Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Duane Schneider

SOURCE: "Anaïs Nin in the Diary: The Creation and Development of a Persona," in Mosaic, Vol. 11, No. 2. Winter 1978, pp. 9-19.

In the following essay, Schneider traces the evolution of the narrator in the Diary, contrasting the persona therein with Nin herself and maintaining that the Diary's narrator is a literary creation more than an accurate and objective representation of Nin.

The intriguing and engaging narrator of Anaïs Nin's Diary has surely earned for herself a place among the great literary creations to appear in this century. Purporting to reveal aspects of her life (and the growth of her sensibilities) in selections from an autobiographical journal, the narrator knows and relates the truth about herself. In a series of volumes covering the years 1931–1966, the reader is allowed to trace the progress of this narrator/persona (called "Anaïs Nin") through a set of experiences that simulates the depth and...
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