Name: Elaine Mae D.

Sariego Course & Year: BSED III

Instructor: Ruhamen Langalen

THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL

BY: ANNE FRANK
Introduction
The book comprises the diary writing of a young Jewish girl, Anne Frank, during the
days of her family’s refuge in a specifically created place, the annex, adjacent to their
firm. The diary was addressed to an imaginary friend named ‘Kitty’ with whom she
could share her deepest thoughts. The book was originally written in Dutch but was
later translated into several other European and eastern languages on account of the
popularity it won among the Holocaust literature. Miep Gies, the original retriever of
the story, handed it over to the girl’s father, Otto Frank, who survived the
concentration camp of Bergin-Belsen where she died of typhus. The diary was first
published in 1947 in the Netherlands and later published in the United States in
1955, while its first movie appeared on the screen in 1959.

Criticism I choose!
Formalism
Historicism
Feminist

Formalism
Describes the critical position that the most important aspect of a work of art is its
form – the way it is made and its purely visual aspects – rather than its narrative
content or its relationship to the visible world.

Theme
Coming of Age: The Diary of a Young Girl is a coming-of-age story in which Anne
describes her life events of just two years’ duration to show how she had to miss her
childhood and grew up within a short span of time during the tumultuous events of
her life. Her problems or typical of teenagers; the conflict for space, gender identity,
sexuality, and privacy. She questions everything during that long span of refuge in
the annex where she lives with her family and the family of Peter, her boyfriend. Her
major struggle, however, is inward that is to her own edification her family and the
other family living with them. However, by the end, she concludes that she may not
become what others want but may become what she likes herself to be.
Racial Consciousness: Anne Frank presents her racial awareness obliquely
through her Jewishness when writing her diary. The question of her race often
comes up in the confinement that is specifically associated with her being a Jewish
girl in the Netherlands. This becomes more apparent when she mentions her former
boyfriend, Harry Goldberg, who is a member of a Jewish movement committed to the
revival of the Jewish heritage. Later, she meets Peter, who is determined on keeping
his heritage a secret. These conflicting views about her Jewish consciousness
remain in her mind when the diary ends.

Characters
Anne Frank
Anne Frank is a 13-year-old protagonist of the novel, The Diary of a Young Girl, and
also the main character who shows her interests and life of what could’ve been from
her perspective, Jewishness, suffering, and isolation to the world through her diary.
Belonging to the German town of Frankfurt, she reaches Amsterdam with her family
when the German land and behavior becomes intolerable for the Jews. However, the
war brought by Hitler on the Netherland forces the family to go into hiding in the
annex of the firm Otto Frank, her father has set up where she hides with another
family, loves her father and gives expression to her gender and love with Peter. The
diary ends with her arrest.
Mr. Otto Frank
Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, the protagonist, is a man of exceptional
abilities and valued principles. He loves doing business but the German atmosphere
after the Nazi rise becomes intolerable for the Jews. He leaves Frankfurt to raise his
family on his expertise and starts another firm but the war soon knocks at their door
even in the Netherlands. However, he shows this exceptionalism during the hiding,
the reason that his daughter becomes enamored with his behavior, principles, and
unusual grit. It could be the behavior suitable for a person to survive such ravages of
war and he displayed commendably.

Style
The writing style of the Diary of a Young Girl is linear and smooth but with a
reflective approach as the 13-year-old, Anne Frank pens down her thoughts without
any hesitance. It seems like a glimpse into her hiding, which can be related to other
Jewish families in hiding. As for the literary skills, Anne has shown brilliant use of
sentence style and diction that suits the purpose of the writer to reach out to the
modern audiences to bring home to them her point of view about the unfairness of
treatment toward the Jews. However, it is an amazingly mature style that has
become a subject of wider studies despite being very easy to understand and follow.

Literary Devices

Hyperbole The novel shows various examples of hyperboles. One of the examples
is given below,

She’s the one whose tactless comments and cruel jokes about matters I don’t think
are funny have made me insensitive to any sign of love on her part. Just as my heart
sinks every time I hear her harsh words, that’s how her heart sank when she realized
there was no more love between us. (FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1943)

The example shows the pounding of her heart exaggerated.

Mood

The novel shows various moods; it starts with quite a somber and bitter mood but
turns out to be highly exciting at times and tragic when it reaches the end toward
their arrests.

Setting

The setting of the novel, The Diary of a Young Girl, is Frankfurt, Germany, and the
Netherlands

Historicism

Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially

social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history,
that is, by studying the process by which they came about.

The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, journal by Anne
Frank, a Jewish teenager who chronicled her family’s two years (1942–44) in hiding
during the German occupation of the Netherlands during World War II. The book was
first published in 1947—two years after Anne’s death in a concentration camp—and
later became a classic of war literature.

On June 12, 1942, Anne received a red-and-white plaid diary for her 13th birthday.
That day she began writing in the book: “I hope I will be able to confide everything to
you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great
source of comfort and support.” The following month Margot received an order to
report to a labour camp. Facing arrest if she did not comply, the family went into
hiding on July 6, 1942, moving into a “secret annex” at Otto’s business in
Amsterdam, the entrance to which was soon hidden behind a moveable bookcase.

Feminist Criticism

Feminist criticism, or gender studies, focuses on the role of women (or gender) in a
literary text. According to feminist criticism, patriarchy, in its masculine-focused
structure, socially dictates the norms for both men and women.

Although, the journal express spontaneous declarations of a young girl with hunger
for living but with an extraordinary potential for being a writer, I was impressed not
just by her ability to construct an intelligent and interesting narrative of her thinking
and the day to day of their lives in the Annex, but by the sensibility of a young girl to
reflect on profound subjects considered taboo in our society; sex is part of it, such as
death, love, family, youth, God, hope, household and women. Whilst cloistered in the
Annex, the young author matured in fast pace, she passed from a teenage girl to a
critical and reflective thinker.
In some passages of her journal, she reflects about the role of women in society, she
defends that a woman must be free to do anything she wants and refuses the idea of
woman as a housewife, just as a mother, and someone that was educated to please
their husbands. As Anne stated in her journal "Apparently men dominated women
from the start because of physical strength; it is men who earn a living, raise children
and do what they want…Until recently, women accepted this in silence, which was
something stupid, since the longer things take to change the stranger they become.
Thankfully, education, work and progress have opened the eyes of women. In many
countries, they have acquired equal rights; many people, mainly women, and also
men, realize now how wrong it is to tolerate this situation for so long. Modern women
want the right to be completely independent”. (FRANK, 2017, p. 327-328)(3)

Her diary can be an weapon of empowerment of women as well, a conscious

reading of Anne Frank’s diary can help women even living in restricted
circumstances and strong pressure as Anne lived whilst hiding in the attic, it’s
possible to believe that the fight will bring results and even if one’s ideals seem to be
impossible to conquer, it’s always valid to dedicate life to reach them. Therefore, on
her reflections, we can find inspiration that contribute to the fight against sexism, that
domineers in a patriarchal society, in which women still strive for achieving equal
rights, body’s emancipation and being respected. Anne Frank’s journal continuous to
be an example of courage to combat all forms of oppression.