The Romantic and Victorian periods saw a flourishing of imagery: for the Romantics, because it often proved the best way to express their vague desires and philosophical ideas; for the Victorians, because social taboos too often prevented discussion of topics unless they were "codified" into acceptable images. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Charlotte Brontké's Villette, despite coming from these two different literary periods, share a typology of symbol. In each “bildingsroman,” storms provide a dominant textual metaphor for violent and confusing turning points in the main character's development. For Lucy Snowe, the storms accompany her in her development from a shy and frigid nurse to a more open and self-sufficient school teacher: although frightening and traumatic, the storms and experiences tend to shape and improve her personality. But for Victor Frankenstein, the storms punctuate his relationship with his horrific creation, and show his constant dissolution into tragedy and the quest for revenge. Villette practically opens with a storm: after the initial exposition, Lucy talks about how "it was a wet night; the rain lashed the panes, and the wind seemed angry and restless" the evening Polly first arrived home . This admittedly minor change in his life still presages, in its stormy accompaniment, the larger turning points in his life that the storms must indicate. Indeed, Lucy's stay with Polly and the Brettons is immediately followed by her famous and inexplicable "shipwreck" image that begins Chapter IV. Whether forced incest or simply financial setbacks and family deaths, it is this storm that produces much of the cold reserve and excess of reason that troubles Lucy for the rest of the novel... halfway through the paper. .....exiles at home: a history of literature in nineteenth-century America. Lanham: University Press of America, Inc., 1984. Mellor, Anne K. Mary Shelley. His life, his fiction, his monsters. Methuen. New York, London, 1988. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein New American Library Edition, 1983.Patterson, Arthur Paul A. Frankenstein Study. http://www.watershed.winnipeg.mb.ca/Frankenstein.htmlPerhaps you could place the following quotes at the beginning of the article for a stronger impact."These strange accents in the storm - this restless and hopeless cry - - denote an imminent state of the atmosphere unfavorable to life." (Bronté, p. 46) "This almost miraculous change of inclination and will was... the last effort made by the spirit of conservation to ward off the storm that was already suspended among the stars and ready to envelop me." (Shelley, p. 41)