Rain, Rain, Go Away

To me, reading chapter ten of this book, "It's More Than Just Rain or Snow," seemed to be pretty tedious task, at first. Who doesn't know that rain casts a dark shadow in almost all situations? As a semi-professional rain hater, this concept was well understood, but then I kept reading...

Rain provides many contrasting elements to a story but most of them come from the darker side of the feelings scale; pain, discouragement, darkness, and often times rain also comes with the sense that there is something to overcome. My first question is: Why does rain have to have such negative symbolism?
Does no one realize that rain can produce a journey? Think about it, one of the main examples that Foster uses is of the hangman, the criminal, and the brother, the three are trapped together for a purpose - they share an experience together that would otherwise never happen, because of the rain. They share an experience because of the inconvenience that the rain caused. Rain almost always comes right before a major climax of any kind in a story and it has so many varying products, but the truth is its never about the products of rain. The real depth comes from what happens during the rain, not after you finally see the rainbow. This is why, the more I thought about the symbolism of rain, the less I understood it. I don't understand why, if something makes you grow and learn in the long run, anyone would focus on the negative temporary feelings. Granted I still hate the rain, but that's because since I don't live in a great work of literature, I've never had a life changing moment - good or bad - that has happened because of rain (or at all for that matter).

As a sensible person, I recognize that not all rain can have positive symbolism. Imagining rain in its simplest symbolic meaning, often said as "the dark and stormy night," its obvious that rain provides a sort of dark omen to literature, and for some reason writers of all types find it ever so necessary that this dark omen is put into place. Which brings me to my other question: Why do writers feel the need to make everything dark? And more questions spawn from that. Why does literature have to come from a place of darkness to be talked about? Why must something bad always happen to characters? Is there no way for a story of character to develop without being dragged through the literary mud (caused by the rain)? Maybe one day I'll find the answer the these questions and begin a new era of literature... One day.




Water, in its many forms, has so many meanings and interpretations, my favorite that Foster points out is the cleansing affects of floods. Foster points out floods can be symbolic of God's version of a redo button, but it can also be seen as a uniter of earth and sea. (That seems pretty obvious now that I've actually typed it.) Anyways, I find it interesting that in this day and age, with everyone denouncing religion and everything to do with it, that Bible is still the most commonly alluded to book in the world. No one would ever be able to see the good in something as devastating as a flood if it weren't for God's promise to Noah.

True quest or glorified road trip?

Let's say there's a boy, we'll name him Michael, and Michael just so happens to be homeless. And let us also picture this young, homeless boy, Michael, is walking down a long, lonely road just looking for a place to stay for the night, and just for the fun of it, let's add some rain to this sad picture. Now would you think that this the making of a grand quest, or simply just a walk down a road?

This is what the first chapter of the book has made to do to every main character in any book or movie that I come across. Until I read this, I never made it a point to differentiate between a simple trip and a quest; because, first of all, I didn't know there even was a difference, and second, because I honestly never cared enough to dig deeper into anything I've read (or seen). Now whether or not "Michael's" trip was just a trip or a grand quest is still up for debate, but the things that follow lead me to believe that Sir Michael is, in fact, a knight of sorts on a grand quest. His trip down the lonely road transformed into a quest of becoming a professional football player, and there was plenty of troubles along Sir Michael's way; and in case you didn't get it, this example is paying homage to the main character in the movie, "The Blind Side."


One thing that really stuck with me from this chapter is when Foster says "The reason for a quest is always self-knowledge" (which makes sense because usually people who go on quests suffer through some crazy trials that no one who is secure with themselves would bother facing.) And since this is the true meaning of a quest, could it not be said that puberty, not the physical but the maturing aspect of it, could be the ultimate quest for all humans. The pubescent years (teen years) are some of the most confusing times in a person's life, and most teens can't see it but the bulk of the trials that we face aren't just small individual molehills, but they add up to become one large mountain and overcoming that mountain of tribulations is what leads to maturity and self discovery, the ultimate goal of this quest.

Apparently a quest is the most basic idea in literature, this is quite unsettling for me since I have been having a particularly difficult time with it, but never the less I can see why that can be said. My problem arises mostly in the select instances when a trip to the store is simply a trip to the store, when saints aren't seen in random balloons, or when a random decision is just that and nothing more. I still haven't been able to come up with a decent example of a simple trip that doesn't become something more, even though according to the title of this chapter there should be a few. So maybe the title of the chapter is a little misleading, it should actually just be "Every Trip IS a Quest. Period."