Joan Didion On Keeping A Notebook

The daunting task of a baby bird to fly for the first time is sometimes like trying to put pen to a paper, how do we know if what’s written down is right compared to what the world is saying? Author, Joan Didion, in her essay, “On Keeping a Notebook,” demonstrates that an individual’s perception of the world determines their notebook’s contents, of which, only has significance to the individual. Didion’s purpose is to promote the idea that keeping a notebook helps individuals to remember the details of life so that when life gets bleak there’s something to hold onto. She adopts a contemplative tone in order to elaborate the significance on keeping a notebook. Didion builds her essay around her personal notebook entries and experience by appealing to pathos, also implementing foreshadowing, tropes, schemes flashbacks, rhetorical questions and imagery to present her six major points which promote her purpose. In her essay, Didion first sets the stage by defining what a writer is and then expounds on why she shorthand’s her thoughts into a notebook. She inserts one of her entries to demonstrate a random shorthanded thought, “Dirty crepe-de-Chine wrapper, hotel bar, Wilmington RR…” (paragraph 1). She implements this example in order to express her
Such thoughts can be examined in paragraph seven announcing, “that is what it was to me,” and “that was how it felt to me…” when Didion further explains that it doesn’t matter how precisely a memory is remembered, as long as there’s still something to hold onto. The repetitive thoughts that foreshadow are embedded in this section of the text in order to illuminate the author’s third point of the paper: how it felt to me. Through repetitive thoughts the author incorporates a sentimental tone which evokes the readers to further ponder Didion’s third point and try to remember memories from the