Brush Fire Analysis

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

A...an excess of positive ions does, in simplest terms, make people unhappy”(Didion). Didion explains what the Santa Ana really is. She gives information and evidence to give the reader a sense of what the Santa Ana is truly about, this shows them how it came to be and its causes. She explains how the Santa Ana affects human behavior. Thomas gives the readers an explanation the benefits the fires have on the brushes. “The burning of chaparral during these winds is natural. Some plants in the chaparral--such as padre’s staff--require the heat of a flame to crack open their seed pods and prepare for germination”(Thomas). This quote conveys the author's reasoning as to why the Santa Ana creates a natural beauty with the brushes. She gives evidence displaying the effects the Santa Ana fire has on them, they need fire to bloom. Didion explains what the Santa Ana and why it affects human behavior. Thomas was able to provide evidence as to why the Santa Ana fire is beneficial.

In the opening of the novel The Street, author Ann Petry carefully establishes the bitterness and stressfulness between Lutie Johnson’s, and her relationship with her environments’ urban setting. Petry develops this relationship through the use of imagery, personification, selection of detail, and figurative language. With the use of imagery Petry establishes the stressfulness in which the wind causes between her, and the pedestrians around her. In the beginning of the opening Petry commences her first paragraph with a lengthy sentence which causes a stressfulness in a reader's breathing; similar to the way in which the wind causes in a person’s breathing.

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

In 2003, possibly one of the worst wildfires in California’s history occurred. This fire, referred to as the Cedar Fire, spread across 273,246 acres.

Imagine a talking spider, who with the help of his wife, goes on an adventure to collect creatures to bring to a sky god so they can get his stories. The spider, Anansi, wants these stories so he can give them to society and memorize them himself. Imagine now, a coyote, and his uncle who is a god, Thunder, playing dice. If coyote wins, he gets Thunder’s fire, if he loses than Thunder gets to kill him. Both these trickster tales have things in common along with things not in common with each other.

To begin with, I believe that there was more than one conflicts in the story. The conflicts were man vs. nature, man vs. self, man vs. man, and man vs. society. Mattie acquired all of these conflicts throughout the novel. To describe the conflict of man vs. nature, it is explained that the fever had spread through the air and it was up to Mattie to save herself from the disease. She had to “fight” nature and protect herself from the heat as well as the fever until winter arrived. Mattie also fought with herself when she had to decide to give Nell up to the orphanage or keep her in her own hands. Mattie also shows man vs. society as she defended the intruders breaking in the coffeehouse. Man vs. man is explained in the novel when Mattie would argue about doing her chores and going to Polly’s funeral in the

If you went out one day and out of nowhere you find yourself in a life-or-death situation would it be your fault? People in a life-or-death situation should be held accountable for their actions because most of the time people know that if they do something that can put them in a life-or-death situation then something bad will happen but they still do it willingly. Another person might not agree with this claim and say that people should not be held accountable for their actions. The reason he or she might think this is because if when a person does face a life-or-death situation it might not be entirely their fault. The following reasons are examples of why my claim is stronger.

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.

Thomas, a California native, describes the Santa Ana brush fires in a more excited and astonished tone. Since she is a native, she decides not to display her experiences to the reader in a factual way. Instead, she writes more informally, and uses techniques such as word choice and imagery to display the beauty that she sees. “The condition is perfect for fire that can rush up a canyon like a locomotive, roaring and exploding brush as it rages.” While describing a particularly hot and dry spring, Thomas uses both imagery and simile to depict the fiery winds as a train rushing over the brush. She does not only make this comparison for dramatic effect to entice the reader, but she also does it because she sees the

Virtually everywhere in the United States is affected to one degree of another by wildland fires. Even if a community is not directly involved with the fire itself, chances are that some of its members have gone to help fight wildland fires in other areas of the country by providing manpower, financial support, or other humanitarian aid.

Second, both authors use structured syntax in order to convey their message. Thomas uses a simple syntax whereas Didion uses more of a complex one. Both of them use varying length of sentences; however the passages seem to go from general to specific. The evident structure is that they first describe their environment and the subject in the beginning as well as introduce their message. Then they move on to give the reader some logic behind these ideas. Finally, they conclude by ending their narration with a summary of their arguments. Also, they both use first person narration in their pieces. Thomas seems to have written the entire piece from her own perspective when compared to Didion, who seems to have used less of her view specifically in the first half of the piece. This perspective gives

Barn Burning is a story by William Faulkner, a native of Oxford, Mississippi. The story starts off in a small town court which is also a store. Mr. Harris who owns a barn, is blaming Mr. Snopes for burning down his barn. The judge asks Mr. Harris what proof he has, but he doesn’t have proof that he actually did it. Instead he thinks Mr. Snopes has it out for him because one time Mr. Snopes hog got out in Mr. Harris cornfield. He demands a dollar for his return, but instead Snopes sent someone to get it and warned him that wood is capable of catching fire. And that night Harris barn caught on fire. But this isn’t enough to convict him of this. But this doesn’t stop Mr. Harris, he calls Mr. Snopes son to see what he knows. Nothing happens, but the judge wants Mr. Snopes to leave because he has had nothing but trouble. The family heads home and later that night Mr. Snopes wakes his son Sartoris and claims that he was going to throw him under the table and say he did it. The family then settles in a new location, where they will work for Major de Spain. Snopes being the person he is, walks into Major's house with mud on his boots making a mess. Later that day Snopes is asked to clean the rug he pretty much destroyed. Snopes cleans it like someone that has never cleaned before, making it worse. He returns the rug and the next day is confronted by Major. Major wants to be payed for his destroyed rug. Snopes denies paying and is taken to court. He loses in court and this makes him very mad. Snopes then tries to burn down Majors barn. But Sartoris runs and tells Major. Major comes and kills Snopes before he could do any damage.

The hayman fire is the biggest fire in recorded history burning 138,000 acres. The fire has had long lasting damages on the environment. There were many factor that added up that created a dangerous situation where the area was very fire prone. Though the fire was believed to be started by a woman burning a letter but the forest had the right conditions to generate a massive fire.

Bruce Wayne Ap Composition October 2014 “Santa Ana” vs “Brush Fire” The essay “The Santa Ana” by Joan Didion and “Brush Fire” by Linda Thomas are written very differently about similar topics. On one hand we have the ominous, eerie and unexplainable feels of the power of the winds by Didion and on the other hand, we have the optimistic and positivity of the winds from Thomas. Both authors being native Californians have been writing many published pieces of literature for years. Didion’s purpose is to impress upon readers the idea that the wind themselves change the way people act and react.