Friday, December 28, 2007

Anne Frank's Persevering Attitude

While reading the book, The Diary of a Young Girl, one forgets it is a diary of a thirteen year old. Anne Frank, a Jewish girl, tells us about her family, friends, and thoughts. She shows us her true feelings towards others. After receiving the diary for her birthday, she started writing in it right away and named it Kitty. For the first month, things seem to be going quite well. She had a plenty of friends, boy admirers, and good grades. But, on July 8, 1942, her good life was put on hold as she and her family move into hiding from Nazis. They take refuge in the building that her father’s office is in. They use the third floor of the building as their hiding place, naming it their “Secret Annex”. A couple days later, the Van Daan family, made of Mr. Van Daan, Mrs. Van Daan, and their son, Peter Van Daan, joins them in the “Secret Annex”. At first Anne welcomes their arrival; she is tired of the silence. But as quarrels arise, Anne wishes she could get away for a little while. As a dentist named Dussel arrives, things do not seem to get any better.
The crowded space takes a toll on everyone. Imagine, being trapped with people you cannot stand, who constantly point out your faults, even when it seems like it is completely untrue. Although she is deeply hurt on the inside, she shows no signs of it to others. What amazes me is how Anne seems to keep calm, or does not let anybody know of her anger. In a diary entry on January 30, 1943, Anne writes, “I’m boiling with rage, and yet I mustn’t show it . . . I can’t let them see the wounds which they have caused, I couldn’t bear their sympathy and their kindhearted jokes, it would only make me want to scream all the more.” I think writing her thoughts into the diary helped in some way. Without a person to listen to her troubles, Kitty was the closest thing to a friend.
It seems like the adults are the source of Anne’s despair. But as I read on, I also wonder what the adults are thinking. Do they think what they are doing is right? Are they just taking out their frustration on Anne? It doesn’t seem like it, but it’s possible that Anne has over exaggerated. I’m sure being cut off from the world, having to stay with the same people everyday, and dealing with endless would drive anyone mad.
Despite the cruel remarks and regular insults, Anne keeps going. As we read more of Anne’s diary, I have a feeling that she will keep up her cheerful attitude and I look forward to reading how she does so.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

The Behavior of Anne Frank

In the book Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, Anne Frank, the main character, can be described in many ways. The following will show who Anne is thought of by her family in the "Secret Annex", and herself. Is her behavior really that bad like what the others say, or is she just misunderstood?
In the view of Anne's family who lives with her in the "Secret Annex", Anne is a very dramatic, whiny, unbehaving girl who doesn't need to be taken seriously. She is very impatient, and shows too much of her feelings. If she talks, everyone thinks she is showing off. When she is silent, they think she is ridiculous. She is rude when she answers, and sly if she has a good idea. She is lazy when she is tired, selfish if she eats a mouthful more than she should. She is a queer, insufferable baby.
Anne Frank herself, thinks she knows quite well what she wants. She knows who is wrong. She has her own opinions, her own ideas and principles. She feels more as a person than as a child. She feels quite independent of anyone. She does not exaggerate so much, she is more precise. Because of this, she feels superior to her own mother over many things. She can give advice to anyone better than everyone in the "Secret Annex".
I think Anne Frank's behavior is very acceptable. Today, if anyone does as Anne did, no one would punish her, or think of it as cruel. No one would confront her and ask her to change the way she should act or how to behave. Today, standing up for what you believe in, or having your own opinion about anything is encouraged. When Anne was living, that time frame had different norms. You shouldn't be head strong and cause differences. People back then should be extremely polite at all times. Females were to be very hard working, and patient. They should hardly show their feelings, and never flare up and get into fights.
When people read this book, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, they don't realize how people should have acted back then. Now, we would have thought Anne didn't deserve to be thought of that way by the others of the "Secret Annex". If we lived in the time Anne did, we might of thought she really was what the others of the "Secret Annex" knew her to be. We wouldn't be able to draw the conclusion that Anne was the person the others said she was, or the person Anne thought herself to be, without knowing the norms back when Anne lived, and what was considered "bad", or "rude", or "lazy" at that time.
Having an idea of what things were like when Anne was alive, I would like to draw the conclusion that Anne was well behaved. She wasn't lazy, and she had many great ideas. She was very humble and modest. She didn't mean to be sly or selfish too often. She was rarely rude. She could answer for herself, and had very interesting, well thought out opinions about any matter. Her advice she wanted to give others was more intellegent than her mother's. Like any other adolescent, she had her times when she exploded, and cried about very simple arguments. I think Anne described herself well, and i agree with her. I disagree with the others in the "Secret Annex".

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Anne Frank and the Adults, By Lauren Claypoole

   As we begin to read the captivating "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank, a young, Jewish, teenage girl who lives during Adolph Hitler's reign in Germany, we become acquainted with her through reading her diary she called Kitty. She began her diary entries on June 12th, 1942, her birthday. Soon she had a birthday party, and through her accounts of it and her classroom, we meet her friends, enemies, and boy admirers. She seemed to be quite popular, and not very modest about it! However, her life took an interesting twist on July 16, 1942, as she, her mother, father, and sister moved into hiding in the "Secret Annex" of Mr. Frank's office building. Soon after, the Frank family was joined by the van Daan family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. van Daan, and their son, Peter. A few months later, a dentist, Mr. Dussel, joined the two families in hiding.
    During the first several months of Anne Frank's hiding, an arguement always seemed to occur between Anne and Mrs. Frank, Mrs. van Daan, or Mr. Dussel. The three adult figures seemed to chastise, correct, or antagonize the talkative Anne constantly. In her diary entry on January 30, 1943, Anne said, "Everyone thinks I'm showing off when I talk, ridiculous when I am silent, insolent when I answer, cunning when I have a good idea, lazy when I am tired, selfish when I eat one bite more than I should, stupid, calculating, etc., etc." Even thought she didn't act as if this hurt her, it did. 
    This behavior from Mrs. Frank, Mrs. van Daan, and Mr. Dussel led Anne to be very angry in many situations.  She became very frustrated because no one, even her father whom she was very fond of, seemed to understand or listen to her.  She began to believe that she should be like her "quiet, boring" sister and change her personality.  "I'm stuck with the character I was born with, and yet I'm sure I'm not a bad person.  I do my best to please everyone," she says in her entry on January 30, 1943, referring to how hard it was for her to cope with the critical adults in her life.
    Anne Frank displayed more animated behavior than any of the other people she was hiding with in the first few months in the secret Annex.  She had her own spark, despite what the adults in her life say about it.  Hopefully as we progress in reading her diary's pages, we will learn whether she was ever suppressed. 

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

760 word essay on Diary of a Young Girl

The Diary Of A Young Girl Dylan Morrison-Fogel

The book the Diary of A Young Girl, by Anne Frank, is about a Jewish girl in the middle of the Holocaust. The war makes it hard for any Jewish person have a normal life, because it stops them from shopping in most stores. Being Jewish also stops you from having friends of another religion. The girl, Anne Frank, began to keep a diary of her life just before her 13th birthday. She had just gone into hiding with her family to stay away from the Nazis. She stayed in her dads office building, in a hidden series of rooms in the upper floors. The office was in Amsterdam in a small town. Her family shared the rooms with another family of four at the time but as the war went on they took in other people. They had limited food but the food income, and the supply income, was steady. As the war went on Anne had experienced buglers and police that break into the office building. After a while of not seeing any other people her age, Anne started to fall in love with a boy named Peter Van Daan, who lived with the other family that stayed in the office. Peter was 17 years old and had liked Anne's sister, Margot. Anne and Peter would sneak up to the attic and see each other. Almost two years had gone by in the office (the “Secret Annex”), and Anne and Peter had decided to tell Anne's dad about them seeing each other. One day, Anne told her dad about Peter and herself. Later that day, Anne's dad (Otto Frank) talked to her about Peter. He said that Peter did not have enough character for Anne. He also told Anne to not see Peter as much in the attic. Anne responded to that by writing her dad a disrespectful letter that implied that Anne did not have enough respect for her parents to listen to them. Anne soon makes up with her dad, just in time for her 15th birthday. Anne received a lot of gifts for her birthday. Anne soon finds that Peter is not as good as she thinks he is but she discovers a way to like him anyway. At the end of the book, Anne finds that there are two different sides to her. There is the Anne that everyone sees, and the Anne that she really is. The Anne that everyone sees is a careless, high spirited, cheerful and irritating person. Most people don’t like Anne because this personality is always showing. The other side of Anne (the real side) is careful, creative, polite, and a little insecure. Anne starts to wonder about her future and cares about what will happen to her friends and family. Anne stops writing in her diary after that. Later on in the book, the story is finished and it tells about Anne's life after. Anne, along with everyone else in the “Secret Annex”, is captured by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp in Auschwitz, Germany. The men were separated from the women. That was the last time Anne saw her dad. She was kept in a barrack with her mom and sister and other Jewish women. It was very clean there and the people received their fare rations of food. Anne could take showers and stay clean along with everyone else. Anne and Margot were moved to a camp in Belsen, Germany. Anne was sick when she arrived there, but she found her old school friend Lies. Margot died a little while after arriving but Anne did not know. A few days later Anne died too. The only survivor of the dwellers of the “Secret Annex” was Otto Frank. I think this book described Anne's life very well in her last 2-3 years. It described her daily activities and her feelings about her friends and family. The book made me think that Anne had started a diary just to vent her bad feelings. This is because most of the writing is about how annoying Mrs. Van Daan was or how perfect Margot thought she was. Anne wrote in almost every entry that someone was fighting with her or someone else. Most of the feelings she wrote were bad feelings to someone. This book was very clear on the main characters feelings compared to other bibliographies I have read. It not only had feelings for other characters but it also has Anne's feelings about herself.

Friday, December 14, 2007

War and Conceptions of Glory in Red Badge of Courage

In Stephen Crane's "War is Kind" the poet describes the grief that war causes for lovers, children, and parents because their loved ones "tumbled in the yellow trenches,/ Raged at [their] breast, gulped and died."