symbolize a new beginning.  A sunrise after a dark storm is one of the most common ways to represent this new foundation.  The book of Genesis includes this element which also has turned into an archetype easily seen through other works and other stories about floods.  In the book of Genesis God floods the Earth and he does so with rain.  God makes it rain for 40 days and 40 nights in a successful attempt to cleans the Earth and give his creation, mankind, a chance for a rebirth through his choice to give Noah and his family salvation from the rain.  That is the archetype that follows rain and floods.  Water has the ability to purify or destroy based off of its use and desired function.  It can bring damnation or salvation either by washing away the negative or destroying everything within its path.  After the waters recede from the Earth, God makes the sun come out along with an eventual rainbow to symbolize his covenant with Noah not to flood the Earth again as well as to symbolize a rebirth.  That is one of the greatest examples of the weather’s large scale implications in a story. It is more important than a tool used to create an image in the readers head or set a mood.