ipl-logo

Analysis Of Joan Didion's The Santa Ana Wind

767 Words4 Pages

The Santa Ana Winds Analysis There are moments when mother nature does something that may be inexplicable to mankind. There is not always an explanation for why things happen, sometimes they just do. Joan Didion tries to describe the instinct that people have that tells them the Santa Ana winds are the reason for the change in the climate and within one another.
Didion sets a dreadful tone to her essay by associating a set of words that contain unhappy connotations, with the wind. She begins the essay by setting up an unpleasing mood for the audience. She includes context such as “uneasy, unnatural, and tension.” These few words hint at the unease that should be felt when reading her essay, in order to genuinely comprehend the effects the Santa Ana Winds will have in the local area of Los Angeles. As she continues to describe the setting she emphasizes the importance of the wind. She is able to guide her readers to the significance the wind will have not only on their environment but on …show more content…

Although she does write about all the logistical facts that occur within the city while the winds are passing through, she conveys her ideas in an effective method. As she is speaking scientifically she makes it easy to realize that Didion’s voice is still in this part of her essay. Her tone is never lost and therefore when she ends her excerpt with “One cannot get much more mechanistic than that,” she is referring back to her idea that the winds cause something in human nature to change, and that is the most valid explanation there is to offer.
Didion’s powerful use of negative diction, vivid imagery, and simple logical all helped her express her motives for writing about the Santa Ana Winds which is because she feels that they are essentially the reason for change not only around us but within

Show More
Related
578 Words | 3 Pages

Larson's main motivation for writing this book was that he could relate to the feelings of being hit hard with a hurricane and to the feelings of having your home damaged severely. The main point of the novel, "Isaac's Storm", was the hurricane itself. Although the events before the hurricane and after the hurricane play a big part, the main point of the novel was the moment when the hurricane actually hit. Isaac Cline and his family members were sheltered during the storm however major damage was done to houses and buildings in Galveston.

Read More
1529 Words | 7 Pages

This is a reality among the people of southern california when the Santa Ana winds take over. The essay “Brush Fire” by Linda Thomas is an emotional piece supported through facts and definitions which express how much the Santa Ana winds mean to her. The second essay discussing the winds is a piece which looks at the effects of the santa ana in almost the opposite way. The similarities and differences in “Brush Fire” by Thomas and “The Santa Ana” by Didion both express how meaningful the Santa Ana winds can be in two different writing styles.

Read More
790 Words | 4 Pages

The authors, Linda Thomas and Joan Didion intersect and diverge from one another in the passages. They use moves in their writing in order to shape their message about the winds. Both “Brush Fire” and “The Santa Ana” have different purposes for the readers. The purpose of “Brush Fire” is to entertain the audience and the purpose of “the Santa Ana” is to inform the readers of the behavior and the mood of Santa Ana during these times. The authors use rhetorical devices like tone and

Read More
763 Words | 4 Pages

Mastery Assignment 2: Literary Analysis Essay Lee Maracle’s “Charlie” goes through multiple shifts in mood over the course of the story. These mood are ones of hope and excitement as Charlie and his classmates escape the residential school to fear of the unknown and melancholy as Charlie sets off alone for home ending with despair and insidiousness when Charlie finally succumbs to the elements . Lee highlights these shifts in mood with the use of imagery and symbolism in her descriptions of nature.

Read More
710 Words | 3 Pages

Seasons typically divide a year into four parts (spring, summer, autumn, and winter). Weather is constantly changing throughout the year based on the current location of the sun in accordance to earth. The world relies on seasons to thrive, for instance, autumn is when nature shows its true beauty, bringing rain to quench the parched lips of summer. Although the changing of seasons may not be apparent in certain parts of the world, they are the key to human life. In “Something Uneasy in the Los Angeles Air,” Adrian Glick Kudler informs the public about Santa Ana winds in addition to introducing writers to back up her ideas.

Read More
590 Words | 3 Pages

Details, such as the “wild weather” and “cold sky” (62), form the basis of this foreboding tone. In learning that “[t]he wind warbled wild as it whipped from aloft” (62), the audience’s feelings of uneasiness about what is to come grow. Furthermore, the personification of weather as an antagonistic force allows for the description to have more of a

Read More
898 Words | 4 Pages

He compares lightning and snow to the wind in the forests. He explains that the wind doesn't have a favorite object such as the lightning strikes every other tree, and the snow "mows down thousands at a swoop as a gardener trims out a bed of flowers". The winds go to every single tree, fingering every leaf and branch and furrowed bole; not one is forgotten". After describing the wind, the author continues to explain that he moved up 600 feet to experience the wind and nature much closer. Although Muir describes the wind as a strong, mean force, he later explains that the sound of the wind is so soothing and relaxing, Muir compares the noise of the wind to music to his ear, he calls is "Eolian

Read More
999 Words | 4 Pages

Since it is ending, she switches from writing for the connection of the audience’s emotions, to providing actual information about the effects of the behavioral change. This is done in the last section by Didion to prove she did the research on why the storm affects people in Los Angeles and is not just giving her personal opinion. Therefore she switches from using emotionally sensitive words to more scientific words. For example in the first several sentences of the last section she states “ I did not know there was any basis for the effect… in which science bears… There is a number of persistent….

Read More
578 Words | 3 Pages

The excerpt from Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Beet Queen, tells the story of two siblings arriving in an unfamiliar town. The excerpt depicts the different reactions of the siblings to their situation. The imagery of the excerpt conveys the state of the unfamiliar environment. The selection of detail in the excerpt reveals the impact that the environment has on the children. In the excerpt from Louise Erdrich’s novel, The Beet Queen, Erdrich uses imagery and selection of detail to depict the impact of the environment on the two children.

Read More
730 Words | 3 Pages

Ann Petry pens a stimulating expositional read in her 1946 novel, The Street. Running with the over-arching anticipated universal theme of vulnerability, Petry establishes Lutie Johnson’s relationship with the urban setting quite succinctly. Through her use of well-placed literary conventions, Ann Petry delivers a piece that will withstand the test of time. Petry establishes the wind as a symbol of an attacker to foreshadow Lutie Johnson’s violent future. From the very first paragraph, the wind is written ripping through the street, doubling over the pedestrians against its force.

Read More
725 Words | 3 Pages

In many poems, poets use nature as a metaphor for human life. In "Storm Warnings" by Adrienne Rich, she uses an approaching storm as a metaphor for an emotional storm inside herself. Although, there is a literal meaning of the poem. There really is an incoming storm. Rich uses structure, specific detail, and imagery to convey the literal and metaphorical meanings of the poem.

Read More
322 Words | 2 Pages

The impact of the weather scene is a way to indirectly relate to the murder of Victor’s young brother, William. The author, Shelley utilizes weather to convey the Victor’s emotional feelings about the murder of his bother William. Through imagery in the quote, Shelley is able to utilize words to describe the weather relating them to both the storm and what has happened to our protagonist. To me, the flashes of light illuminate the lake which is his brother. William’s illumination is the light of his life is soon quenched when the author describes the “pitchy darkness”

Read More
814 Words | 4 Pages

Joan Didion’s “Los Angeles Notebook” is an essay that highlights the deeply mechanistic view of human behavior by using images that are both enticing, yet horrifying at the same time. Her audience is broader than the people of Los Angles, who she discusses in articulate detail. Being that her audience is generally aimed at people who are concerned about humanity and the way people operate together in certain scenarios. There is an eerie sense to this piece, as the subject is the hot winds known as foehn by scientists, but otherwise known as a “Santa Ana” by the people of the region. Didion claims that, in the simplest terms, “to live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior,”

Read More
634 Words | 3 Pages

Vivid descriptions of the wind such as its’ “rattl[ing] the tops of garbage cans”, “dirt and dust and grime”, and “grit sting[ing] skins” create a sense of chaos that is common in the busy hustle of city life. The cold wind also “violent[ly] assault[s]” the residents of the city, allowing the reader to envision the truly excruciating and harrowing journey people in the urban setting must make regularly. Additionally, asyndeton is utilized masterfully throughout the passage to demonstrate the disarray caused by the wind. The wind finds “theater throwaways, announcements of dances and lodge meetings, the heavy waxed paper that loaves of bread had been wrapped in, the thinner waxed paper that enclosed sandwiches, old envelopes, newspapers.” This extensive list without the use of conjunctions speeds up the reading allowing a fast pace similar to the rapid attacks of the wind, enabling the reader to visualize the onslaught on the citizens.

Read More
268 Words | 2 Pages

Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains,” tells the story of a self-regulating house that is all that is left of the world. Through the use of diction, the reader is able to understand the shifts in tone throughout the story. In the beginning of the story, we are introduced to the house. Bradbury uses terms such as “ruined city,” “radioactive glow,” and “rubble and ashes,” (Bradbury 1) effectively creating a dark and forlorn atmosphere. The author’s word choice creates an image in the reader’s mind of how desolate the house’s surroundings are, ultimately contributing to the somber tone.

Read More

More about Analysis Of Joan Didion's The Santa Ana Wind

Related Topics

Open Document