During the past few days, we have read two descriptive essays, Julia Alvarez's "Snow" and Joan Didion's "The Santa Ana." Both happen to be essays that focus on the author's perceptions/reflections of nature.
Which essay do you find stronger and more effective as a descriptive piece? Please make sure you cite AT LEAST THREE REASONS FROM THE TEXT THAT YOU FIND SUPERIOR, reasons that you think support your arguments. In that case, you will also need to reference specific aspects of the other essay. Respond in a thoughtful passage of at least10 sentences to explain your reasoning. There's not a right or wrong answer on this and we're not looking for a perfect essay. The key is for you to take some time to offer your own personal reflections in a more formal way.
I believe that "Santa Ana" does a better job of describing its point than "Snow". In "Santa Ana", Didion very thoroughly describes how bad Santa Ana is: "Whenever and whenever foehn blows, doctors hear about headaches and nausea and allergies." While Didion is able to describe the annoyances of Santa Ana, Julia Álvarez tells more about her surroundings than showing them, she writes, "I saw dots in the air." This is an example of her saying what she saw instead of showing. Didion does a better job of setting the grim mood for Santa Ana saying that "The baby frets. The maid sulks." She shows the reader how everyone and everything is affected negatively by Santa Ana. Álvarez writes about holocaust being in the air, but we only really know how she feels in the story. She says what other people say, but we don't really get into their minds. Finally, Didion describes why Santa Ana happens: "The Santa Ana... Is foehn wind." Knowing what causes it helps the readers to know what it would feel like to be in one. It is harder for many readers to connect with the situation in Álvarez's situation because many of the readers have never experienced mistaking snow for a nuclear bomb. Although readers haven't experienced Santa Ana, many have had a "bad day" where it seems like nothing goes right, and they are feeling sick. Santa Ana is a better descriptive essay because it allows the readers to understand what it feels like to live during Santa Ana.
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ReplyDeleteI think that Snow was a better descriptive piece. In Santa Ana, much of the story is told by simply giving facts about the storm, especially paragraph number five where the author simply writes things like, "on November 24, six people were killed" and "on November 26, an attorney shot his wife". Snow, however, gives detailed descriptions of many things while demonstrating the simple way that the main character (a child) would view things. For example, "she drew a picture of a mushroom on the blackboard and dotted a flurry of chalk marks for the dusty fallout that would kill us all". This example shows the simplistic way that a child views the world while giving the reader a detailed description and explaining the situation that the children were in. I also liked how the nuns were described as "hefty women in ling black gowns and bonnets that made them look peculiar, like dolls in mourning." My favorite description was "from my desk, I watched the fine powder dust the sidewalk and the parked cars below. Each flake was different, sister Zoe had said,like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful" which, combined with the first example I chose, made the point that, nature can appear to be dangerous but it can be beautiful, wondrous and unique like each person.
ReplyDeleteI think that Snow is more descriptive that The Santa Ana because it provides more descriptive details while The Santa Ana merely lists facts. In Snow Julia Alvarez describes her environment with, "holocaust was in the air". In The Santa Ana Joan Didion says that there is something, "unnatural, stillness, some tension" in the air which is just telling while Alvarez gives you an image. Didion just gives lots of facts about different people for example in the first paragraph, "the maid sulks. the baby frets". Alvarez on the other hand focuses in on the emotion of one child and her reactions to the world around her, for instance when she says that the nuns' clothing "made them look peculiar, like dolls in mourning". Alvarez also does a better job of providing imagery especially when describing the people in the story. In The Santa Ana Didion states "my only neighbor would not come out of her house for days" which is just telling us that her neighbor won't leave her house while Alvarez uses imagery to show us how the students would react to the air raid drills. In the second paragraph she says "we'd file into the hall, fall to the floor, cover our heads with our coats, and imagine our hair falling out, the bones in our arms going soft" which shows their fear and how they feel weak.
ReplyDeletei think that the santa ana was a better descriptive essay as it gave an overall picture of what it's like to live in los angeles during the storm, while snow only offers us a snapshot of yolanda's experience of nature and is more about her time in the classroom. when didion says "like that...anything can happen" it shows us how the santa ana affects everyone. she also states later that "los angeles weather...its unreliability" which shows us didion's beliefs that los angeles practically revolves around the santa ana. she follows up with the line "the wind shows us how close to the edge we are" which is not only a great line but also a window into how the santa ana affects the population of la not only as a whole but also individually. the line also brings the essay back to the big picture after being zoomed in on the individual incidents that occur during the santa ana, whereas álvarez's final line, "each person was different...irreplaceable and beautiful" is a nice line but doesn't really fit in with the rest of the story. overall, both are great essays, but didion's is a better descriptive piece.
ReplyDeleteJulia Álvarez's essay "Snow" was a more discriptive piece, from the perspective of one persons personal experience. While Santa Ana contained more facts about what had happened from many different perspectives and locations. In the first paragraph of Snow, the narrarator tells us about her seat in the classroom. "I was put in a special seat in the first row by the window, apart from the other children so that Sister Zoe could tutor me without disturbing them." Personally I thought that this is an important detail throughout the story. The author takes us back to this seat, especially when she thinks they were being bombed. "One morning as I sat at my desk daydreaming out the window, I saw dots in the air like the ones Sister Zoe had drawn random at first, then lots and lots." This showed a first hand experience. In the 5th paragraph of Santa Ana we are told facts about the storm, "On the first day 25,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountians were burning, ..." We see Snow through the eyes of a child, while the discriptions are not as advanced we are still able to picture the situation. "It was dark when I got up in the morning, frosty when I followed my breath to school."
ReplyDeleteI think that Santa Ana was a better descriptive piece because the author, Joan Didion, uses descriptions that make the piece more three dimensional. Didion describes the sounds, the temperatures and looks while Julia Alvarez, the author of Snow, only uses visual descriptions. In Santa Ana, Didion writes, "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 by the eerie absence of surf. The heat was surreal." In this line Didion describes sounds, looks and weather and allows the reader to really understand what Didion is trying to portray in more than just the looks. Didion also writes, "For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night." This is another example of how Didion includes multiple senses in her descriptions. However, Alvarez does not have as much dimension in her descriptions, ask shown in the line from Snow, "She drew a picture of a mushroom on the blackboard and dotted a flurry of chalk marks." Here, although it has a good visual description, there is nothing else that gives you an idea of the setting, no hints to the weather or an audio descriptions. Snow also is vaguer than Santa Ana when it comes to weather and location. The Santa Ana clearly states the location as Los Angeles, California, as Didion writes, "There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon." However, in Snow, it states that it is winter, as Alvarez writes, "All my life I had heard about the white crystals that fell out of American skies in the winter." Alvarez does not inform us of the location of the story and therefore we do not really know what the weather is like, as winter varies throughout the world. We know that it is somewhere with snow, but that is still very broad. Therefore Santa Ana is a better descriptive piece in my opinion because it includes multiple senses in the descriptions and helps the reader picture what the author is portraying better.
ReplyDeleteI thought Santa Ana was more powerful. While Snow is a great piece of writing, Santa Ana is more involved with the reader, making the point of the story more apparent and powerful. This quote demonstrates the severity of the situation, "On November 26 a prominent Pasadena attorney, depressed about money, shot and killed his wife, their two sons, and himself. On November 27, a South Gate divorcée, twenty-two, was murdered and thrown from a moving car...". Unlike in Snow, you get a feeling from this quote of how bad the situation is. Yes, as it says in Snow, "I soon picked up enough English to understand holocaust was in the air... Russian missiles were being assembled... President Kennedy was looking worried too," shows the severity of this situation, but Santa Ana shows how it affected the society, therefore making it more relatable. I also think that Santa Ana is written more as a public awareness essay, having a curious, hinting beginning and a conclusive and upsetting ending, showing the reality of the situation. As it says at the beginning, "There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon..." This demonstrates the beginning. It drew me in, wanting to know why this specific afternoon was different than all the others. The end, "It is hard for people who have not lived in Los Angeles to realize now radically the Santa Ana figures in the local imagination... The winds shows us how close to the edge we are." it sums up the point of the story very clearly and conclusively, while the end of Snow, "Each flake was different... Like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful," brought in a new concept at the end of the story, making the point of this tragic event seem less important. In other words, if I hadn't know previously what the holocaust was, I wouldn't have understood why this was such a big deal. That is why I think Santa Ana was a stronger story than Snow.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Snow was a more descriptive essay than The Santa Ana. When I think about the two essays, I remember more and more images come to mind from Snow than they do for The Santa Ana. In Snow it was easier to see images. The first line of Snow is, "Our first year in New York we rented a small apartment with a Catholic school nearby, taught by the Sisters of Charity, hefty women in long black gowns and bonnets that made them look peculiar, like dolls in mourning." From hearing this sentence you can immediately imagine two nuns that look like "dolls in mourning", the description is so descriptive and gives such an image that stays in your mind. Another image I found very descriptive was the line, "At school, we had air raid drills: an ominous bell would go off and we'd file into the hall, fall to the floor, cover our heads with our coats, and imagine our hair falling out, the bones in our arms going soft." This line showed the fear the children felt, and how they would think about what it would feel like for a bomb to be dropped on them. Having to practice for these drills made them imagine death by a bomb being dropped on them, even though they're only kids and shouldn't have to think about things like that. Again the image here was so clear I could see children lined up in the hallway, scared to death of a bomb falling on their school. The last line that really showed the great descriptions in Snow was, "I shrieked, "Bomb! Bomb!" Sister Zoe jerked around, her full black skirt ballooning as she hurried to my side. A few girls began to cry." Here we see in action the paranoia the kids felt, and the protectiveness of Sister Zoe. I thought Snow was more descriptive because of the images, whereas I found that The Santa Ana was more factual. For example it says, "On November 24 six people were killed in automobile accidents, and by the end of the week the Los Angeles Times was keeping a box score of traffic deaths." This line doesn't fife much of an image, and it's harder to keep facts than it is to remember images. Another line is, "In fact the climate is characterized by infrequent but violent extremes: two periods of torrential subtropical rains which continue for weeks and wash out the hills and send subdivisions slinging towards the sea," this factual way of writing doesn't give me much of a description, and it's hard to remember.
ReplyDeleteOf the two essays Santa Ana and Snow, I found Santa Ana more effective as a descriptive piece. Santa Ana, didn't have any characters except the narrator , where Snow had the teacher and her family. Santa Ana gave all the facts, but to understandSnow one would have to know that it most likely occurred during the Cold War. In Santa Ana, Didion states exactly how the Santa Ana affects everyone from Los Angeles. He use actual cases and stories, that had nothing to do with him, that occurred during the times that the Santa Ana happened. In Snow, Alvarez sticks to her story about being an immigrant and life during that time period. Finally, Santa Ana stuck to one subject, how the Santa Ana affected people and what happened during a Santa Ana. Snow, focused on being an immigrant and also what life was like during the time period. In conclusion, Santa Ana was more effective as a descriptive essay than Snow because it focused on multiple stories and facts, rather than just one story.
ReplyDeleteI think that “Snow” was a more effective descriptive piece because while “The Santa Ana” was a longer and more descriptive piece, it was really difficult to understand. While Julia Alvarez had managed to make her essay much easier to read, while just losing a little bit of the descriptive wording in her essay. She still has plenty of lines that show the descriptive part of her essay, such as the first line, “Our first year in New York we rented a small apartment with a Catholic school nearby, taught by the Sisters of Charity, hefty women in long black gowns and bonnets” The line shows the majority of the setting and description of her teachers in less than a sentence. There is also this line, “She drew a picture of a mushroom on the blackboard and dotted a flurry of chalk marks for the dusty fallout that would kill us all.” Which shows how the author saw the chalk drawing of a nuke’s aftermath. Another line is, “All my life I had heard about the white crystals that fell out of the American skies in the winter. From my desk I watched the fine powder dust the sidewalk and parked cars below. Each flake was different, Sister Zoe had said, like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful.” This was the last line in the story, which described her first winter, which was confused for a nuclear strike. Overall I think that this proves that snow was the stronger story.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Santa Ana does a better job of describing than Snow . Santa Ana is describing a Natural event , while Snow is describing a life experience. Santa Ana describes not only the narrators experiences but other peoples for example " On nights like that Raymond Chandler once wrote about Santa Ana. It gives the story more descriptive perspectives.Also Snow gives a description of a small part of a young girls life. While Santa Ana is able to give multiple accounts in there short story. Which gives the story a better "big picture" than Snow. Santa Ana tells the of other events that cause similar symptoms like Santa Ana , also the narrator tells many facts that describe that Snow lacks. In Santa Ana they also make a connection between the wind and the people there. They also describe the winds almost as a mythical god or illusion that causes strife this shows that Santa Ana's description is clearly more in depth than Snow's.
ReplyDeleteI think that "Santa Ana" is better than "Snow" because it is more thorough and gives lots of examples. I felt that it is the more descriptive of the two essays, and that "Snow" is more of a story rather than descriptive essay. "Santa Ana" also gives more detail of what the atmosphere of the setting is like. "'On nights like that,' Raymond Chandler once wrote about the Santa Ana, 'every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edges of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen.'" Whereas in "Snow" the line that I compare that to is "Soon I picked up enough English to understand holocaust was in the air...President Kennedy, looking worried too, was on the television explaining that we might have to go to war against the communists." Santa Ana also gives more attention to details and gives more examples of the effects of the event the essay is describing. Alvarez writes, "All my life I had heard about the white crystals that fell out of the American skies in winter." Didon in turn writes, "Whenever and wherever foehn blows, doctors hear about headaches and nausea and allergies, about 'nervousness,' about 'depression." The final paragraphs are both a closure paragraph for the story in both essays, however Didon's is in my opinion better because of the final line. For snow it is, "Each flake was different, Sister Zoe had said, like a person, irreplaceable and beautiful." And that's fine and gives light to the independence of the narrator, but for Santa Ana, the final line ends in mystery and that makes it gripping. "The winds show us how close to the edge we are." It gives the story an air of mystery and intrigue that isn't present in Snow, and that is why Santa Ana is better.
ReplyDeleteSanta Ana is the better descriptive essay than Snow. The facts in Santa Ana strengthen her imagery and details. One example is when Joan Didion wrote, "What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point." The author writes a play by play of the scene and plot. An image of a map was being drawn in my head when I read it. Snow used a lot of adjectives, but it felt like she was showing and not telling. Alvarez wrote, "Russian missiles were being assembled, trained supposedly on New York City. On the other hand Santa Ana can be really factual, and telling not showing by being descriptive: "Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands’ necks." Santa Ana is also describing human nature in an interesting way and giving the story an edge.
ReplyDelete"Snow" was more effective as a descriptive essay. "Snow" gives a more personal account, while "Santa Ana" tends to list more facts. In "Snow," you hear the personal account of one person, and we get the details of exactly what went through her head. For example, the writer remembers her experience at school, "We had air raid drills: an ominous bell would go off and we'd file into the hall, fall to the floor, cover our heads with our coats, and imagine our hair falling out, the bones in our arms going soft." In "Santa Ana," however, he we hear more facts and stories without describing the emotions of people involved. One describes an attorney who killed is wife and kids, then himself. Because we can not see the people in other situations, these stories do not help us connect with the people experiencing them. Álvarez also uses less specific dates, which makes it feel less like a lecture and more like a story. There are very few people who would prefer to hear a lecture over a story. All of this shows more detail in "Snow."
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ReplyDeleteI definitely think the story "Snow" is better as a descriptive story. There are multiple instances where sensory details are used to describe the setting. An example of the detail the story has is, "It was dark when I got up in the morning, frosty when I followed my breath to school." It's not just sensory detail that make the story descriptive, but how the speaker talk about very specific details in her life. Figurative language such as "like dolls in mourning" add to the story's expressiveness. Compared to "Snow", "Santa Ann" is very simple and basic. Sentences like "The maid sulks" or "We know it because we feel it," don't add very much detail to the story. Most of the sentences are straightforward and simplistic. Sentences with lots of adjectives, figurative language, and sensory details are few and far between. In terms of descriptiveness, "Santa Ann" pales in comparison to "Snow."
I think that Snow is a more descriptive piece because when thinking of it, there is more imagery and emotion. I feel as if The Santa Ana Didion is more fact than story. It gives numbers but it doesn't really describe what the wind itself is like. The wind seems kind of distant and mysterious because we really don't know anything about it other than "make people unhappy." Snow is different because it is relatable. "At school, we had air raid drills: an ominous bell would go off and we'd file into the hall, fall to the floor, cover our heads with our coats, and imagine our hair falling out, the bones in our arms going soft." Many kids have had drills at school even if they aren't for air raids the fear of what if this really happens is still there. This passage is also descriptive of the drill itself but the emotions embedded in the children as they perform it. You can almost feel the fear when reading. Snow covers so much in just one piece, from learning English to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Santa Ana Didion covers the "unnatural stillness" of the air before the winds came to the power of the winds "with gusts reaching 100 miles an hour." The Santa Ana Didion gives examples and numbers, but Snow gives a story. The story of a little girl in a new, foreign world with terrors of its own. Overall I think Snow is more descriptive as far as emotion and setting but The Santa Ana Didion gives more real life examples.
ReplyDeleteI personally thought that the Santa Ana essay was stronger. I always enjoy the inclusion of number and facts since they make the story more real. The use of facts and numbers were used in Santa Ana when discussing the number of traffic deaths during the winds and when the extra positive ions were brought up. In Snow, the only slightly scientific fact included was mentioned in the discussion of bombs, in the line "chalk marks for the dusty fallout that would kill us." Also, I thought the juxtaposition displayed in Santa Ana in the line "one woke in the night troubled not only by the peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie absence of surf." helps set up an environment for how disturbing the winds are. I personally don't think anything in Snow comes close. Lastly, I thought that Santa Ana described the feel of the winds better than Snow. In Snow "she hurried to my side. A few girls began to cry." was used to show how terrifying this was but this is fairly blatant. Meanwhile, "Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks." is used in Santa Ana to portray the idea that the winds really mess with some peoples heads. All in all, I found Santa Ana to be a strong descriptive piece than Snow.
ReplyDeleteJoan Didion's piece, the Santa Ana was much more descriptive than Alvarez's Snow. The Santa Ana was entirely dedicated to describing the various facets of this one natural force while Snow was more of a narrative piece. Didion describes the scientific side of the Santa Ana, talking about how it blows a larger ratio of positive to negative particles into the area causing people to be unhappy. Didion also gave more understandable examples saying how teachers don't attempt to teach because children become uncontrollable and how people get depressed and nervous during the wind. Snow described small details about certain things in the story like the nuns or the way a skirt moved, but didn't have the same dedicated descriptive goal. The Santa Ana used eleven paragraphs to describe one natural phenomenon. In the Santa Ana, Didion cited a work by Raymond Chandler about the Santa Ana which described it writing "On nights like this every booze party ends in a knife fight", further illustrating how widely known and feared this wind really is. The Santa Ana was overall a better descriptive piece than snow because it gave much more focus to a much narrower subject. Santa Ana also used better descriptive language and examples than snow. Snow was a narrative as well as a descriptive piece where as Santa Ana was sole ya descriptive piece.
ReplyDeleteI think it's hard to determine which is a better descriptive essay seeing as they are describing two different things one an event or memory and the other a natural occurrence. That being said I think snow was the better descriptive essay. Describing something that happened is straightforward. You just have to list things in that detail whereas describing an abstract concepts such as Santa Ana you were only left with anecdotes and speculations. The Santa Anna says, "The air carries in an usually high ratio of negative ions. No one seems to know exactly why that should be,". Snow has the luxury of saying things like " I got up in the morning.", because these things actually happened to her. But on the other hand when Didion says, "I recall being told when I first moved to Los Angeles," it doesn't help because the whole passage is not about him describing his experience it is about the wind.
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DeleteI feel that Santa Ana was a better descriptive piece because it really describes the impact of the Santa Ana on the community. Joan Didion really immerses the reader into the story, and shows how harmful the Santa Ana is. Didion writes,"My only Neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and there were no light on at night, and her husband roamed the place with a machete." This shows the affects of the Santa Ana, and Didion uses a great example. Didion also states a logical reason for the Santa Ana:"In any case the positive ions are there, and what an excess of positive ions does, in the simplest terms, is make people unhappy." This quote not only shows how strong the Santa Ana is, but how it is scientifically possible. Joan Didion gives another example of how the Santa Ana impacts the watts riots. Didion gives a lot and great examples of the Santa Ana, and that's why I think it's a better descriptive piece.
ReplyDeleteI feel as though Santa Ana did a better job as a descriptive piece. The opening line "There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension.", sets the tone for the rest of the piece. The tone itself is one of a ceratin crazed fervor, the Santa Ana winds bring out the worst in people and creates general chaos. Didion including stories of horrible things that had happened when the hot winds blew through thoroughly contributed to the picture that she is trying to paint. The line "meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks" especially showed how nature can change ordinary, quiet people for the worse. This and other facts and stories definitely helped put this essay forward in a descriptive race, if you will against Alvarez's Snow. A line describing more of the actual wind than the madness surrounding it was "periods of torrential subtropical rains which continue for weeks and wash out the hills and send subdivisions sliding toward the sea". I liked this line because it showed that this wind can disrupt lives and literally send parts of society into the ocean. To conclude, I feel that Alvarez's essay sacrificed descriptive deatails for more personal experiences rather that what Didion did, which was to include more facts. This is not to say that Alvarez's essay wasn't descriptive, I just felt that Didion did abetter job.
ReplyDeleteI believe that "Santa Ana" was a stronger descriptive piece. My main reason for this is simply that it is more descriptive. It is longer, and gives more examples about its subject. Alvarez describes only what she feels and what her class does: "At school we had air-raid drills; an ominous bell would go off and we'd file into the hall, fall to the floor, cover our heads with our coats, and imagine our hair falling out". She simply explains the steps they take. She does not describe the emotions of the people like Didion does: "My only neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and there were no lights at night, and her husband roamed the place with a machete". Alvarez simply gives facts, while Didion gives her's and others' feelings. Alvarez tells about emotions, while Didion shows. Alvarez writes, "Sister Zoe jerked around, her full black skirt ballooning as she hurried to my side. A few girls began to cry". Didion writes, "On nights like that... Every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks". Didion leaves the emotions of characters open, while Alvarez keeps it simple. Also, Didion is talking about Los Angeles and the storms, while Alvarez talks only about herself and her experience. Didion writes, "On November 26 a prominent Pasadena attorney, depressed about money, shot and killed his wife, their two sons, and himself". This gives an idea of what the Santa Ana can do to all people, not just to the author. Alvarez writes only about her own thoughts, and does not explore other people's: "I liked them a lot, especially my grandmotherly fourth grade teacher, Sister Zoe". This is why "Santa Ana" is a better descriptive essay than "Snow".
ReplyDeleteJoan Didion's short story, The Santa Ana, was more effective as a descriptive piece because of her way of entangling facts with descriptions, compared to Alvarez's mere scene. One example of this is the line "The Pacific turned ominously glossy, during a Santa Ana period ... Absence of surf." In this one sentence, Didion includes multiple facts (glossy Pacific, absence of surf, distressed animals), yet also includes powerful descriptions, or adjectives (eerie, olive trees, screaming peacocks) that can put you into the moment. In Snow, descriptions are used, but the reader only sees the scene from the narrator's point of view. Secondly, you see Raymon Chandler's observances of the Santa Ana, but, once again, you only see Alvarez's viewpoint in Snow. Lastly, in Snow, there is an of absence of atmosphere. Santa Ana's mood is full of mystery, whereas Snow is just an account of what happened.
ReplyDeleteJoan Didion's short story, The Santa Ana, was more effective as a descriptive piece because of her way of entangling facts with descriptions, compared to Alvarez's mere scene. One example of this is the line "The Pacific turned ominously glossy, during a Santa Ana period ... Absence of surf." In this one sentence, Didion includes multiple facts (glossy Pacific, absence of surf, distressed animals), yet also includes powerful descriptions, or adjectives (eerie, olive trees, screaming peacocks) that can put you into the moment. In Snow, descriptions are used, but the reader only sees the scene from the narrator's point of view. Secondly, you see Raymon Chandler's observances of the Santa Ana, but, once again, you only see Alvarez's viewpoint in Snow. This detracts from "Snow" because the essay has an unreliable narrator. The reader can't ever know how the other students or the teacher fact, for example. Lastly, in Snow, there is an of absence of atmosphere. Santa Ana's mood is full of mystery (sires in the night, "anything can happen"), whereas Snow is just an account of what happened. Due to this fact, I thought "Santa Ana" had a greater depth, which made it more enjoyable. This may or may not account for anything, but I also liked the stronger vocabulary used in Santa Ana. Occasionally, I looked up words, like a foehn, but Snow was a breeze.
DeleteI think Santa Ana is a more effective piece because it's gives informational piece that reades can relate if they were living in an area where the Santa Ana was effecting in a very harsh way. One place that a reader like me can relate where the Santa Ana effected the most is places in Calfornia because places is know to be a place where it never gets cold that much and it's always hot, places like that are where the Santa Ana likes do its dirty work.
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