Finally. My response to Dinesen.

I feel that Dineson's use of 2nd person helps to illustrate that the Africa she knew, will never be the same. that Africa is gone. The 2nd person helps to illustrate that it is not only her reflection of how things used to be, but Africa's reflection, and what could have been everyone's reflection had they been their with her. Her personification of Africa makes it possible for Africa to be looking back with her at the way things were. It's such a beautiful concept.

The 2nd person helps the reader to feel that they are there with Dineson. She wants her readers with her because the Africa that they see now is not the Africa that she experienced. SO if she can bring her readers with her in every aspect--the beautiful descriptions and the choice of the narrators voice, then why not. She goes back to the 1st person when it is something more personal, that only she needed to experience like hunting. It is when it is about Africa, that she goes to 2nd person. She needs everyone to experience that.

"I had seen a herd of Elephant travelling through the dense Native forest, where the sunlight is strewn down between the thick creepers in small spots and patches, pacing along as if they had an appointment at the end of the world."

This is just one of the paragraphs in which Dinesen is describing her beloved lost Africa. It is amazing that instead of saying, " I saw a heard of Elephant coming through the Ngangao Forest," She tells the reader it is a Native Forest and then shows the reader how a Native might speak. Instead of having a name for the forest it is where the sunlight strews down. Also many Natives of Africa, especially in the time when this book was written, walked everywhere, so every step has it's own story. Every rock is a memory, every hill is a story with a memory. The pace of the herd of Elephant is kept by the pace in which Dinesen's sentences speak of the Elephant.

I believe that if Dinesen would have stuck with 1st person something would have been lost in translation. It is my belief that Dinesen didn't want any more of her Africa to be lost, then was already lost. Her colorful words, her breathtaking imagery, the pace of her sentences all tell the tale of Africa. It is a beautiful sight to behold.