Hey, Buddy! Be Sure Not to Play in the River.

         In Chapter 9 of, "How to Read Literature Like a Professor",  Foster debunks the mystery of rain in both movies and literature. As well as explaining it's allegorical meaning behind Rain.
   
          Have you ever wondered why almost EVERY movie scene involving: heartbreak; death; or an emotional revelation, takes place when its raining? Yeah, me too. Well that's simply because it's symbolic, duh. If, Foster taught me anything in Chapter 9: It's More Than Just Rain or Snow, it's that: weather is never just weather. Regardless of what meteorological condition the author throws at you, whether it's hail, sunshine, downpour, or tornadoes; weather is always used as an element to shape the story.
          Allow me to provide a straightforward explanation: people associate emotions, experiences, and events with weather patterns. For example, Rain customarily connotes: enigma, anguish, and isolation; Sunshine however, brings feelings of elation, nostalgia, and frolicsomeness. In this chapter, Foster denotes the effect of Rain on the biblical tale of, "Noah's Ark". Many of the points composed by Foster, I considered relatable to the play, "The Diviners", by Jim Leonard. In the play, a young, benevolent, slow-minded boy named, Buddy Layman, encounters a near-death experience as a child when he almost drowns in a river while playing. Suddenly, in the knick of time, Buddy is rescued by his mother. However, while saving her child, the mother herself ultimately drowns. This plot point ties back in to the story of the Ark, by sharing the concept of water's ability to bring life full circle. By that I mean: where water takes old life away, it gives new life to opportunity to grow. Continuing on with the story, as time progresses, Buddy's abhorrence for water becomes increasingly present (and rightfully so), until one day when a ex-preacher named, C.C. Showers (obviously a reference to rain) strolls into town and befriends both Buddy and his sister, Jenny-Mae. Throughout the course of the play, the audience as well as the actors, begin to see that Jim Leonard's uses rainy scenes as a unifying element. Meaning: every time it there is a scene involving rain, all characters are seen on-stage.
          Another idea Foster shares about rain is the fact that, "It's clean". This notion is explicitly involved in the production when, Jenny-Mae and C.C. Showers bring Buddy out during a storm, in an effort to clean the blisters Buddy received as an aftereffect of a nasty ring-worm case he acquired towards the beginning of the story. Lastly, the concluding connection made between the Rain in both stories, it it's ability to lead people places to certain destinations. Just as the rain forces the animals to migrate aboard ship in Noah's story; Rain also manages to direct every character to the river in the closing scene of the show. And just as the flood eliminates those outside of the Ark in the biblical tale; "The Diviners" comes full circle as Buddy Layman's life is taken when he drowns in river during the final Rainstorm.

Side note- 'The Diviners' was performed at BTW, I played Basil Bennett.