hills] towered, with the afternoon sun falling upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled....

It is only a bit later, as the coach approaches the place where Harker is to be left off, that he says they have seemingly entered a different atmosphere, stormy instead of tranquil, with rolling clouds overhead. Later, after Dracula's driver (actually Dracula himself, I have always assumed) has picked him up and the seemingly interminable and repetitive journey to the castle occurs, it begins to snow. But here again, the image evoked is more a kind of picturesque one, given us for the sake of the beauty of the scene we might imagine of a remote roadway clothed in white, despite the horrors of the surrounding wolves and the "blue light" that mysteriously appears in the darkness.

Elsewhere in the novel are similar descriptions which do not have a specific connection with the plot, but are enhancements of the power of Stoker's prose to delineate the images presented to us. Seward's striking account of the appearance of the vampire that Lucy has become is a good example. As expected, it is a moonlit night, clear enough that they can see her face with frightening clarity:

Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves.

It has always interested me that before the use of electric lighting became standard, authors seemed to regard the moon as a much more powerful source of illumination than it appears to us today (or at least to me). In this sentence, it's also possible that Stoker uses the allusion to the moon because it provides another opportunity to mention that Van Helsing is a man with nerves of steel in the face of a vampire.

In our time we've probably been over exposed to the above-mentioned cliches of Gothic horror through film and TV. It's refreshing to look back on the novel Dracula to see that, even in the quintessential horror novel, Stoker did not use the weather in this banal manner but for other perhaps more interesting purposes.

The weather serves to establish a mood that is associated consistently with the character of Dracula, as well as to convey the kind of landscape in which his castle is tucked away. When Harker originally approaches the area, the landscape’s glowing colors set against the sunny sky impress him. As they move through Borgo Pass, however, the atmosphere and sky change, and they are entering the “thunderous” atmosphere that Harker feels is “oppressive”:

There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder.

Weather plays a significant role as well as Dracula nears England. The huge storm that blows off the northern coast stands for the trouble that he will be causing. As a plot device, the gale forces his ship aground near Whitby, where the dog/vampire escapes. And on the vampire hunting party’s return to Transylvania, where they eventually run him to ground, the snow creates a more challenging environment as well as providing symbolic purity.

Shakespeare places a great level of importance on weather in his works.  For example, weather figures prominently in Macbeth.  The opening scene when we meet the witches is one where skies are overcast and an ominous tone in the weather is struck.  Duncan is also killed when bad weather is present.  In King Lear, the madness scene is staged in the midst of a brutal storm which fits the scene quite perfectly given Lear's state of mind.  We can see this in other plays, as well, such as the appropriately titled, "The Tempest."  This theory of correspondence is a strong theme in Shakespeare's works where the weather is almost a side character in the plays and drama.   It might not be part of the plot, but the audience is forced to reckon with the fact that the weather is a part of the unfolding sequence of events.

In the novel, Dracula by Bram Stoker, weather can be discussed in several ways.  Think of how the weather affects the characters--not their actions, but the people themselves.  Think how weather sets the atmosphere in the story such as the appearance of the castle, and  the ghostly landscape which adds so much to the fear and madness expressed by the reactions of the people Jonathan meets.  Imagine being in London in the graveyard and at Lucy's tomb if it were set in bright sunshine.  Weather can affect mood and tone, the atmosphere in which the characters operate, and above all, the continual scraping of fear and anxiety which the ghostly, dark, dreary weather produces.  If one hears odd noises in a brightly lit home, the effect is far different when the home is like the count's castle.  Think of weather as another tool the writer can use to create the story and how it affects the people, the background, and the emotions of the reader.  Then choose the elements you can use to show how the weather is important in your essay.