Nam Nguyen

9/29/14
Period 1
AP Lang & Comp
The Santa Ana Winds
The Santa Ana by Joan Didion and Brush Fire by Linda Thomas offer complete
separate views to a similar topic, the winds of Southern California. In a first person narration the
authors write of the wind from her own experience of living in California and from her own
perspective, shedding light on two very different aspects of the Santa Ana winds.
Physically, both pieces of literature are different. Each story reflects its own writer as
The Santa Ana has lengthy paragraphs, chock full of information. Didion is an American
Author known for her literary journalism and use of logos. At a glance of the piece, it lists of
reasonings and details is clearly visible. Each paragraph is filled with descriptions and examples
of the authors point. Didion cites others like Raymond Chandler and uses lots of facts to prove
her point of the winds destructive nature. Brush Fire has noticeably shorter paragraphs and
uses much more imaginative diction like in paragraph four where she describes the winds
journey as ....arrives in the foothills of southern California in hot, bone-dry, ten to forty mileper-hour gusts that lower the relative humidity to three percent in comparison to Didions
description in paragraph three, warmed as it comes down the mountain and appears finally as a
hot dry wind. Thomas is a well-versed poet, known to have published in the American Poetry
Review. She offers her own opinion and recalls many memories with the winds in short
anecdotes rather long paragraphs. Both authors are of different writing natures writing on the
same topic, offering different perspectives to their readers.
Joan Didion approaches the Santa Ana winds in a much more frightened, fearful light.
She writes of how the winds are so mighty and scary that in paragraph 5 of The Santa Ana,
some teachers do not attempt to conduct formal classes.the suicide rate goes

up.surgeons.watch the wind because blood does not clot normally.is make people
unhappy. 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. Didions personification of the wind focuses on a fearful
and distant light.
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 winds and appreciates
what the winds offer in return for their destruction, a ....new growth in the spring. (Thomas pg
3).
The two stories work in comparison in a sense that both authors use similar literary
devices to convey their point. Both stories use imagery to convey their different and opposing
views. Thomas uses descriptive and mesmerizing phrases like in paragraph two of Brush Fire

when she describes of chaparral as the crooked red-brown wood of the manzanita. She
enchants readers of the chaparrals beauty through delicate and soft words rather than factual
information like The Santa Ana. In paragraph 8 of Brush Fire, she uses imagery and appeals
to many senses, painting a picture of a casual day during the winds. Thomas describes the sky
dark with smoke and the smell(of) oders of burning sagebrush as she gets dressed for the
day and goes to work. As she goes to work, in the distance are flames that burn the shrubland,
but she ignores them because they are such a routine part during this period of destruction.
In The Santa Ana, Didion uses descriptive, short sentences to paint a picture for the
reader. She says, The Pacific turned ominously glossy during a Santa Ana period, and one woke
in the night troubled not only by the peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie
absence of surf. (Didion, pg 2) to describe the atmosphere surrounding the winds. The way she
words it combined with the words she uses (e.g. screaming, eerie, absence, ominously)
create an overall gloomy, ominous tone. Her use of imagery throughout the story emphasizes her
view of the Santa Ana winds. Didion uses metaphorical value like in paragraph two of The
Santa Ana where she says, The sky had a yellow cast, the kind of light sometimes called
earthquake weather. She compares the yellow cast to that of an earthquake, implying that the
destruction and weight of the Santa Ana winds is equivalent to an earthquake. Didion continues
and goes on to describe Los Angeles weather as catastrophic like an apocalypse in paragraph
seven. Both authors use a similar technique to convey very different perspectives.
Linda Thomas and Joan Didion come from two separate writing backgrounds and meet at
one topic, the Santa Ana winds. Though similar in subject, Didion and Thomas offer two
different perspectives of the winds in their writing through style, tone, and imagery. While
Didion feels as though the wind is mans enemy, Thomas writes that man is his own enemy and

the wind only takes part in a natural cycle. Their two different writing styles, one from a literary
journalist background and another from that of a poet, separate the stories. Offering two
opposing perspectives on one topic, Thomas and Didion paint two separate pictures using the
same brushes and paints, of the same scene.