WEATHER AS METAPHOR

Photo by Nathan Anderson on Unsplash

“It was a dark and stormy night…” That famous line, which opens the novel Paul Clifford by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, has been repeated by almost every circle of ghost-story-telling friends since it was first published in 1830. Although weather as a plot element can easily fall into stereotypical cliches, it can also be an effective symbolic tool for the writer. Today, in my ongoing series on Gothic tropes and themes, I’ll touch on some examples of weather as a trope or thematic element.

Many classic works of Gothic literature use weather as a metaphorical device, including Ann Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho, where awful weather is so omnipresent as to call attention to itself in such a way that it becomes almost comical, which is one reason Jane Austen satirized it in Northanger Abbey. But, with a subtle hand, weather can become a masterful symbol.

In Daphne du Maurier’s My Cousin Rachel, the protagonist, Philip, describes the weather on the day in late September that widowed Rachel is set to arrive in England:

“Friday came all too soon. A moody, fitful sort of day, with gusts of wind. We often had them thus, the third week in September, with the big tides of the year. The clouds were low, scudding across the sky from the south-west, threatening rain before evening. I hoped it would rain.”

The whole countryside is in a state of unrest upon Rachel’s arrival. Philip doesn’t quite know what he’s asking for when he wants it to “rain,” and it makes everything that follows even more delightful as Rachel proceeds to shake up his world and his youthful hubris. Du Maurier threads these upsets in weather throughout the novel, in a poetically sly way.

In Kim Taylor Blakemore’s After Alice Fell, the oppressive, humid weather is an effective metaphor for main character Marion’s guilt and grief as well as the stifling hold her family exerts over her:

“I twist to the window, the memory edging away and scuttling under the bed. My skin flushes hot, unbearable under the stays in this horrible black dress that keep the day’s heat gripped tight in its fist.”

As someone with grief-related trauma, I am all too familiar with the smothering sensation Marion often experiences throughout the novel. Blakemore has crafted a true masterpiece that elegantly conveys the powerful emotions of grief, regret, and deep, abiding love.

In Diane Setterfield’s Once Upon a River, the Thames is the true star, but the weather also portends many of the events within the story as the villagers gather in the pub one frigid midwinter night:

“The door opened. It was late for a newcomer. Whoever it was did not rush to come in. The cold draft set the candles flickering and carried the tang of the winter river into the smoky room.”

The newcomer is an injured stranger, carrying the body of a drowned girl he found in the icy Thames. What happens next culminates in one of the most beautifully-written novels I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. The weather, and the fitful Thames, with its periods of flooding and life-giving abundance, are characters in their own right.

For Parting The Veil, I used weather as more of a metaphor—mostly winter’s chill—to convey the hopelessness Eliza begins to feel as dark forces close in around her. It’s foreshadowed early-on, in the first chapter, upon her summertime arrival to England from New Orleans:

“Eliza looked up at the heavy, lowering clouds. It was beastly cold—colder than she ever thought summer could be—but she would grow used to it. A life written by her own hand was worth a thousand cold summer days.”

In my current work-in-progress, the weather is used as historically accurate world-building, although the townsfolk ascribe it to supernatural causes. I chose to center weather within the plot, because drought was an unfortunate, real life foe during the time period I’m writing in—The Great Depression.

There are many, many more examples of weather as metaphor in Gothic fiction. It’s an element I always notice as a reader. As writers, weather can be a versatile way to convey the complexity of human emotion, ramp up the circumstances and stakes, and create unforgettable atmosphere in our stories. What are some of the ways you’ve used weather in your work? I’d love to hear in the comments!