ABSTRACT
An examination of the use of language and writing as metaphors in the diary provides a telling commentary on the issues underlying the work. The process of seduction, though it supposedly leads up to a climax beyond words, is told through a mass of narratives, which, far from being superfluous, indicate something essential about the nature of seduction: 'For most people, to seduce a young girl means to seduce a young girl, period – and yet a whole language is concealed in this thought'. Poetry and prose represent radically different views of language and communication, inextricably bound up with different evaluations of ethics. Ethical and religious communication can challenge this individual self-creation by evoking an irreducible otherness which demands our response. However, ethics and religion cannot simply contradict modern nihilism by an appeal to objective authority or evidence.
