Los Angeles Notebook Summary
Meaning/Main Idea In the excerpt from Joan Didion’s “The Los Angeles Notebook, Didion’s main idea is that human behavior can be analyzed through mechanistic patterns, even though on the outside the cause, such as a Santa Ana wind, may seem supernatural. In the beginning of the excerpt, Didion describes the physical characteristics of a Santa Ana wind and continues on to explain people's instinctive reactions to these environmental conditions. She explains the pervasive effects of the Santa Ana by writing, “the baby frets, the maid sulks” (paragraph 1). This statement reveals how the Santa Ana affects all people, from the babies to the adults and how the mechanistic behavior is exhibited in all people. Every paragraph in Didion’s excerpt mentions …show more content…
Her purpose in writing this essay was to inform her readers how all people are mechanistic by nature. The entire essay is based upon Didion’s view that humans respond to their environment in a predictable manner. When the Santa Ana blows through everything goes tense. The babies and the adults find no refuge during a Santa Ana (paragraph 1). This example shows that the natural response of human nature is ubiquitous and the Santa Ana affects all facets of …show more content…
This sentence structure gives Didion credibility by declaring her thoughts and not blurring her main point with verbose language. She mainly uses compound-complex sentences followed by a simple sentence to move the reader through the text and solidify her main idea concisely. While describing the scientific characteristics of a Santa Ana, Didion uses compound and compound complex sentences with few simple sentences. This use of syntax establishes credibility by showing that Didion is knowledgeable on the subject she is writing
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999 Words | 4 PagesAgain using the negative word choice to prove how dangerous and mysterious the storm is, hoping for emotions to be touch as a result of it. The third sentence of the this section demonstrates the use of wording, “the pacific turned ominously glossy during the Santa Ana period,.... the peacock screaming in the olive trees by the eerie absence of surf.” “Ominously,” “glossy,” screaming, and eerie, all bear negative connotations, causing a gloomy ambience for the audience. Another way Didion clarifies what her goal is in writing this is by giving her story on her neighbor, “My only neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and there were no lights at night, and her husband roamed the place with a machete”(Section 2, sentence 6).
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767 Words | 4 PagesThe 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.
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Summary Of Joan Didion's Los Angeles Notebook
814 Words | 4 PagesJoan 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,”
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790 Words | 4 PagesThe 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
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