Joan Didion, in her writing "The Santa Ana
Winds", describes a usual yet bizarre phenomenon known as the Santa Ana's.
Her purpose was to convey how violent the winds can be and emphasize the
strange and altering effects that they have on everything, especially human
behavior. Didion uses words like "eerie", "screaming", and
"surreal" in the second paragraph to express the uneasiness that the
Santa Ana winds bring as they pass over. Her word choice gives the text a
very moody and suspenseful tone. It catches the readers attention because
it reads like a mystery novel only to then switch tones at the end when Didion
starts stating facts about what happens in Los Angeles when these winds hit,
all backed up by science. Didion also uses vivid imagery when she mentioned
that a "husband roamed the place with a machete". This
evokes an image of insanity, especially when she points out that "meek
little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands'
necks". Normally these women would cave to their husband's every command,
yet the days that the Santa Ana's are blowing through the city the wives feel
empowered and start contemplating murder. It further proves that the winds
have an effect on people's moods and personalities.
I feel that Didion
was very effective in her writing because she evoked a mysterious vibe and
it definitely interested me. She used the rhetorical techniques to
her favor and it left the reader with the realization that
circumstances outside our control may determine our moods and actions. The text
ends leaving the reader uneasy when Didion says, "no one seems to
know". Ending on such a mysterious note illustrates the fact that no one
will ever know how and why these winds affect people the way they do. And even
though the text reads like a fiction novel, the Santa Ana winds are a
real occurrence.
I agree with your view that Didion's piece on the winds represents something very mysterious. To add on to what you said, I believe even her first sentence, "There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension," reflects this mysterious tone and engages the reader immediately. I also agree that her writing was very effective. A rhetorical device she used to emphasize the effects of the Santa Ana Winds was imagery. She uses imagery when she describes the past scenarios of the Indians and when she describes her neighbor's weird behavior (paragraph 2). Overall, reading the text really DID give me the same feeling of a mystery novel and I truly felt the emotion she was trying to express.
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