"It's More Than Just Rain or Snow"

You're reading a book and all of a sudden it starts pouring down raining or snowing like a blizzard. Weather in literature will more than likely mean more than rain or snow itself. Well what does it mean you might ask. Weather symbolizes emotions and foreshadows events in literature. Rain can mean some type of physical or mental cleanse in one or more of the characters. As well as it is restorative bringing two people together just as in romantic stories, such as "The Great Gatsby". Daisy and Gatsby reunite on a rainy afternoon. Once things get a little less awkward they start talking and their love reawakens just as the sun starts to come out. As well in the romantic novel and film The Notebook after years of being on and off the couple reunite in the rain. They realized that they were meant to be together and they continue their life until they grow old and die around the same time. While rain means one thing thunder foreshadows bad events. In the novel/movie Holes the Yelnats family has been cursed, with bad luck, and the son Stanley Yelnats is sent to a Camp Green Lake. It never rains at this correctional facility and hasn't for a hundred years. Each day the boys going into the dried up lake bed to dig holes to gain character. Stanley and his friend, Zero, find the treasure one hundred years after the day the Yelnats family had been cursed and the father of Stanley also find a cure to prevent foot odor. Lastly, it begins to rain. The drought seems like an insignificant detail, but it alludes to the fact that the curse was also preventing the rain. 

Weather is a major factor when it comes to the attitudes of people as well. In "The Great Gatsby" Gatsby and Tom have their confrontation on the hottest day of the summer. Summer equals anger and tension in which those were at an all time high. Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn; he floats in the pool despite the chill in the air. Symbolized the attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with daisy.

In The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, young Lucy Pevensie becomes the first character to discover the magical world of Narnia by crawling through a wardrobe. When she reaches the land, snow covers the terrain. Now, Narnia is huge. The landscape varies: covered in snow, forest, and fields. Snow invokes feelings of fascination and wonder, which Lucy feels as she travels through her new discovery. A landscape coated with snow seems new and quite different from the original landscape. Similarly, Narnia is a new and fresh landscape to Miss Pevensie. On the other hand, snow can be cold and dangerous. When the White Witch is introduced to the reader, she is coated in white furs and pulled by polar bears. Lewis clearly wanted to associate her with snow as well. The White Witch, is not fresh and quiet, but is instead icy and cruel. As much fun as snow can provide, we often forget how we would die if left alone in it. Snow can be unforgiving, just like the White Witch that tempts Lucy's brother Edmond.

Weather sets the story up, it helps get out the main purpose. It is really necessary to have different aspects of weather to develop a wonderful peace of literature.