Imagination, a blessing to the human race that has produced stories through ages of time. Children of all ages have had at one point in time lived in their minds. Writers on the other hand have live their whole life inside their minds. Joan Didion demonstrates this concept of imagination in her essay On Keeping a Notebook. She uses a spiral structure; a concept of fragmented perception of thought, to engage her reader and to explain why she keeps a notebook. Didion starts her essay with one of her notebook entries “”That woman Estelle,’ … is partly the reason why George Sharp and I are separated today.’ Dirty crepe-de-Chine wrapper, hotel bar, wilmington RR, 9;45 a.m. August Monday morning (Didion 1).“” Didion engages her readers further
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Didion said that her entries were “lies (2).” Figments of her imagination are how she described it to her readers. This is why Didion keeps a notebook. It isn’t to record history or everyday events. It’s to tell the stories that happen in her mind when she recalled an image. When she was five he received her first notebook, a Big Five tablet. Her first entry ever was of a “woman who believed herself freezing to death in the Arctic night, only to find, when day broke, that she has stumbled onto the Sahara Desert, where she would die of heat before lunch (Didion 2).” Didion wrote this instead of her surroundings. Which would have been easier for a child her age, but instead she wrote about this ironic situation of a woman. Latter Didion explains why she doesn’t write about her history. She does this to say “How it felt to [her] (Didion 3)”. Joan Didion used a spiral structure, to engage her readers and to explain why she keeps a notebook. Keeping a notebook isn’t to capture history in progress but to capture the mind in progress. Just as Didion did with the women in Wilmington. When she was five, she wrote of a woman dying an ironic death instead of the woman’s real story. Didion wrote down her
Didion said that her entries were “lies (2).” Figments of her imagination are how she described it to her readers. This is why Didion keeps a notebook. It isn’t to record history or everyday events. It’s to tell the stories that happen in her mind when she recalled an image. When she was five he received her first notebook, a Big Five tablet. Her first entry ever was of a “woman who believed herself freezing to death in the Arctic night, only to find, when day broke, that she has stumbled onto the Sahara Desert, where she would die of heat before lunch (Didion 2).” Didion wrote this instead of her surroundings. Which would have been easier for a child her age, but instead she wrote about this ironic situation of a woman. Latter Didion explains why she doesn’t write about her history. She does this to say “How it felt to [her] (Didion 3)”. Joan Didion used a spiral structure, to engage her readers and to explain why she keeps a notebook. Keeping a notebook isn’t to capture history in progress but to capture the mind in progress. Just as Didion did with the women in Wilmington. When she was five, she wrote of a woman dying an ironic death instead of the woman’s real story. Didion wrote down her