Rhetorical Analysis: Comparison The Santa Ana Winds are strong, dry northeast winds that happen in the autumn and the winter of southern California. In the two passages “Brush Fire” and “The Santa Ana”, both authors describe what it is like to live in the area where these fires occur. They use their own perspective of the winds and talk about how they affect the people of Southern California. Although they both describe the same winds, they have different attitudes towards them.
Hearing the voices of local citizens helps one understand the struggle people went through when nature’s unpredictability caused harm to the land and people. A fictional example of how
Kolbert’s specific inferences from the natural environment emphasize the urgency of the environmental issues and our importance for recognizing these shifts in order to make a necessary positive change in the world. To begin, Kolbert emphasizes this through the analogies and references that are used. Throughout the text, Kolbert mentions many examples, those of which provide the reader with a more comprehensive view of life, and helps us understand its literary significance. Kolbert begins her essay with an analogy involving a psychological experiment that was conducted on individuals involving flipping through a deck of cards that gradually added some unfamiliar cards each round. The participants failed to notice these odd cards at first, and when they did it was when many of the odd cards were already in the deck.
He argues that urbanization of this area threatens its survival, and likens such growth to a cancer (Abbey). While he, like Muir, is enamored with the beauty of nature, Abbey has seen the effects of human intervention on the Western United States, and advocates for preservation instead of promoting the lands. A century of growth and exploration changed the focus of the environmentalists since expanded use of fossil fuels led to destruction of some of the formerly unspoiled areas. Muir’s emphasis was on reveling in the magnificence of the mountains, while Abbey cautions of the effects of exploration and accompanying greed on the health of the
Didion, however, sees the disappointment as not being so manmade, but more of a thing of nature. She describes how a certain aspect of nature can drastically negate the quality of life in California, and even in
Santa Ana Winds Essay The Santa Ana winds may seem like a regular occurrence in sunny California, but a chilling realization about this seemingly normal weather phenomenon from Didion comes to show a deeper revelation than the mind first comes to see. In Joan Didion’s excerpt from, “Los Angeles Notebook,” the Santa Ana winds are described as both a wonder and an “eerie” mystery. The underlying message of the passage can be conveyed through diction, syntax, and imagery. Didion creates a daunting atmosphere through her disheartening diction.
In “The Great Santa Barbara Oil Disaster, or: A Diary” by Conyus, he write of his interactions and thoughts that he has while cleaning the horrible and momentous oil spill that occurred in Santa Barbara in 1969. In this, there is a stanza that he writes that appeals to the entirety of the poem, the one that begins on page three with “Day six” and ends with “again & again.” ; this stanza uses tone and imagery which allow for the reader to grasp the fundamental core of this experience and how Conyus is trying to illustrate the effects of such a disaster on a human psyche. Day six of this poem is the day that starts with a dishonest sense of normalcy of an urban environment. Conyus introduces the idea of toads croaking in a setting combining two worlds, “asphalt rain pond”; this paints the picture of nature and man coinciding to try to live together harmoniously in an environment that
Throughout the opening paragraphs of Joan Didion’s essay there is a detailed description of the human experience with the Santa Ana winds. This description demonstrates a distinct feeling and point of view towards the natural disaster known as the Santa Ana winds. Her writing describes several interactions and reactions to the wind allows the reader to understand the relationship between the Santa Ana winds and human beings. Overall Didion’s diction along with the use other stylistic elements clearly conveys her feeling of anxiety towards the winds.
In “Thirty Acres” by Dr.Philippe Panneton and “Volcano” by Nancy Lord, the nature destructive force in the two prose are fire and the volcano, which symbolize the isolation, destruction in emotion and life, as well as the new changes in life. The explosion of the volcano makes Julia think of her dull life and fells despair as she know that she can't change anything, and the fire gives Euchariste a punishment for his greed and brings changes for his and his son’s relationship. The destructive force of nature in “Thirty Acres” and “Volcano”—fire and volcano symbolize the two protagonists’ isolation. When the volcano is going to blow up, the dust and cloud “feel like a curtain,” which make Julia stay at home, revealing the isolation between her life and the outside world.
From the air we breathe to the food we eat, the environment around us plays a critical role in shaping who we are as individuals. Our surroundings can affect everything from physical and mental health to our beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Whether we realize it or not, the environment we grow up in and live in profoundly impacts our development and the choices we make throughout our lives. In short, our environment shapes us in ways we may not even be aware of. Showcasing this effect is in Celeste Ng’s novel, Little Fires Everywhere, set in the 90s, two families are brought together in the small town called Shaker Heights because of their children, and when they collide, it all burns down.
Without the advent of the harnessing of hungry, sanguine, licking flames of fire, there is no conceivable path where early homo sapiens evolve to become the modern man. The physical, material world that exists today would stand absolutely no chance of seeing the light of day without the utilization of fire. However, fire has played a much bigger role in human history than simply allowing for the advancement of the physical world, it has inextricably tied itself to humankind through the culture and religions practiced over every square mile of inhabited land on this planet. Fire is unpredictable and uncontainable, it is man’s friend but is also his foe, fire is essential to the sustaining of human life, but it also has the power to wipe every ounce of that life force from the face of the Earth. The power of fire has been recognized in language, in literature, art and religion.
"This heat the sun could never raise, / Nor Dog Star so inflame the days … / Not July causeth these extremes" (17-23). Natural forces, like the sun and stars, remain innocent; instead, it is Juliana and her unnatural “scorching beams” that cause the extreme
California is one of the most earthquake prone states in the U.S. Due to the state being on a fault line, it is constantly subjected to earthquakes whether they be mild or intense, which constantly puts the cities that lay on the fault line or are near it at risk. The earthquake described in Mark Twain's’ essay “The San Francisco Earthquake” is a rather “hysterical event” to Twain. He sees it as a miniscule or petite quake, where as others see it as a more drastic event. Twain's’ essay argues that the people's reaction (particularly the higher class) to the earthquake was rather excessive.
Since these creators are the source of the idolization of nature, she writes to them in order to reverse their misconception. Oates realizes that their subject is not the authentic force, but rather one that was handed endless meaning by artisans. She addresses them mockingly, utilizing rhetorical questions as a way to aggravate their thought process. Including herself in the audience of authors, she toys with the image of authors and jokes that the reason they write so profusely on nature is that “...we must, we’re writers, poets, mystics (of a sort) aren’t we, precisely what else are we to do but glamorize and romanticize and generally exaggerate the significance of anything we focus the white heat of our “creativity” upon?” (Oates 226).
To Build A Fire is a short tragic tale by Jack London that narrates about a man’s last days on the earth. The story’s protagonist is passing through the sub-freezing land of the Yukon when he becomes the victims of an unforgiving and harsh force of nature. Before embarking on the journey, the man is warned against walking alone on such severe weather conditions and even if his instincts also warn him, he decides to ignore all the signs and his conscience and to follow his ego. He makes several attempts to light a fire but does not make it. It is after several attempts that the man finally gives in to the forces of nature and awaits his now evident death.
