The diary as symbol of time in Elisabeth Tallent's "No One's A Mystery"

Symbol With the Story

Elisabeth Tallent's short story No One's A Mistery is inspired by the predictability of human behavior based on records of passed experiences. The voice of the narrator is that of an eighteen-year-old girl. The gift she received from her lover, Jack, a five-year diary, represents the essence of whole story's message.

Present and future become past in diaries and Jack seems to know everything about the human nature, especially that related to the romantic relationships between man and woman. The details about his pickup truck, his clothes, boots and the Wyoming countryside indicate that he is a living on a farm. Jack is describing himself as someone who has time on his hands. The diary is a symbol of time, a box of memories. Jack talks to the eighteen-year-old like a man who has gathered the wisdom of ages talking to a child. He is even able to predict her future, at least that related to her feelings for him.

The fact that he gave his lover a five-year diary points out that even if his mind is telling him that she will forget him, he is hoping to freeze the moment through her memories written on its pages. The way he describes his wife shows that he knows her well enough. Her cautious way of driving, her Cadillac, her predictable meatloaf are indicators of the fact that Jack has got to know her better than she knows herself. She might have been the sixteen-year-old girl who fell in love for him and got married to him.