ipl-logo

The Santa Ana Wind In Joan Didion's Los Angeles Notebook

904 Words4 Pages

Joan Didion views the Santa Ana winds as malevolent entities, both powerfully frightening and mysteriously dangerous in her essay, "Los Angeles Notebook." The wind is believed to change the people that it touches, causing people to behave in most uncharacteristic manners. While science proves that the ratio of positive to negative ions is significantly higher before the wind blows, it doesn 't explain why people are so drastically affected. Through Didion 's use of diction in word choices like "eerie", "ominously", "malevolent", and "surreal", a tone of suspenseful tension is conveyed as the people await the Santa Ana Winds -- and the tone serves the purpose of portraying Didion 's opinion that the winds are "sinister" and "mechanistic" and something to be avoided. Similarly, the method that Didion uses to string along her sentences conveys the tone as well - the excerpt is filled with a plethora of loosely constructed sentences which serve to layer on the detail and build the suspense. The diction throughout "Los Angeles Notebook" functions as a way in which Didion utilizes in order to convey her opinion on the Santa Ana Wind, which is unexplainable as to their effects on people and are entirely sinister entities. Word choices throughout the excerpt such as "uneasy", "screaming", "frets", and "sulks" all portray the responses that people make to these winds. Selections like "foehn" and "khamsin", "friction" and "solar disturbances" allow the audience to acknowledge that

Show More
Related

  • Examples Of Tension In The House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

    157 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the story, many things cause tension, there is definitely tension for the main character of the story, Esperanza. This story feels especially real, because it is loosely based on the author's life. The tension is first begun when Esperanza explains all the different houses

    Read More

  • Analysis Of There Will Come Soft Rains

    268 Words  | 2 Pages

    Another example of diction being utilized is shown when Bradbury wrote “angry sparks” and “tenderly crisping,” (Bradbury 3) to describe a fire that has begun

    Read More

  • The First Betrayal Analysis

    424 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The First Betrayal Josan, a man who works in a lighthouse finds himself in the midst of a violent storm. Consequently the disheartening storm threatens to destroy the light in the tower, causing the ships to crash into the rocks. In the passage- The First Betrayal, Patricia Bray’s use of harsh diction and vivid imagery creates a mood of suspense. For instance, the author’s use of word choice illustrates a tone of fear.

    Read More

  • The Devil In The White City Figurative Language

    702 Words  | 3 Pages

    Larson uses figurative language to intensify the tone and inflict positive or negative feelings upon the reader. Larson describes the crushing devastation that accompanies Chicago’s trailing in votes for the opportunity to host the World Fair as “heavy and chill” (17). The metaphor comparing the city’s literal

    Read More

  • Lutie Johnson's Relationship With The Urban Setting In The Street

    514 Words  | 3 Pages

    Through the use of literary devices such as figurative language, personification, and use of details, the author of The Street displays Lutie Johnson's relationship with the urban setting as overwhelming. Within paragraphs one and two there is a large amount of detail through word choice and imagery. Lutie’s overwhelming relationship is shown through the opening scene which is overflowing with imagery. The first thing the reader will imagine is an empty street with trash blowing around everywhere and a huge scary mess that is giving the urban scenery a very intimidating feel.

    Read More

  • I Survived Book Summary

    468 Words  | 2 Pages

    For example, when Jess, Eddie and Sam were in the abandon cabin they experienced an earthquake. The reader can sense the frightfulness they must have endured as trees tumbled down everywhere around them in the forest. The author also describes in detail how the heat from the blast felt so hot that every breath was like inhaling fire. Thankfully, Jess figured out that if she tucked her shirt over her mouth she could breath. This intrigues us to read on as the reader wants more details on what she is going through and how she survived.

    Read More

  • The Symbolism Of The Wind In Ann Petry's The Street

    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

  • A Rhetorical Analysis Of 'The Santa Ana' By Joan Didion

    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

  • Prose Analysis Of Ann Petry's The Street

    634 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lutie, however, cooperates with the wind, reading the sign swiftly: “three rooms, steam heat, parquet floors, respectable tenants.” Asyndeton in Lutie’s case shows how she skillfully works with the wind to study the hanging notice. Literary devices such as personification, extended metaphor, imagery, and asyndeton show how Lutie masters the skills she will need in order to survive the challenges the big city, despite the hindrance

    Read More

  • Morality In Joan Didion's Essay

    444 Words  | 2 Pages

    Joan Didion uses rhetorical words in her essay “Morality,” to explain her reasons why she viewed morality as social, and established expectation. Didion starts her essay, by presenting emotional appeals to her particular setting. “As it happens, I am in Death Valley, in a room at the Enterprise Motel and Trailer Park, and it is July, and it is hot (Didion 106).” The significance in describing the setting is that it helps create a tone, such that it, evokes emotions of isolation, despair, and loneliness. After describing her setting, Didion states, “A word I distrust more every day, but in my mind veers inflexibility toward the particular (Didion 106).”

    Read More

  • Summary Of Joan Didion's Los Angeles Notebook

    814 Words  | 4 Pages

    With the setting and details laid out in front of the reader, Didion performs a tone shift, about midway through her essay. What once was an ominous, eerie description of human behavior during extreme weather, transforms into a methodical, scientific recount of the foehn winds and their occurrences over time throughout history. Didion’s now practical, instructive tone addresses the reasoning behind the events partaking in Los Angeles, with diction such as “malevolent”, “leeward”, “mitigating”, and “mechanistic”. Lastly, Joan Didion’s essay “Los Angeles Notebook” has a gratuitous effect on the reader. The entire purpose of the essay is to evaluate and deconstruct the effect of the environment on the human’s conscious and unconscious behavior.

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of Brush Fire And The Santa Ana

    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

  • Weather: The Importance Of Weather In Frankenstein By Mary Shelley

    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

  • Frankenstein Passage Analysis

    1000 Words  | 4 Pages

    She uses descriptive nature as means to perpetuate the depressing mood. Victor then describes the condition of the trees in the area -where many of them are broken, destroyed or bent-emphasizing the severity of the scene. This reflects the beginning of the novel when Victor first encounters the powerful wrath of nature. At the age of 15, he witnesses a thunderstorm so terribly violent that “the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various quarters of the heavens” (22). The strength of the lightning was so strong that it struck and engulfed a tree in flames in Victor’s front yard and “reduced [it] to thin ribbons of wood” (22).

    Read More

  • Storm Warnings Poem Analysis

    725 Words  | 3 Pages

    The use of imagery in "Storm Warnings" conveys the literal and metaphorical meanings of the oncoming physical and emotional storms. Rich uses to imagery show the anxiety she is feeling about the storm in the beginning. For example, "The glass has been falling all the afternoon," and, "gray unrest moving across the land. " Both of these images have negative connotations, which show what she is feeling and what she sees.

    Read More

More about The Santa Ana Wind In Joan Didion's Los Angeles Notebook

Open Document