The forces of nature not only shape the world around us, they also wriggle into our minds. In their essays, Brush Fire and The Santa Ana Winds, Didion and Thomas describe the indomitable power of the Santa Ana phenomenon, a time when warm dry winds breathe flame into the hills surrounding the city of angels. Much like certain chaparral of the southern California Hills the texts spring from the same root - both texts speak to the immeasurable and awesome power of this meteorological event, sharing similarities in vivid diction and, at times, imagery. In spite of these surface level parallels, however, these two texts branch off away from each other when it comes to the purpose, tone, syntax - both authors have vastly different messages to …show more content…
The plainest way one see how they diverge is in how each author approaches the destruction that the Santa Ana brings to Los Angeles when its winds begin to blow in early December. Thomas’ tone starts didactic, and informative, her writing’s syntax more mechanical than the opposing text. Thomas is describing the nuanced details of the storm itself, and the hills it dominates. She describes the “padre's staff”, a grass that “requires the heat of a flame to crack open their seed pods and prepare for germination”, the intermittent nature of chaparral foliage that “ranges from ground-level wildflowers that require a magnifying glass, to eight-foot scrub oak and sage bushes.” The reader is focused on these smaller details, and Thomas uses this strategy to pull the reader in, drag them through place where “ fire that can rush up a canyon like a locomotive, roaring and exploding brush as it rages”. She lets the reader see it all, what everything she’s just told them actually means when conglomerated. Didion, on the other hand, is not focusing on the natural setting of the Santa Ana, although the fire looms large in her text as well, but the human setting. Her tone is thus more emotionally based, more feeling flows through it, there is a dynamism to her voice. Instead of focusing on describing the hills, Didion writes about the emotion that flows through the city, the maid sulking, the baby fretting. As the texts goes on the collective anger builds, and does the sentence length and complexity. Didion uses her syntax to slowly focus in on situations of pent-up rage that are allowed a channel of release during the strange desert season that takes hold, speaking of a time when every booze party ends in a fight, husbands roam their homes with machetes, and prominent attorneys commit
Didion paints uneasy and somber images when describing the Santa Ana winds. “There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air… some unnatural stillness, some tension,” starts the essay off with the image of Los Angeles people in a sense of stillness or tense. She further adds, “Blowing up sandstorms out along Route 66… we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night,” propagating the uneasy and stark image of Los Angeles. “The baby frets. The maid sulks,” she adds, giving a depressing view into the effects of the Santa Ana winds on people. Didion, in an attempt to show the craziness associated with the Santa Ana winds, points out the Indians who throw themselves into the sea when bad winds came. At any rate, Didion attempts to show the negative effects of the Santa Ana winds through images of stillness, uneasiness, and sobriety.
Joan Didion’s description of various experiences with the Santa Ana winds conveys her message through various rhetorical strategies. Early in the essay the feeling of worry and anxiety is introduced by the use of words such as “uneasy” , “unnatural stillness” , and “tension”. Because the emotion is described early on the audience can grasp this feeling those who live and Santa Ana are experiencing. This feeling causes people to act abnormal, even when they have no awareness it is coming. Additionally the suspenseful emotion continues through the use of imagery, to convey the unusual effect the winds have on the atmosphere. Didion describes the sky, having a “yellow cast” and screaming peacocks in “the olive trees… by the eerie absence of surf”.
Joan Didion uses words such as ‘eerie’, ‘depression’, and ‘unnatural’ bringing an unsettling and serious tone. Didion reflects this uneasiness on the people and how as Santa Ana nears, it affects them. “I have neither heard, nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks (Didion).” As Santa Ana looms closer the people living in the area get a strange sensation, almost self preparing themselves for the worst. Linda Thomas however describes the atmosphere in a different light. Thomas uses words such as ‘undisturbed’, ‘undamaged’, and ‘natural’ bringing a more casual and normalized tone. “I awoke to air so dry that the graze of my nightgown against the down comforter created tiny orange sparks… And as I make the drive to work, I find myself beneath a smoky sky the color of fire (Thomas).” The self knowing that Santa Ana is there, just like with Didion, but there is no strange feeling present. It is almost as if the presence of Santa Ana is not bothering and
... enough contrasts between them that allow them to stand out as completely individual from one another. Each of these novels, then, is able to both expand upon the other, while being free in its own expression at the same time.
The first two acts of this film are truly inspiring because they capture the "fire" of the environmental movement. It chronologically begins by discussing the origins of conservative environmentalists, to documenting the details of successful environmental movements, and concluding by explaining the merging of civil rights with environmentalists. Ultimately, “A Fierce Green Fire “serves as a dynamic call for the continuing action of protecting and conserving our biosphere.
Meaning/Main Idea - The meaning of Joan Didion’s The Los Angeles Notebook may seem like it is only about the foehn. While this may hold true when the passage is read at face value, further analysis shows that due to the very abstract language, she is shooting for a deeper meaning. This deeper meaning is shown when she mentions that living in Santa Ana exposes her to a “deeply mechanistic view of human behavior” (paragraph 1). This changes the meaning of the whole passage from describing the foehn to expressing the mechanical aspects of human behavior that are shown due to the wind. These mechanistic behaviours vary from how the everyone she meets knows that the wind is coming (paragraph 1) to the strange behaviour of her neighbors (paragraph
Virtually everywhere in the United States is affected to one degree of another by wildland fires. Even if a community is not directly involved with the fire itself, chances are that some of its members have gone to help fight wildland fires in other areas of the country by providing manpower, financial support, or other humanitarian aid.
If we bemoan the loss of light as the day changes to night we miss the sunset. In her memoirs Refuge, Terry Tempest Williams relates the circumstances surrounding the 1982 rise in the Great Salt Lake as well as her mother’s death from cancer. Throughout the book Williams gets so caught up in preventing her mother’s death that she risks missing the sunset of her mother’s life. However the Sevier-Fremont’s adaptability to changes in nature inspires Terry Tempest Williams to re-evaluate her response to changes in her life.
what they believe in. The similar that both of authors for the common themes is that they
The main idea or concept of Didion’s “The Los Angeles Notebook” is to portray how human behavior and thought is a result of mechanics. Didion describes the Santa Ana winds as the omnipotent force that pulls humans to their mechanical nature. Los Angeles residents feel the arrival of the “bad wind” and succumb to the paranoia. Didion pairs a story of indians committing suicide to escape the wind with descriptions of the ominous changes that occur in the atmosphere during a Santa Ana to establish a mood of foreboding. After painting a Santa Ana as a paranormal force, Didion concludes to explain the science behind its “supernatural influence” on LA residents. She states that in the case of a Santa Ana, science can prove folk wisdom. The Santa Ana appears as a hot dry wind and whenever one occurs, doctors report patients with frequent “headaches, nausea and allergies, about nervousness and depression” (Didion 3). The excessive amount of
... gives insight into Junpero Serra’s world, his views, and how he changed New Spain and California. He inspired to spread Catholicism, the suppression of natives’ individualism, and the rejection of materialism. The books helps to show Juniper Serra in the good and bad. He had faults like any human being. Apart from seeing Junipero Serra in his life the world around him was also on display. It shows how New Spain and California was with the influence of Junipero Serra and how has drastically changed over time to what it is today. Now here in California there are various religions not just Catholicism anymore. California society is now individualistic something Serra had fought against; furthermore in society materialism is even more important than ever before. There changes have provided us the people a picture of the California of the past. One we should not forget.
In the short story “Ashes for the Wind”, written by Hernando Tellez, he applies the use of symbolism and theme to elevate his writing to a greater degree. Through various symbols providing profound overtones concealed throughout the story, Tellez’s continuous references to these symbols help to establish and reinforce the theme; the theme depicted in the story is corruption and reveals that the government will not tolerate those who have conflicting political views. One of the most prominent symbols that underlines the theme is the oil dripping from the black drum in Don Rómulo Linares’ store, which illustrates the continuation of life. When Juan Martinez is denied from purchasing oil, he is denied of his life; the oil is in clear sight across
On the other hand “Horrific wreck of the city” it is informed that the earthquake is awful.In “Comprehending the calamity” it said “No one can comprehend the calamity to San Francisco in its entirety. The individual experience can probably give the general public the clearest idea. I was one of the fortunate ones, for neither personal injury nor death visited my household; but what I saw and felt I will try to give to you.”P.1. In “Horrific wreck of the city” it said “No story will ever be written that will tell the awfulness of the thirty-hours following the terrible earthquake. No pen of the most powerful description the world ever saw could ever place on paper the impression of any one of the hundreds of thousands who felt the mighty tremble. No pen can record the sufferings of those who were crushed to death or buried in the ruins that encompassed them in an instant after 5:13 o’clock Wednesday Morning.”P.1. This proves that they were more gentle than “Horrific wreck of the city” because they didn’t make a big deal out of it and also because and the author was trying to let the reader understand that it was hard.On the other hand this story said it more harshly by saying that it was the hardest thing and it was hard and scary. On the other hand this story said it more harshly by saying that it was the hardest thing
Fire at any level can be devastating, yet the effects that wildfires have on every worldwide country really has left its mark on the land. As written by world renowned wild fire spokesperson Smokey the Bear, “Every year, wildfires sweeps through parts of the United States setting wilderness and homes ablaze. On average these raging infernos destroy about four to five million acres of land a year. But in 2012, wildfire burned more than 9.3 million acres, an area about the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined” (U.S. Wildfires). Destroying homes, crops, towns and of course forests. Yet the effects of these fires can be seen from a negative perspective as well as some positive. Plus there are natural causes as well as manmade that makes these destructive fires erupt and become almost unstoppable in seconds.
The sunset was not spectacular that day. The vivid ruby and tangerine streaks that so often caressed the blue brow of the sky were sleeping, hidden behind the heavy mists. There are some days when the sunlight seems to dance, to weave and frolic with tongues of fire between the blades of grass. Not on that day. That evening, the yellow light was sickly. It diffused softly through the gray curtains with a shrouded light that just failed to illuminate. High up in the treetops, the leaves swayed, but on the ground, the grass was silent, limp and unmoving. The sun set and the earth waited.