The gleaning journals are a motif that develops the theme of Human Fallibility and Weakness. Each scythe is required to keep a gleaning journal that is part of the public record. The majority of the scythes whose journal entries appear in the book use their pages to question themselves, their motives, and the nature of mortality, as well as to reassure themselves that their duty is necessary, if grim. The journals typically contain philosophical musings on what it means to be human and gratitude for the end of the Age of Mortality. The journals are thus a tool to help scythes coexist with those they glean and to keep them accountable to one another.

Goddard’s journal is an exception. His writing is an unabashed monologue of self-aggrandizement, of his longing for an end to gleaning quotas, and of the superiority of the scythes to normal people. Underscoring his cruelty is the fact that Goddard knows that his journal is public record. Those he may one day glean know that he relishes the chance to end their lives as brutally as possible.