Weather in Literature & Body Biographies

British LiteratureFebruary 23, 2015

Happy Mechanics Monday! Weather in Literature

WARM UP FOR 2/23

Analyze the weather in Wuthering Heights. How does the weather act as both a plot device and a symbol?

Chapter 10: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow

“Thomas Hardy…has a delightful story called ‘The Three Strangers’ (1883) in which a condemned man (escaped), a hangman, and the escapee’s brother all converge on a shepherd's house during a christening party…all of which takes place on a, well, dark and stormy night,” (Foster 76).

“Here’s what I think: weather is never just weather. It’s never just rain,” (Foster 75).

He uses it to force the men together. (Plot device)

Rain is good for setting the mood, as anything (good or bad) can take place in the rain. (Atmospherics)

No one likes being stuck in the rain. (Misery factor)

All sorts seek shelter from the rain. (Democratic element)

Rain can represent many things (Foster 77-78)

A stroll through rain can be deciphered as a symbolic cleansing, yet if you fall into the mud, you can become more stained than before.

It is used in works for its restorative properties. (i.e. the ending to A Farewell to Arms when the protagonist walks out of the hospital into the rain)

Symbol of Spring, so associated with new life.

Rainbows

“When you read about a rainbow, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s poem ‘The Fish’ (1947), where she closes with the sudden vision that ‘everything / was rainbows, rainbows, rainbows,’ you just know there’s some element of this divine pact between human, nature, and God,” (Foster 79-80).

In literature, it is used to symbolize promise and peace between earth and heaven.

Fog is used to suggest ambiguity, that the outcome is unclear.

“Dickens uses a miasma, a literal and figurative fog, for the Court of Chancery, the English version of American probate court where estates are sorted out and wills contested, in Bleak House (1853)” (Foster 80).

“Fog…always signals some sort of confusion” (Foster 80).

Snow can be “clean, stark, severe, warm (as an insulating blanket, paradoxically), inhospitable, inviting, playful, suffocating, filthy (after enough time has elapsed)” (Foster 80).

“And in ‘The Dead,’ Joyce takes his hero to a moment of discover; Gabriel, who sees himself as superior to other people, has undergone an evening in which he is broken down little by little, until he can look out at the snow, which is ‘general all over Ireland,’ and suddenly realize that snow, like death, is the great unifier, that it falls, in the beautiful image, ‘upon all the living and the dead’”(Foster 80-81).

Chapter 17 Timeline

Body Biographies You have five minutes to prepare for your

presentation to the class. You must explain the following:

› How the character is described physically in the novel.

› What is significant about that character and the important events that affect the character.

› What three adjectives you selected › Explain each symbol and artistic decision on

your symbolic drawing of the character.

Small Group Discussion Questions

What is the cause of the difference in Heathcliff, Hindley, and Edgar’s mourning? How do their different reactions affect the story?

What is the role of violence in Wuthering Heights?

What is Emily Bronte’s purpose in writing this violent and bizarre novel?