Chapter 10 - Literature

For this chapter "It's More Than Just Rain or Snow" I compared it to "Spring" by Charles Simic. Foster begins this chapter by describing why the cliche term, "It was a dark and stormy night...", was appropriate to use in the few works that it opened. Foster broke down the term by the weather that the term used and then what is normally associated with that form of weather. This is quite an interesting tool, and it also reminded me once again that stories and ideas within stories are all tied together in some way or another. I compared this chapter to "Spring" by Charles Simic. This poem uses so many terms involving weather and because of the title them terms are not hard to interpret because you know what they are referring to. This poem seems to have a chronological setup, as if you were traveling through the course of Spring. The tone of this poem changes somewhat throughout the course of its stanzas, it starts rather mysterious with "a hill without a name' almost portraying the many inner beauties of nature when spring time rolls around. And then "The winds of Autumn" bring the more peaceful tone out of the poem. Finishing with the lightning "into the gloom" of course bring the less bright and peaceful side of Spring out into the poem. Fosters idea of "checking for the weather" in a novel, is a good tool to use for predicting the overall tone of the novel, and also a way to get inside the authors head and think farther into why he choose that particular form of weather and maybe get a more in depth view behind that decision.