No matter what technique you choose, as you interact with the text you should keep in mind that you’re not only identifying techniques and strategies, but also analyzing their effect—you’re moving from close reading to analysis. As you read the Didion passage, you probably got a feel for its mood. But how is that mood created? You probably noticed the anxiety-related words in the first paragraph: “uneasy,” “unnatural,” “tension,” “flash point.” There is an echo in the second paragraph: the ocean is “ominously glossy.” That sense of foreboding imbues even the personal anecdote: a neighbor with a “machete,” fear of a “trespasser,” hints of a “rattlesnake.” Didion uses the word “rekindle” to describe her effort to restart an ongoing argument with the phone company; it serves to remind us of the brush fires that so often threaten Southern California. Of course, if you’ve read other work by Joan Didion you may recognize that foreboding as a hallmark of her style. In either case, you can begin to see how Didion creates an unsettled mood through her word choice, especially in the first two paragraphs.
| RHETORICAL STRATEGY OR STYLE ELEMENT | EFFECT OR FUNCTION |
| Allusion to Raymond Chandler | Chandler, who wrote crime fiction, was known for his hard-boiled style and cynical views. The allusion to Chandler helps create the ominous tone. |
| Complex sentence: “There are a number of persistent malevolent winds, perhaps the best known of which are the mistral of France and the Mediterranean sirocco, but a foehn wind has distinct characteristics: it occurs on the leeward slope of a mountain range and, although the air begins as a cold mass, it is warmed as it comes down the mountain and appears finally as a hot dry wind.” | The details accumulate, ending in “hot dry wind,” to create a picture of the “persistent malevolent winds.” |
The passage’s syntax also has a role. The second sentence in the first paragraph is long, a cumulative sentence that gathers details (and steam) as it describes the path of the Santa Ana wind and its destination in “flash point.” Again, those Southern California brush fires come to mind. The sentence stands, too, in contrast to the short sentences later in the paragraph, simple declarative sentences that observe without comment the behavior that precedes the Santa Ana winds. Didion notes that she has “neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due”; nevertheless, the evidence is irrefutable: “The baby frets. The maid sulks.”
The third paragraph is different even though it begins in the anxiety-laden mood of the first two, with its quotation from crime fiction writer Raymond Chandler. Though he is a fiction writer, Chandler is nevertheless an authority on both crime and Los Angeles. The quotation helps Didion transition to showing that sometimes “science bears out folk wisdom.” What follows are at least seven examples of data—including the names and characteristics of various winds; the effects of the winds on schoolchildren, personal health, and criminals; and the changes in the atmosphere described in terms of positive and negative ions. This scientific language contrasts with the moodiness of the previous paragraphs. Notice the complex sentence that begins by noting a “number of persistent malevolent winds.” Didion provides a couple of examples, foregrounding the foehn. The second independent clause provides the details of that wind, ending with its impact at the bottom of the mountain as a “hot dry wind.”
So let’s go back to those three key questions:
For the first question, we might say that she is trying to both re-create the effect of the Santa Ana winds and explain the effect scientifically. For the second, we might say that she does this by simulating the feeling of anxiety that precedes the Santa Ana winds at the same time that she offers scientific facts and figures. The mood of foreboding, the tone of barely subdued fear and anger, and the language of violence and natural disaster are juxtaposed with the essay’s pseudoscientific information. For the third question, we could agree that her purpose is to show that some human behavior is mechanistic, meaning it is less a matter of choice than a direct result of outside forces. We might go even further to say that Didion wants to scare us a bit: we sometimes can’t help the way we behave. But it’s not our fault. Maybe it’s a full moon. Maybe a storm is brewing. Or maybe it’s the Santa Ana winds.