Weather Words and Plot Development the in Works of Jane Austen

This research explores how Jane Austen used nature as a device for social interaction in her novels using a frequency analysis of her usage of ‘weather words’ at pivotal moments in her texts. Textual analysis of Austen’s corpus was conducted in Voyant through trend analysis, bubbleline charts, and a microsearch. Contemporary works were also analyzed to provide further context to this study. The results lend additional support to the notion that Austen views of nature as powerful and central to the way people interacted, and influenced their social opportunities.