An Analysis Of Joan Didion's Brush Fire

On April 29, 1910, the largest forest fire in American history occurred. Some would come to know it as the Big Burn, or the Big Blowup. Later others called it the (the one that says it saved American landscape.) This travesty took more than 100 men. The impact it had on Americans was monumental. Timothy Egan’s The Big Burn, he writes about the many people who perished during this disaster. Stories of people who were engulfed by the flames at Bitterroot Mountain who had little chance of escaping their devastating fate. Even though this is still seen as a travesty, some look at it in a different way. Due to how large the fire was and how far it stretched, it made people aware of the importance to protect Americas forests and natural resources. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, reform was occurring. The United States population was on a rise which had an effect on economic growth. This caused expansion in the consumer market and made way for an enormous amount of advancement in technology. Due to all of this, the demand for natural resources vastly increased. Inventions such as cars and trains consumed massive amounts of fossil fuels. Wood was stripped away from forests to make comfort items such as chairs, tables and other items for the large number of families now setting in the United States from foreign countries. People did not seem to pay much attentions to the effects these changes were having on the land. However, President Theodor Roosevelt had

Joan Didion explains the unbearable heat by stating how “the Indians would throw themselves into the sea when the bad wind blew.” This goes to show just how unbearable the heat is. She also explains that her only neighbor won’t come out of her house and her husband walks around with a machete, complaining of hearing “trespassers and rattlesnakes.” This description shows how much the Santa Ana winds effect people. When the winds blow, Didion describes how she is unable to sleep, because of the “screaming peacocks.” She says the “absense of the eerie surf” keeps her awake, since its something she is not used to. The winds create a “yellow cast” over the sky and turns the “Pacific ominously glossy.” All of these descriptions create the catastrophic image of the Santa Ana

In contrast, Thomas approaches the Santa Ana winds as a routinely destructive awe. Though Thomas focuses more on the fire caused by the wind, then the wind itself, Thomas casts a soft light on the winds. She believes that the winds are not destructive, but that humans are and the winds only do what they must. She and her neighbors gather around and watch the brushfire destroy a hill in the distance, a casual pastime like watching stars. Thomas casually explains in paragraph three of “Brush Fire”, “the burning of chaparral during these winds is normal”. She implies that the winds cause of destroying the Southern California land is natural, a simple part of nature. Thomas does not fear the winds like Didion, she admires the

Joan Didion in her essay, “The Santa Ana” and Linda Thomas in her essay, “Brush Fire” describes the Santa Ana in two opposing stands with similar moves. Didion's purpose in writing her essay for the Santa Ana is to inform her readers. She informs them about the Santa Ana, the effect the winds have on human behavior, and how they have to live with the Santa Ana. Thomas writes her essay to engage readers on the Santa Ana’s effect on brushes. She gives details on how the Santa Ana causes natural brush fires and the beauty it is able to create in the aftermath.

It’s in our nature to assume wildfires will just go away, but for a Native American the values are different. Especially when it comes to their land burning, Natives have always thought of the land as sacred and a gift from the creator. In social environments it’s normal to assume that land is used for farming, trees are used for paper, and land is used for building on. As one basic concept for all, the thought of land burning means the loss of values. “The blackened tree stumps stand out against a clear blue sky. The land burned, and there is a smell of charcoal and ash in the air. People in the area are used to wildfires, but as California and much of the western US endures its fifth year, residents are wondering when there will be any respite from the flames and smoke” (Kieran Cooke). It shouldn’t have to become a normal thing to hear about wildfires. Conditions like these

While reading Joan Didion’s essay “On Going Home” one may be reminded of a sense of home and family. In this essay Didion recreates the feeling one gets when one visits a place from the past or while reminiscing about fond memories. This memory is marked by the reflective thought about the ability to be able to pass this same sense on to another. Didion’s “On Going Home” is like a flood of warm memories leaving you with a single reflective thought.

Didion’s tone was serious, ominous, and dark, and was very different from Thomas’s tone which was more positive. Although acknowledging the destructive nature of the fires caused by the Santa Ana winds, Thomas generally talked about positive results of the fires. She describes the “amazing sight” of the fire as she watches “the flames lick up a hillside” and ends the essay by reminding the reader that the “chaparral will return.” By this, she means that many of the plants in chaparral country need the heat of the flames to reproduce, so within a few weeks, new plants will rise from the ashes. The fire also helps get rid of the dead plants that need to be burnt so they can get out of the way for new plants to come in. Didion has a very different tone regarding the winds. She describes the various hints of change with dark words. To her, there is an “eerie absence of surf” and the “heat was surreal,” instead of it simply being hot with no waves in the water. The author particularly chooses words with creepy connotations to make the reader feel a similar feeling to the uneasiness that the Southern California natives feel. These contrasting tones make the authors' opposing views on the winds very evident.

Even though young Sarty despises his father’s (Abner) crimes, why does he keep these crimes to himself and not expose his father? Throughout the text of “Barn Burning”, Sarty seems to have repetitive feelings of grief and despair, yet he hesitates to out his father for his crimes. Sarty is hesitant to out his father for his crimes because he hopes his father will change, he fears his father will harm him physically or emotionally, and he places a priority on his family’s wellbeing before his own.

Child abuse has been a common occurrence throughout the times of this world. In the story Barn Burning that was written by the author William Faulkner, a story is told of a boy named Colonel Sartoris Snopes who lives with his family. His father is a man who has seen the brutality of war and has a very cold heart. His name is Abner Snopes. His heart is so cold that it is almost as if he is not even human. William Faulkner in the story uses words comparing Abner Snopes to a house fly, or stinging wasp and also says that he lifts his hand like a curled claw. This suggests that the Author was trying to give the readers an image of Abner Snopes being someone who lacked human qualities. Mainly he lacked

The natural environment of the south is often portrayed as one of thick, slow-moving tranquility. In the south the air is heavy and sweet and the days are shown to be peaceful, steady, and humid. However, the south is not always in a state of repose. Chaos, on occasion, will disrupt the calmness. Hurricanes, a rapid, volatile force, always loiter at the gate of southern stillness, threatening the natural way of life. Causing mass flooding, heavy, relentless rain, and fierce winds, these storms are often detrimental to the Atlantic south. In Zora Neale Hurston’s book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, many natural aspects of southern life are explored to symbolize the personal growth, aspirations, and

Didion uses it as a phrase of fear and anxiousness but Thomas manages to take away the fear affiliated with smoke and fire and turns it into a thing of beauty. At this point the texts diverge from one another in their viewpoints of brush fires. That forewarning of danger in The Santa Ana comes into play throughout the text, but especially lives up to its full potential in paragraph 5, "At the first prediction of a Santa Ana, the Forest Service flies men and equipment from northern California into the southern forests, and the Los Angeles Fire Department cancels its ordinary non-firefighting routines" (Didion). This fact coupled with statistics such as "on the first day 25,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains were burning" exemplifies the potential damage that the brush fires are capable of. On the contrary, in Brush Fire, Thomas describes the environment and the natural wildlife of the area that can be found in the "chaparral", a local name for the "vast expanses of low-lying brush".

On Going Home was published in Slouching Towards Bethlehem around 1960. Joan Didion’s article, On going home, is a personal narrative about Joan’s outlook of what home truly is. In the article, Joan Didion describes her home and some of the events that occurred to paint a picture of how her home was and what she considered home for that; while also showing her concerns of her daughter considering the home she is creating, a good home. An element that catches the reader's eye throughout Joan Didion's article, On Going Home, is Joan Didion’s tone and style; both of which clearly present her thoughts to the reader. Joan Didion's writing style for On Going Home includes her using parenthesis to show her thoughts, scattered narration, strong emotive language, and using fragmented sentences. Along with that, Joan Didion's tone during her writing was sad and frustrated and her language throughout On Going Home reflected that.

Ilan Stavans says that Juan Rulfo’s book, The Plain in Flames, is best represented by the phrase realismo crudo. Stavans defines this phrase as “a type of realism interested in the rawness of life”, meaning that he characterizes Rulfo’s writing as an unfiltered view into the lives of the average Mexican (Stavans, xi). By writing in this style, Rulfo is able to provide “an image—instead of just a description—of our landscape” as stated by Octavio Paz (xv). To create this image, Rulfo broke his story writing the process down into three separate steps. As paraphrased by Ilan Stavans, the first step “is to create a character”, the second step “is to place him in an environment where he might move around” and the third step “is to discover how the character expresses himself” (xiii). Rulfo was able to repeatedly crafted stories that were filled with high levels of realismo crudo by using that special three-step process. By creating his protagonist, crafting an environment for said protagonist, and allowing the character to express themselves within this environment, Rulfo crafted a three-tier image of post-revolutionary life in Mexico that has never been seen before.

In Adrienne Rich’s “Storm Warnings,” the progressive structure details the storm’s advancement, the imagery illustrates the surrounding environment, and the calm diction presents the speaker’s state of mind, depicting an actual storm as it nears and the metaphorical turmoil the speaker is experiencing. People hear storm warnings, however, as the storm unfolds, one can merely brace themselves since the storm is inevitable and light hope within them.

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.