Here we need the opinion of a woman, preferably a woman who keeps or has kept a diary.
I kept a diary once, in high school. My own experience--and I suspect it's shared by many--is that you start out with great enthusiasm, writing long entries every day, and gradually become bored. By the end you're just puting in factual one-liners once a week or so, and then you stop. that might have happened with Suzanne, who, after all was especially busy in that moment of her senior year. There may have been very few entries from the month or so leading up to her death, and none may have been pertinent.
We need to know how intimate woman get in them.
I'd say that depends on the woman in question, and on why she's keeping the diary.
If they were seeing a married man or doing something they shouldn't, might a diary be used like a confessional, i.e. an outlet for "guilt"?
Newsflash: most women, especially young women, don't feel particularly "guilty" about having affairs with married men.
Are women likely to "censor" their diaries for fear someone "unauthorized" might read them?
Probably not all that likely. BUT many youg woman--I've known a number--have vague literary aspirations, and very definitely write with a view to future publication, should they become as successful and famous as we all imagine we'll become when we're that age. So she might have avoided mentioning anything that she thought might reflect badly on herself. |
