The use of a journal was not convincing. A person keeping a journal in adverse circumstances would not record extensive dialogue in dilect. Even after announcing the putting down of pen and journal, the writer continues to narrate actions in the present tense. Unless she continued to write as she went into the woods to void, as she dove in the stream for a morning wash and as she ran across the encampment, the journaling was not accurate. Had the author told the story without using the format of a journal, he might have been able to pull the story off. As a third person narrator, he would not have been forced into the head and voice of a woman which he does not convey convincingly.