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Los Angeles Notebook Summary

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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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Both passages relate in a way because they give informative details about the fires. They have the same general topic, which is The Santa Ana winds. They tell the readers how the fires affect them and the people around them. The winds had a certain effect on people in both of the passages. In “The Santa Ana” it says “To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior”.

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Gerry Boyle and Stephan King are two of the more popular Main authors who both specialize in creating fictional mystery and action novels. Even though both of the author’s novels are set in the state of Maine and can be categorized under the same two words, they both bring you into two very different stories. Focusing on the literary elements imagery, character development and theme we can easily compare and contrast Gerry Boyle’s Port City Shakedown and Blaze by Stephan King. Imagery is a very important literary element in a story and depending on the person, can be the one element that determines whether a book is interesting, or not. Blaze and Port City Shakedown have some similar and some different ways of depicting the state of

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Olivia Seeney ENGL 305 The Art of the Essay 3/22/17 Insert Flap A and Throw Away Analysis The main point of this essay was to point out to the reader the ridiculous state of human nature when presented with a situation that is outside of our expertise. As we observe the narrator’s struggle to put together this cardboard toy, his use of both overstatement and understatement show the progression of his frustration with this task. One example of this ironic language can be found in the first sentence when the narrator states “I made a most interesting discovery: the shortest, cheapest, method of inducing a nervous breakdown ever perfected. (Perelman)”

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Statement of the Problem Among the events that have had a drastic shaping on human events throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are natural disasters. Often times, a natural disaster will leave residents of affected areas in a state of awe as they seek to understand what exactly happened. One such example is Hurricane Hugo.

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By the author asking these questions, it makes the readers of Didion’s article think about the

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In the story “Time of Wonder” the writer and illustrator Robert McCloskey creates a mesmerizing picture book. Throughout the book he relates his message to the reader of taking time to enjoy the weather and nature. Likewise, the reader is able to experience these events directly with phrases such as “IT’S RAINING ON YOU” (McCloskey 10). One event the reader is able to conjure up is the ocean in Maine with the taste of salt on their tongue. Moreover, the reader visualizes the calm sea on a sunny day and fears the roaring wind before a hurricane.

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I have lived in East Oakland my whole life. To the majority of people, the mention of East Oakland evokes thoughts of violence, shootings, and gangs. I was one of the people who believed in these stereotypes, and for a particularly long time. I was one of the people who saw Oakland as a wasteland, a place with nothing to offer me, and a place I had nothing to offer to.

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Again 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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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.

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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,”

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d done well and it also helps the reader to think about some questions he is asking. Although the typical reader wouldn't be able to know the answer to these complex questions because they are not a scientist it could also be an example of

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The excerpt begins with Petry introducing the wind as a main antagonist through the careful use of personification. The cold wind “[drives] most of the people off the street”, “set[s] a barrage of paper swirl[ing] into the faces of people”, and even “make[s] it difficult to breathe.” These unpleasant and abrasive acts of the wind succeed in their goal of discouraging the residents of the city. They respond with frustration

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