and The Silent Dancing by Judith Ortiz Cofer
The short stories The Santa Ana by Joan Didion and The Silent Dancing by Judith Ortiz Cofer seem to be very different in all senses of style, plot and message. But a more detailed analysis still allows finding some slight resemblance between them.
Both of the stories tell us about the experience of authors’ connection to the childhood ad talk about the narrators’ movement to another place and their adaptation to living in the new city and their adjustment to the new culture. The Silent Dancing is about the life of a Puerto Rican family after moving to New York, the USA, more precisely about one particular party they organized on the New Year’s Eve. The story of each family member is described in detail through his or her dialogs and actions. In the form of a silent movie, this looks even more appealing because it sends us back to the early years of the author’s life. It is apparent that this story, out of two, is more descriptive and longer; it is full of different characters. The Santa Ana, on the other hand, reminds of a newspaper article, but this is what makes it look like the events described are very real. The Santa Ana, too, is telling us about a certain meaningful experience of the author’s life – moving to Los Angeles and adjustment to its hot weather. The story tells the reader about the wind that takes place in Los Angeles – a phenomenon that causes a lot of trouble for the region. The author’s feelings about the wind are uneasy and she often talks a lot about health problems and depressions. She even mentions that there is no “weather” in the regions and that everything that happens is rather misleading.
The similarity between the two stories is that they both describe certain agitating feelings connected with the places where they used to live: whether it is the family members with their own stories full of secrets or the strong wind that affect all the inhabitants of the town. All this conveys the idea that life can be unpredicted and different and that humans are not able to control certain things.
Another similarity lies in the writing style of both stories. Silent Dancing comprises paragraphs of the story mixed with the descriptions of homemade video that was filmed during the party – even written in different fonts. The Santa Ana, in its turn, reminds more of a combination of descriptive narrative and a newspaper article, as it contains some figures, statistics and ratings. But, on the other hand, Silent Dancing and The Santa Ana have a conventional narrative structure that consists of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.
Additionally, both Joan Didion and Judith Ortiz Cofer in their short stories try to appeal to the reader’s senses with the help of different types of imagery. In The Santa Ana the author uses visual imagery in terms of epithets and discriptions: “isolated beach”, “sky had a yellow cast”, “weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse” (Didion, 2011). Olfactory and auditory imagery are mostly found in the description of air and wind: “some unnatural stillness, some tension”, “a hot dry wind”, “drying the hills and the nerves to flash point”, “surreal heat”, “foehn wind”, “malevolent winds”, “gusts reaching 100 miles an hour” and so on (Didion, 2011). There is also some mentioning of other different sounds in the story: “peacocks screaming”, “he had heard a trespasser, the next a rattlesnake” (Didion, 2011). It helps the reader to evoke his senses of hearing and smell and to feel the blowing of a hot wind and the stiffness of the air. The imagery in Silent Dancing is also used with the purpose to deep the reader into the actions and allows feeling the situation with the help of senses. Visual imagery can be found nearly the whole story, especially in the paragraphs that describe the video. Cofer also uses epithets: “shades of gray”, “building we lived in was gray, as were the streets, filled with slush”, “fair skin and light-brown hair”, “dark suits for the men, red dresses for the women” mostly concentrated on colors (Cofer, ). Also, auditory imagery: “heater pipes banged and rattled”, “hiss from the valve” and olfactory imagery: “thick sweetness of women's perfumes mixing with the ever-present smells of food cooking” can be found in the story (Cofer, 2016).
References
Cofer, J. (2016). Silent Dancing. Retrieved 13 March 2016, from http://www2.hawaii.edu/~facoba/readings/cofer.htm
Didion, J. (2011). The Santa Ana. Retrieved 13 March 2016, from http://bobbyhundreds.tumblr.com/post/13597404539/the-santa-ana-by-joan-didion
