2

Close Reading
The Art and Craft of Analysis

D o you ever wonder how your teachers can teach the same books year
after year and not be bored by them? One reason is that the works we
study in school have many layers of meaning, revealing something new each time
we read them. That quality is what distinguishes them from literary potato chips —
works that are satisfying, even delicious, but that offer little nutritional value. A
mystery, romance, gossip blog, or sports rant may absorb us completely, but usu-
ally we do not read it a second time.
How do you find the “nutritional value” in the essays, speeches, stories, and
poems you study in school? Your teacher may lead you through a work, putting it
in context, focusing your attention on themes and techniques, asking for a response.
Or you might do these things yourself through a process called close reading.
When you read closely, you develop an understanding of a text that is based first
on the words themselves and then on the larger ideas those words suggest. That
is, you start with the small details, and as you think about them, you discover how
they affect the text’s larger meaning. When you write a close analysis, you start with
the larger meaning you’ve discovered and use the small details — the language
itself — to support your interpretation.
Of course, as you read the speeches, essays, letters, editorials, and even blog
posts in this book and in your class, you will find that many different factors dic-
tate the stylistic choices a writer makes. Sometimes, it’s the genre: a blog post will
likely be less formal than, say, an acceptance speech; an editorial will be less per-
sonal than an exchange of letters between two friends. Sometimes, it’s the context
or rhetorical situation — considering subject matter, occasion, audience, purpose,
and the persona of the speaker. Often, however, the choices writers make are
related to the rhetorical strategies of the text: what words in what arrangement
are most likely to create the desired effect in the audience?

39
40 CHAPTER 2 • CLOSE READING

Analyzing Style
As with any skill, close reading becomes easier with practice, but it’s important to
remember that we use it unconsciously — and instantaneously — every day as we
respond to people and situations. Just as we notice body language, gestures, facial
expressions, and volume in our conversations, we can understand a text better by
examining its sentence structure, vocabulary, imagery, and figurative language.
These elements make up the style of the written piece and help us to discover lay-
ers of meaning. Style contributes to the meaning, purpose, and effect of a text,
whether it is written, oral, or visual.

A Model Analysis
Let’s take a look at a very famous speech given by Queen Elizabeth I in 1588 to the
English troops at Tilbury that were assembled in preparation for an attack by the
Spanish Armada. Working with older pieces such as this one sometimes seems
more difficult than working with texts from the twentieth or twenty-first century,
yet you may find that you read the older ones more carefully and that their riches
reveal themselves more quickly than you might expect. Often the biggest chal-
lenge is understanding the tone of the piece, but if you look carefully at the speak-
er’s choices of words (also called diction) and how those words are arranged
(called syntax), you will find plenty of clues.
It may help you to begin by picturing Queen Elizabeth as she might have been
on that day in 1588. (Consider watching a reenactment of this speech; Helen Mirren’s
performance of it in the 2005 miniseries Elizabeth I is especially good and easy to
find online.) Tradition has it that when Queen Elizabeth, known as the Virgin Queen,
gave this speech, she was dressed in armor and left her bodyguards in order to walk
among her subjects. Her troops were vastly outnumbered by a Spanish Armada
that was the most formidable naval force in the world, and it had been preparing
to invade England for three years. England, in contrast, was in a precarious financial
situation that made it impossible for its troops to go on the offensive; they had to
wait for the attack. The English troops were bedraggled, underpaid, and hungry.

Speech to the Troops at Tilbury

QUEEN ELIZABETH
My loving people,
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed
how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure
you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear,
I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength
and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am
come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but
 ANALYZING STYLE 41

being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all;
to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my
blood, even in the dust.
I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and
stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or
Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to
which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself
will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.
I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns;
and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the
mean time, my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince com-
manded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my
general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly
have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my
people.

Using what you learned in Chapter 1, you can begin by identifying the pas-
sage’s rhetorical situation. The speaker is the Queen of England, not — and this is
important — the king. She is exhorting her troops to face the battle with courage
and determination on the eve of a confrontation in which England is the under-
dog. We can analyze the passage through the rhetorical triangle, considering the
interaction of subject, audience, and speaker. The subject is Queen Elizabeth’s sup-
port for her troops, and the audience is those soldiers gathered around to hear her.
Of course, we can assume Elizabeth knew that her words would be communi-
cated to the larger world as well.
You can also consider the ways the queen appealed to ethos, pathos, and logos.
A popular queen, walking alone but with her loyal retinue nearby, her ethos as the
monarch is established; nevertheless, she begins the speech humbly by stating her
confidence in her subjects. She appeals to pathos in her characterization of her-
self as a “weak and feeble woman,” although she reassures her listeners that on the
inside she is as strong as a king. Less apparent is Elizabeth’s appeal to logos; we
could, however, consider her promise to repay her loyal troops with “rewards and
crowns” to be a logical extension of her support for them.

• ACTIVITY •
Reread the speech, and think about the rhetorical strategies and style choices
that help Queen Elizabeth convey her message. Think also about the persona
she creates for herself and how that helps her achieve her purpose.

You probably noticed that Elizabeth begins by speaking of herself in the first
person plural. This is a convention: the “royal we,” meant to show that the ruling
42 CHAPTER 2 • CLOSE READING

monarch embodies the entire nation. Even though it is conventional, you can see
that it helps Elizabeth create a sense of common purpose. Interestingly, she quickly
moves to the singular personal pronouns, “I” and “my,” appropriate in a speech
she is making on the same ground (literally) as her audience. She starts off by
acknowledging those who might warn her against walking among her soldiers,
those who urge her to “take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes.”
She asserts her independence and fortitude here, telling the troops that she con-
siders them her “chiefest strength” and assures them that she is not that day among
them for “recreation and disport.” We can imagine that Elizabeth knew the power
of image and even mythmaking; there in the flesh among her soldiers, her wish to
“live and die amongst you all” would inspire confidence and courage. The sen-
tence that begins the speech creates a sense of equity between Elizabeth and her
troops. The second sentence builds up to the queen’s dramatic commitment to
die in the dust with her subjects.
The speech switches gears a bit in the third sentence (para. 2) with the speech’s
most famous phrase: “I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman;
but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too. . . .” Here
Elizabeth reinforces her image as the Virgin Queen. She never married, most
likely for political reasons, and considered herself married to England. She reminds
the assembled troops that she is the daughter of a king, however, and is, therefore,
connected to the long line of royalty and the divine right of kings — the idea that
royal power is bestowed by God. It is worth noting that only then, when she has
characterized herself as a “weak and feeble woman,” does she mention the enemies:
Spain, Parma (Italy), and Europe in general. These references may serve a few
purposes. They appeal to the gallantry of the troops who would feel obligated as
gentlemen to defend their queen; they may also be a way to suggest that an attack
by Spain is a Catholic threat to English Protestantism. In either case, Elizabeth
reassures her troops that she is with them every step of the way and that their
“virtues in the field” will be rewarded.
The final part of the speech reinforces the earlier call for national unity and
a reassurance that Elizabeth has the interests of her people at heart. She reminds
the troops of the rewards they will receive and reaffirms her support for her lieu-
tenant general, who serves “in [her] stead.” The last clause invokes the rule of
three — “your obedience,” “your concord,” “your valour” — to predict a “famous
victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.”
Although the Armada was defeated largely by bad weather and the light English
boats that were able to ride out the storms, Elizabeth’s troops were certainly
strengthened by her glorious words of trust and confidence.
Let’s discuss the tone of Elizabeth’s speech, as this is a good way to begin
thinking about how to write about what you’ve discovered in your close reading.
We often consider tone and mood together: tone is the speaker’s attitude toward
the subject as revealed by his or her choice of language, and mood is the feeling
created by the work. As always, it’s important to be able to support your descrip-
tion of tone and mood with evidence from the text. Elizabeth’s speech at Tilbury
 ANALYZING STYLE 43

begins with Elizabeth humbling herself to the soldiers: she drops the “royal we”;
she puts her subjects before her own safety; she offers her life for her kingdom. In
the second paragraph, Elizabeth makes a transition from humble (she has the body
of a “weak and feeble woman”) to defiant: she dares the Europeans to invade.
Finally, she makes some practical concessions, promising her troops that they will
be led by her most loyal lieutenant and amply rewarded for their loyalty. We could
describe the tone of her speech as humble yet inspiring and defiant.

• ACTIVITY •
Read Winston Churchill’s first speech to the House of Commons as Prime
Minister of Britain in May 1940. Describe the tone of the speech by using two
adjectives or an adjective and an adverb; then explain why you chose those
words, making specific reference to the text.

Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat

WINSTON CHURCHILL

I beg to move,
That this House welcomes the formation of a Government representing the
united and inflexible resolve of the nation to prosecute the war with Germany
to a victorious conclusion.
On Friday evening last I received His Majesty’s commission to form a new
Administration. It is the evident wish and will of Parliament and the nation that
this should be conceived on the broadest possible basis and that it should
include all parties, both those who supported the late Government and also
the parties of the Opposition. I have completed the most important part of this
task. A War Cabinet has been formed of five Members, representing, with the
Opposition Liberals, the unity of the nation. The three party Leaders have agreed
to serve, either in the War Cabinet or in high executive office. The three Fight-
ing Services have been filled. It was necessary that this should be done in one
single day, on account of the extreme urgency and rigour of events. A number
of other positions, key positions, were filled yesterday, and I am submitting a
further list to His Majesty tonight. I hope to complete the appointment of the
principal Ministers during tomorrow. The appointment of the other Ministers
usually takes a little longer, but I trust that, when Parliament meets again, this
part of my task will be completed, and that the Administration will be complete
in all respects.
I considered it in the public interest to suggest that the House should be sum-
moned to meet today. Mr. Speaker agreed, and took the necessary steps, in
accordance with the powers conferred upon him by the Resolution of the House.
At the end of the proceedings today, the Adjournment of the House will be
proposed until Tuesday, 21st May, with, of course, provision for earlier meeting,
44 CHAPTER 2 • CLOSE READING

if need be. The business to be considered during that week will be notified to
Members at the earliest opportunity. I now invite the House, by the Motion which
stands in my name, to record its approval of the steps taken and to declare its
confidence in the new Government.
To form an Administration of this scale and complexity is a serious under-
taking in itself, but it must be remembered that we are in the preliminary stage of
one of the greatest battles in history, that we are in action at many other points
in Norway and in Holland, that we have to be prepared in the Mediterranean,
that the air battle is continuous and that many preparations, such as have been
indicated by my hon. Friend below the Gangway, have to be made here at
home. In this crisis I hope I may be pardoned if I do not address the House at
any length today. I hope that any of my friends and colleagues, or former col-
leagues, who are affected by the political reconstruction, will make allowance,
all allowance, for any lack of ceremony with which it has been necessary to act.
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this government:
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before
us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our
policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and
with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous
tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime.
That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is vic-
tory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and
hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised;
no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has
stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will
move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope.
I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I
feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, “come then, let us go forward
together with our united strength.”

Talking with the Text

Effective close reading requires active reading, an exchange between the reader
and the text that eventually reveals layers of meaning. The first step is to read and
reread. That’s a good start, but at some point you will have to talk back, ask ques-
tions, make comments. In other words, have a conversation with the text. Let’s
look at some close reading techniques that will help you talk with the text.

Asking Questions
One of the simplest ways to talk with the text is to interrogate it — ask questions.
Remember that we’re always trying to consider the choices writers make, so as
 TALKING WITH THE TEXT 45

you read, ask yourself why they chose the words or sentence patterns they did.
You don’t always need to know the answers to your questions; sometimes, just
asking them will give you insights into a writer’s choices.
Let’s take a look at this excerpt from Ralph Ellison’s “On Bird, Bird-Watching
and Jazz,” an essay in which the writer considers the legend — and style — of jazz
saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker, nicknamed Yardbird. In the essay, which
was published in the Saturday Review in 1962, Ellison refers to both Robert Reisner’s
Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker (a collection of interviews of Parker’s friends,
family, and colleagues) and Roger Tory Peterson’s A Field Guide to the Birds (the
bird-watcher’s bible) as he comments on jazz as art and examines the myths sur-
rounding Parker’s nickname.

from On Bird, Bird-Watching and Jazz

RALPH ELLISON
Oddly enough, while several explanations are advanced as to how Charles Parker, Jr.,
became known as “Bird” (“Yardbird,” in an earlier metamorphosis), none is con-
clusive. There is, however, overpowering internal evidence that whatever the true
circumstance of his ornithological designation, it had little to do with the chicken
yard. Randy roosters and operatic hens are familiars to fans of the animated car-
toons, but for all the pathetic comedy of his living — and despite the crabbed and
constricted character of his style — Parker was a most inventive melodist, in bird-
watcher’s terminology, a true songster.
This failure in the exposition of Bird’s legend is intriguing, for nicknames are
indicative of a change from a given to an achieved identity, whether by rise or fall,
and they tell us something of the nicknamed individual’s interaction with his fel-
lows. Thus, since we suspect that more of legend is involved in his renaming than
Mr. Reisner’s title indicates, let us at least consult Roger Tory Peterson’s Field Guide
to the Birds for a hint as to why, during a period when most jazzmen were labeled
“cats,” someone hung the bird on Charlie. Let us note too that “legend” originally
meant “the story of a saint,” and that saints were often identified with symbolic
animals.
Two species won our immediate attention, the goldfinch and the mockingbird —
the goldfinch because the beatnik phrase “Bird lives,” which, following Parker’s
death, has been chalked endlessly on Village buildings and subway walls, reminds
us that during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries a symbolic goldfinch frequently
appeared in European devotional paintings. An apocryphal story has it that upon
being given a clay bird for a toy, the infant Jesus brought it miraculously to life as
a goldfinch. Thus the small, tawny-brown bird with a bright red patch about the
base of its bill and a broad yellow band across its wings became a representative
of the soul, the Passion and the Sacrifice. In more worldly late-Renaissance art, the
little bird became the ambiguous symbol of death and the soul’s immortality. For our
own purposes, however, its song poses a major problem: it is like that of a canary —
which soul or no soul, rules the goldfinch out.
46 CHAPTER 2 • CLOSE READING

The mockingbird, Mimus polyglottos, is more promising. Peterson informs us

that its song consists of “long successions of notes and phrases of great variety, with
each phrase repeated a half dozen times before going on to the next,” that mocking-
birds are “excellent mimics” who “adeptly imitate a score or more species found in
the neighborhood,” and that they frequently sing at night — a description which not
only comes close to Parker’s way with a saxophone but even hints at a trait of his
character. For although he usually sang at night, his playing was characterized by
velocity, by long-continued successions of notes and phrases, by swoops, bleats,
echoes, rapidly repeated bebops — I mean rebopped bebops — by mocking mimicry
of other jazzmen’s styles, and by interpolations of motifs from extraneous melodies,
all of which added up to a dazzling display of wit, satire, burlesque and pathos.
Further, he was as expert at issuing his improvisations from the dense brush as from
the extreme treetops of the harmonic landscape, and there was, without doubt, as
irrepressible a mockery in his personal conduct as his music.

Reread the excerpt, and see what you notice on a second reading. Jot down ques-
tions as you go, asking why Ellison might have used the language he did.
Here are some questions about Ellison’s style that might come to mind, based
on first and second impressions of the passage:

1. Why do the first two sentences contain qualifiers (“Oddly enough,”

“however”)?
2. Why does Ellison suggest that his audience might be “fans of the animated
cartoons”?
3. Why does Ellison think a book about bird-watching might be more edify-
ing than a biography of Parker?
4. Why does Ellison say “hung the bird on Charlie” (para. 2) instead of “nick-
named him”?
5. What is the effect of Ellison’s references to the story about the infant Jesus
(para. 3)?
6. Why does Ellison provide the mockingbird’s scientific name (Mimus poly-
glottos) (para. 4)?
7. How does Ellison manage to make this description of jazz sound so
jazzy: “by long-continued successions of notes and phrases, by swoops,
bleats, echoes, rapidly repeated bebops — I mean rebopped bebops — . . .”
(para. 4)?
8. What is the effect of the dashes in the phrase above?

You may notice that these questions fall into the two categories we talked
about in relation to Queen Elizabeth’s speech: the choice of words (diction) and
the way the words are arranged (syntax). When we talk about diction, we might
 TALKING WITH THE TEXT 47

look for interesting or powerful vocabulary, but we also consider figures of speech
like metaphors, similes, personification, and hyperbole. When we consider syn-
tax we want to notice interesting constructions like parallelism, juxtaposition,
and antithesis, along with sentence types such as compound, complex, periodic,
cumulative, and imperative, among others. We also might look at the pacing of
a piece of work: Does the writer reveal details quickly or slowly? How does he or
she build suspense?
Here are some questions to ask when you analyze diction:

1. What type of words draw your attention? Do they tend to be a particular

part of speech, such as verbs, nouns, adjectives, or adverbs? Is the language
general and abstract or specific and concrete?
2. Is the language formal, informal, colloquial, or slang?
3. Are some words nonliteral or figurative, creating figures of speech such as
metaphors?
4. Are there words with strong connotations? Words with a particular emo-
tional punch?

When you analyze syntax, you might ask:

1. What is the order of the parts of the sentence? Is it the usual order (subject-
verb-object), or is it inverted (object-subject-verb, or any other pattern that
is out of the ordinary)?
2. What are the sentences like? Are they periodic (moving toward something
important at the end) or cumulative (beginning with an important idea
and then adding details)?
3. Are many of the sentences simple? Complex? Compound? Are the sen-
tences on the long side, or are they short?
4. Does the writer ask questions?
5. How does the writer connect words, phrases, and clauses?

These questions do not have simple yes or no answers. They lend themselves
to discussion, but as you discuss them, be sure you can support your ideas with
evidence from the text. Coming up with answers to questions like these will put
you well on your way toward making an analysis of an author’s style and how that
style helps the author make his or her point.

• ACTIVITY •
Read the next paragraph from Ellison’s essay, then generate two or three ques-
tions each about diction and syntax.
48 CHAPTER 2 • CLOSE READING

from On Bird, Bird-Watching and Jazz

RALPH ELLISON

Mimic thrushes, which include the catbird and brown thrasher, along with the
mockingbird, are not only great virtuosi, they are the tricksters and con men of
the bird world. Like Parker, who is described as a confidence man and a prac-
tical joker by several of the commentators, they take off on the songs of other
birds, inflating, inverting and turning them wrong side out, and are capable
of driving a prowling (“square”) cat wild. Utterly irreverent and romantic, they
are not beyond bugging human beings. Indeed, on summer nights in the South,
when the moon hangs low, mockingbirds sing as though determined to heat
every drop of romance in the sleeping adolescent’s heart to fever pitch. Their
song thrills and swings the entire moon-struck night to arouse one’s sense of
the mystery, promise and frustration of being human, alive and hot in the blood.
They are as delightful to the eye as to the ear, but sometimes a similarity of
voice and appearance makes for a confusion with the shrike, a species given
to impaling insects and smaller songbirds on the points of thorns, and they are
destroyed. They are fond of fruit, especially mulberries, and if there is a tree in
your yard, there will be, along with the wonderful music, much chalky, blue-tinted
evidence of their presence. Under such conditions, be careful and heed Parker’s
warning to his friends — who sometimes were subjected to a shrikelike treat-
ment — “you must pay your dues to Bird.”

Annotating
Another close reading technique you can use is annotation. Annotating a text
requires reading with a pencil in hand. If you are not allowed to write in your
book, then write on sticky notes. As you read, circle words you don’t know,
or write them on the sticky notes. Identify main ideas — thesis statements,
topic sentences — and also words, phrases, or sentences that appeal to you,
that seem important, or that you don’t understand. Look for figures of speech
such as metaphors, similes, and personification — as well as imagery and striking
detail. If you don’t know the technical term for something, just describe it. For
example, if you come across an adjective-and-noun combination that seems
contradictory, such as “meager abundance,” and you don’t know that the term for
it is oxymoron, you might still note the juxtaposition of two words that have
opposite meanings. Ask questions or comment on what you have read. In short,
as you read, listen to the voice in your head, and write down what that voice is
saying.
Let’s try out this approach using a passage by Joan Didion about California’s
Santa Ana winds from her 1965 essay “Los Angeles Notebook.” Read the passage
first, and see if you can come up with some ideas about Didion’s purpose. Then we
will look closely at the choices she makes and the effects of those choices.
 TALKING WITH THE TEXT 49

The Santa Ana Winds

JOAN DIDION

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural still-
ness, some tension. 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. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and
hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but
I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because
we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the
telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is
in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a
deeply mechanistic view of human behavior.
I recall being told, when I first moved to Los Angeles and was living on an iso-
lated beach, that the Indians would throw themselves into the sea when the bad wind
blew. I could see why. 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. The heat was surreal. The sky had a
yellow cast, the kind of light sometimes called “earthquake weather.” My only neigh-
bor 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. One day he would tell me that
he had heard a trespasser, the next a rattlesnake.
“On nights like that,” Raymond Chandler once wrote about the Santa Ana,
“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.” That was the kind of
wind it was. I did not know then that there was any basis for the effect it had on all
of us, but it turns out to be another of those cases in which science bears out folk
wisdom. The Santa Ana, which is named for one of the canyons it rushes through,
is a foehn wind, like the foehn of Austria and Switzerland and the hamsin of Israel.
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. Whenever and wherever foehn blows, doc-
tors hear about headaches and nausea and allergies, about “nervousness,” about
“depression.” In Los Angeles some teachers do not attempt to conduct formal classes
during a Santa Ana, because the children become unmanageable. In Switzerland
the suicide rate goes up during the foehn, and in the courts of some Swiss cantons
the wind is considered a mitigating circumstance for crime. Surgeons are said to
watch the wind, because blood does not clot normally during a foehn. A few years
ago an Israeli physicist discovered that not only during such winds, but for the ten or
twelve hours which precede them, the air carries an unusually high ratio of positive
 50 CHAPTER 2 • CLOSE READING

to negative ions. No one seems to know exactly why that should be; some talk about
friction and others suggest solar disturbances. In any case the positive ions are there,
and what an excess of positive ions does, in the simplest terms, is make people
unhappy. One cannot get much more mechanistic than that.

You probably noticed that while Didion seems to be writing about a natural
phenomenon — the Santa Ana winds — she is also commenting on human nature
and the way nature affects human behavior. Her purpose, then, is social commen-
tary as much as the observation of an event in nature. In addition, you may notice
on a second or third reading that her tone gives you another message: the way
Didion sees human nature.
Following is an annotated version of the Didion passage:

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this after-

noon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means
Related words.
is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind Anxiety, foreboding
Long
sentence
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. For a
few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and
Appeal to senses
hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a
Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have
seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The Short
sentences
baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument
with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie
down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the
Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply
Look up word mechanistic view of human behavior.
I recall being told, when I first moved to Los Angeles and
was living on an isolated beach, that the Indians would throw Folktale?
themselves into the sea when the bad wind blew. I could see
why. The Pacific turned ominously glossy during a Santa Ana Echo of foreboding
in opening
period, and one woke in the night troubled not only by the
Vivid images
peacocks screaming in the olive trees but by the eerie absence
of surf. The heat was surreal. The sky had a yellow cast, the
kind of light sometimes called “earthquake weather.” My
only neighbor would not come out of her house for days, and
More anxiety Personal anecdote
there were no lights at night, and her husband roamed the
words
place with a machete. One day he would tell me that he had
heard a trespasser, the next a rattlesnake.
 TALKING WITH THE TEXT 51

“On nights like that,” Raymond Chandler once wrote Look up name

about the Santa Ana, “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.” That was the kind of
wind it was. I did not know then that there was any basis for
the effect it had on all of us, but it turns out to be another of
Seemingly
those cases in which science bears out folk wisdom. The contradictory
Santa Ana, which is named for one of the canyons it rushes sources of
information
through, is a foehn wind, like the foehn of Austria and Switzer-
land and the hamsin of Israel. There are a number of persistent
malevolent winds, perhaps the best known of which are the
Good description
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. Whenever and wherever
foehn blows, doctors hear about headaches and nausea and
allergies, about “nervousness,” about “depression.” In Los Ange-
Why in quotes?
les some teachers do not attempt to conduct formal classes dur-
At least 7 ing a Santa Ana, because the children become unmanageable.
scientific facts In Switzerland the suicide rate goes up during the foehn, and
in the courts of some Swiss cantons the wind is considered a
mitigating circumstance for crime. Surgeons are said to watch
the wind, because blood does not clot normally during a
foehn. A few years ago an Israeli physicist discovered that not
only during such winds, but for the ten or twelve hours which
precede them, the air carries an unusually high ratio of posi-
tive to negative ions. No one seems to know exactly why that
should be; some talk about friction and others suggest solar
disturbances. In any case the positive ions are there, and what
Strange —
an excess of positive ions does, in the simplest terms, is make
should be positive people unhappy. One cannot get much more mechanistic
than that.

Using a Graphic Organizer

Another way to organize your thoughts about a specific text is to use a graphic
organizer. A graphic organizer lets you systematically look at short passages from a
longer text. Your teacher may divide the text for you, or you may divide it yourself;