Analysis Of The Santa Ana Winds

strong emotions with every word read. “...there are only the sounds of the wind and drifting

In his Philosophy of Composition, Edgar Allan Poe informs us that he begins writing with “the consideration of an effect” (430). Most of Poe’s poetry and fiction exemplifies his assertion that a preconceived effect upon a reader is undoubtedly fundamental to his creative work. Poe’s tales of terror in particular epitomize the supremacy of his craft in that each component of his narrative strategy functions to achieve the final effect of generating unmitigated terror in his readers. Focusing primarily on The Fall of the House of Usher, I argue that Poe employs a preconceived narrative

Didion personifies the wind as almost an unknown epidemic. Similar to when an unknown disease goes viral, all walks of life are affected. Didion clearly states how teachers, students, doctors, to physicists, to generally everyone becomes unhappy and uncomfortable during the winds. She does not write of how the wind caused fire to ravage the shrublands, but she writes of the symptoms it inflicts on the people. Didion mentions all the after effects of the wind and the harm it can do like inflict paranoia. She mentions how the fear-stricken victims of southern California are paranoid like her neighbor that refuses to leave the house and her husband who roams with a machete. Didion’s personification of the wind focuses on a fearful and distant light.

When the author’s father passed away, Wes was in shock, he said, “everything around you vanishes, all you hear is wind filling your ear, all you feel is the wind on your skin.... Your mind all but empties.” (Moore, 14) He couldn’t think or do anything. He was lost.

With the use of emotion, Didion is able to describe the horrifying causes the Santa Ana has on human behavior through murders and horrible wind conditions. “On the first day

Malmar McKnight’s frightening story, “The Storm”, weaves a violent storm and murder together to heighten the horrific fears that engulf Janet Willsom. “The Storm” is a combination of Mother Nature, Janet’s emotions, and her heartbreaking dilemmas. The eerie mood is revealed throughout the story. Figurative language helps the reader bring the story to life in his/ her mind. The author’s use of irony is devolved through Janet’s changed perception of the storm.

Within this sentence the provision of vivid imagery reinforces how powerful the wind “rattled the tops of the garbage cans, sucked window shades out through the top of opened windows… and it drove most of the people of the street in the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.” As the novel continues the aggressive actions of the wind causes itself to “wrap newspaper around their feet entangling them until the people cursed

Joan Didion uses pathos to argue that Santa Ana causes people to have weird behaviors. When Joan uses the example that the “Indians would throw themselves into the sea,”(Didion) she creates the emotion of sadness and shock. Didion chose these emotions to show that the wind makes people do strange actions. She also says that, “every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands necks. Anything can happen.”(Didion) She causes a sense of horror using the excerpt from, “On nights like that” by Raymond Chandler. It gives a sense of horror because it shows how far the wind can make people do bad actions when the wind blows. Joan Didion incorporates

To see the wind, with a man his eyes, it is unpossible, the nature of it is so fine, and subtle; yet this experience of the wind had I once myself, and that was in the great snow that fell four years ago: I rode in the highway betwixt Topcliff-upon-Swale, and Borowe Bridge, the way being somewhat trodden afore, by wayfaring men.

    In chronological order, Petry introduces the wind. Her selection of detail opens up the thought of the wind being brutal by stating “a cold November wind”. She goes on to use imagery to explain how disruptive this wind was. By Petry using her imagery, selection of detail and figurative language, she opens up a deeper analysis of what the wind actually represents.

Both writers approach the topic of the Santa Ana winds very differently, although they both wish to inform different people about the effects of the winds. Each author has a different point of view and purpose than the other. Didion wanted to write

This time I will be talking about the tone. The overall tone is supposed to be ominous as shown by the storm mainly. Generally a stormy background is supposed to cause the image in the reader's head that it is gloomy and scary. It almost is there like you can’t see what is happening, like anything could sneak up on you. In a storm you can’t hear what is creeping up you cause the sound of the rain covers it and you never know

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.

In “Los Angeles Notebook,” Didion gives the readers a slice of Los Angeles. She talks to the readers by showing them. A sentence from her excerpt in “The Art of Fact” reads, “Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse and, just as reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, Accenture its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are (Art of Fact, pg. 482).” In this part of her excerpt she showed the reader how the wind reflects the nature of Los Angeles life. Throughout the rest of the excerpt she inserts dialogue to allow the readers to get a sense of the culture. Unlike Thompson, Didion remains a fly on the wall. She listens and analyzes the people around

Easterly Trade Winds over the equatorial Pacific Ocean are partially to blame for both occurrences. For La Niña, the Easterly Trade Winds substantiate her atmospheric conditions. The Winds blow added warm water west, which causes very cold water below the ocean's surface to rise upward toward the surface replacing the warm water, and this occurs near the South American coast. During an El Niño, the opposite occurs. The Easterly Trade Winds become weaker causing a lessened, to no impact, at all. The Winds can even reverse direction. The warm Pacific Ocean becomes nearly stationary or flows eastward and as it does, it gains heat because there is little or no circulation of air. Not only does El Niño affect weather, it is also responsible for