In Charlotte Bronts novel, Villette, Bront strategically uses the brutality and magnitude of thunder storms to propel her narrator, Lucy Snowe, into unchartered social territories of friendship and love

After many months a second tempestuous storm ravages Villette and draws Lucy into another intimate, yet unexpected bond. Throughout most of the novel, Lucy finds M. Paul to be moody and unreasonable. She states, even after their friendship appears tighter following the delivery of her watchguard to him, “In a shameless disregard of magnanimity, he resembled the great Emperor [Napoleon]” (436). It is not until Père Silas details M. Paul’s history to Lucy that she can begin to truly understand M Paul’s peculiar character. After this explanation, Lucy’s view of M. Paul is transformed. She comments, “They showed me how good he was; they made of my dear little man a stainless little hero…What means had I, before this day, of being certain whether he could love at all or not? I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain tendernesses, fitfulnesses… this was all I had seen…And they, Père Silas and Modeste Maria Beck…opened up the adytum of his heart” (491).

However, Lucy would have easily escaped without the knowledge of M. Paul’s humanity had a large storm not occurred detaining her at the home of Madame Walravens. Lucy narrates, “Down washed the rain, deep lowered the welkin; the clouds, ruddy a while ago, had now through all their blackness, turned deadly pale, as if in terror. Notwithstanding my late boast about not fearing a shower, I hardly liked to go out under this waterspout” (482). Consequently, the old priest, Silas, finds Lucy waiting out the storm on the staircase and invites her back into the house. From him and through the painting on the wall of Justine Marie, M. Paul’s lost love, Lucy learns of M. Paul’s tragic history. Again, the occurrence of a violent and seemingly victimizing storm transforms Lucy’s life by leading her into a state of deeper intimation with a man she may otherwise never truly have known.

Therefore, by examining the similar consequences of the ravaging storms mentioned in the novel before the storm which shrouds the fate of Lucy and M. Paul, one can see that Brontë may have created a precedent for how the reader should understand the meaning of such a storm in the context of her novel. In both examples, the storms have appeared dreadful and limiting to Lucy, pushing her down or keeping her in from the move she wished to make. Yet neither have dreadful or limiting consequences. Instead, they lead Lucy into closer unions, with others as well as with herself. The storms lead her to people with whom she will come to love. They allow her to release her own stormy passions and to give them life. As Lucy says of M. Paul after falling in love with his true character, “He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt” (581). Hence, when Lucy speaks of the last storm with words such as, “Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder -- the tremor of whose plumes was storm”, the description seems to imply a violent and ominous outcome (596). What good can come from destruction? Yet, notice the words “angel” and “perfect” in this last quote as well. We have seen ‘what good’ can come from a destructive tempest for Lucy and in such fashion, we can only assume that this good will come again. Lucy will be further united to her dear M. Paul and to herself. Brontë has outlined this as the form to be followed and as readers, we must optimistically obey.