Diary Of A Young Girl Chapter 1 Diary Of A Young Girl

Living in hiding, in the secret annex, was twice as hard for the children than the adults because they were always told to hold on to their opinions at a time when their ideals were being shattered by the mayhem of war. As a young girl growing up during the time of the most destructive war in history, seeing the worst side of human nature brought to the fore, it was next to impossible to believe that there could be such things as truth, justice or a god.
This is the juncture at which Anne’s diary became so important in her life. Her writing had a transformative power that took every day mundane activities and made it into amusing anecdotes, showing us how a claustrophobic space such as the secret annex could also be a fertile ground for creativity and imagination. Anne deftly navigated her inner and outer world, weaving them together through her contemplative stance on life, which was often undercut by her ironic interjections. Her diary not only captures her personal journey but also gives us a commentary on the social and cultural atmosphere and especially, the experience of the war from the perspective of lived reality.

Anne believed that her personality was split into two. One side contained her exuberant cheerfulness, her flippancy, the joy in her life and above all, her ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. This side would lead her to appreciate flirtations, a kiss, an embrace and even off-colour jokes. The other side of her was purer, deeper and finer, subsumed under the lighter side of her. She could be an amusing clown for an afternoon and a profound thinker but the former was always a diversion, a comic interlude, soon to be forgotten, which most people hardly knew. Her lighter and more superficial side always stole a march on the deeper side.

In Anne's account, we get a picture of the unforeseen misery unleashed upon the Dutch people due to the air raids. The common occurrences during that time were that of frightened women, trembling houses, raging epidemics and people relentlessly stalked by hunger. People would have to stand in line to buy vegetables and all kinds of goods, doctors could not visit their patients and automobiles were stolen. Burglaries and thefts had become quite common. Little children smashed windows of people's homes and stole whatever they could get their hands on. People did not dare to leave the house even for five minutes since they were liable to come back and find all their belongings gone. Newspapers were filled with reward notices for the return of stolen typewriters, Persian rugs, electric clocks, fabrics and so on. The electric clocks on street corners were dismantled; public phones stripped down to the last wire. Morale among the Dutch was low and everyone was going hungry. A week's food ration did not last for more than two days unless it was ersatz coffee. Men were shipped off to Germany, children were sick or undernourished and everyone wore their worn-out clothes and run-down shoes. Commodities were expensive even on the black market.

Anne Frank is the young writer of The Diary of a Young Girl. She emerges as a playful yet introspective teen forced to live under extraordinary and trying conditions. Over the course of The Diary, Anne seems to grow from an impudent and stubborn girl into an emotionally independent young woman.
Despite having a loving family and several friends, Anne is unable to share her thoughts with any of them. Instead, she turns to her diary for this purpose. She has a troubled relationship with her mother who she believes falls short of her ideal mother. She is close to her father. But, in her mind, even he fails to provide her with the emotional comfort she seeks. She has a rebellious spirit, desires to be treated as an adult and hopes to make a name for herself in the world.
Accounts of Jewish suffering anguish Anne to the point of remorse at her own good fortune. Nevertheless, she holds on to her ideals of honesty, hard work and self-improvement, and her trust that humans are essentially good.

Otto Frank was Anne's father. He had a remarkable presence of mind and fiercely protective instinct about his family. He was a reassuring and thoughtful figure in their lives. Anne portrayed her father affectionately in The Diary, referring to him as the ‘most adorable father’. She considered him to be the driving presence in her life but somehow he fell short of the ideal that she had envisaged for him. However, he took a genuine interest in his daughters’ lives and education, being an anchor of support for them and setting an example of being normal and optimistic even under the most extraordinary circumstances.
Otto Frank was a man of frugal means, always putting the needs of others before him. A levelheaded man, he exhibited considerable tact and patience in the secret annex taking tough decisions and being respectful towards everyone around him, irrespective of their age.

Living in hiding, in the secret annex, was twice as hard for the children than the adults because they were always told to hold on to their opinions at a time when their ideas were being shattered by the mayhem of war. As a young girl growing up during the time of the most destructive war in history, seeing the worst side of human nature brought to the fore, it was next to impossible to believe that there could be such things as truth, justice or a god. This is the juncture at which Anne’s diary became so important in her life. Her writing had a transformative power that took every day mundane activities and made it into amusing anecdotes, showing us how a claustrophobic space such as the secret annex could also be a fertile ground for creativity and imagination. Anne deftly navigated her inner and outer world, weaving them together through her contemplative stance on life, which was often undercut by her ironic interjections. Her diary not only captures her personal journey but also gives us a commentary on the social and cultural atmosphere and especially, the experience of the war from the perspective of lived reality.

Anne believed that her personality was split into two. One side contained her exuberant cheerfulness, her flippancy, the joy in her life and above all, her ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. This side would lead her to appreciate flirtations, a kiss, an embrace and even off-colour jokes. The other side of her was purer, deeper and finer, subsumed under the lighter side of her. She could be an amusing clown for an afternoon and a profound thinker but the former was always a diversion, a comic interlude, soon to be forgotten, which most people hardly knew. Her lighter and more superficial side always stole a march on the deeper side.

Margot and Anne both had become tired of their parents in spite of the fact that they still loved them. They wanted to make their own decisions without being chaperoned by their parents. Their parents were not so strict and let them read everything, but Margot and Anne were sick and tired of having to listen to their comments all day long. The customary ritual of giving them little kisses at all hours of the day was also quite tiresome to these girls, who were almost in the throes of adulthood. The cute nicknames seemed affected. They would have liked nothing better than to get a break from their parents. Margot and Anne did not talk about all this to their parents because they felt that their parents would fail to understand. These young women were growing up with their own set of opinions, ideals and principles. Therefore, they wanted their parents to acknowledge their maturity and independence of spirit, taking them as young adults rather than children.

A figure of ridicule and unintentional amusement, Mrs van Daan was an egotistical, cunning and perpetually dissatisfied person. She was an interfering busybody and a hypocrite who meddled in other people’s affairs. Though neglectful of her own son, she used to give unsolicited advice on the matters of upbringing. She portrayed herself as a tragic heroine who was misunderstood by everyone and demanded sympathy for her host of complaints.
She was also vain and coquettish. She would appear to be pleasant and friendly to strangers, especially men, but become vindictive, selfish and insufferable with those who knew her. She indulged in noisy fights with her husband, and it was quite difficult for her to demarcate boundaries between the public and the private.
Her world centred on herself and her immediate family; it did not matter to her what was happening outside that circle as long as it did not directly affect her. Despite being a mature woman, Mrs van Daan chose to behave like a frivolous young girl who indulged herself in occasional flirting and took offence at petty slights.

Peter van Daan, a shy boy of sixteen, was unlike other boys. A thoughtful and sensible observer, he was different from his loud and brash parents. As he had no friends and could not reach out to his parents, he appeared sullen and difficult. Initially, Anne considered him to be hypochondriac and lazy. However, he turned out to be peace-loving, tolerant and extremely easygoing.
His contemplative years were spent in the annex. He was much more closed than Anne was and took time to open up as Anne says is characteristic of uncommunicative types. He began confiding in Anne and made a determined effort to express his innermost self. Their relationship was not romantic, but forged out of a necessity to find a kindred spirit in such trying times. In Anne, Peter found the tenderness and comfort that he had been searching for; it made him offer his friendship for the first time to someone.
He had a solid and calming influence on Anne. Their friendship imparted poignancy to Anne’s accounts.

Anne describes her fathers as the best father in the world' in her diary. Anne father,Otto frank, was caring gentle, modest and peace maker who wanted the best for his daughter.
He was more tolerant towards Anne and gave her more freedom.

Anne learnt the quality of self - control from her father.she always tried live upto his expectations and obey his wihses. Anne thought of her father as more supporting and liberal than her mother. She felt a special connection to him and continually tried to impress him by living up to his Anne believed that her mother was very sentimental and critical when she wanted her to be more affectionate and accepting. Edith was usually the voice of reason and the one to diffuse fights during their stay at the annexe. Anne said that her father was nicer to her than her mother. Her father knew that there was absence of a good understanding between the mother and the daughter. He was aware that Anne disapproved of a majority of things that her mother said or suggested. Edith suffered more from this than Anne. In fact, as a mother, she was relieved to know that her daughter at least trusted her father.

Miss Sullivan had taken Helen by the hand across the fields where men were preparing the earth for the seed, to the banks of the Tennessee River. Sitting on the warm grass, she began the first lessons for Helen in the beneficence of nature. Helen learned how the sun and rain make the ground give life to trees that are not only pleasant to the sight but also good for food, how birds build their nest and thrive from land to land. Also, how every creature finds food and shelter. As Helens knowledge of these things grew, she felt more and more the delight of the world she lived in. Long before she learned to do a sum in arithmetic or describe the shape of the earth, Miss Sullivan had taught her to find the beauty in the fragrant woods, in every blade of grass and in the curves and dimples of her baby sister’s hand. She linked her earliest thoughts with nature and made her attuned to the beauty that abounds in the world. Her teaching methods were not par for the course but they believed in the natural capabilities of nature to educate the sportive Helen as the girl herself was so eager to learn from anything around her. Miss Sullivan understood the true capabilities of her student and designed her teaching methods accordingly.

Anne valued his friendship with Peter because he had reached a part of her that no one had ever reached before except in her dreams. He had taken hold of her and turned her inside out. The flippancy and petulance which was characteristic of Anne had been quieted by Peter's solid and calming influence. As she says that everyone needs a little quiet time to put themselves right again, changing her irrevocably. Their relationship was not of a romantic nature but one of solidarity and comfort in such trying times as the one they were currently living in. Anne's loneliness was so overpowering that it did not matter to her that their intimacy could be looked upon as inappropriate; all that mattered to her was the comfort she found in Peter. They provided solace, comfort and companionship to each other; hence Peter was indispensable to Anne at that point. Margot seemed unperturbed by Anne and Peters developing friendship, she did not want Anne to feel sorry for her because she was used to being the odd one out. In her letter to Anne, Margot; wrote that their friendship had made her a little jealous but this jealousy was neither directed towards Anne nor Peter. She was sorry that she had not found anyone with whom she could share her thoughts and feelings. She also felt that this situation would remain unchanged even in the future. Margot could not have gotten as far with Petter as Anne had because she needed to feel very close to the person before she could unburden her heart. She wants to have the feeling that the other person understood her thoroughly even if she didn’t say much. For this reason it would have to be someone intellectually superior to her and in this case Peter did not fit the description. So she reassured Anne that there was no need for reproach herself thinking that she was taking away something Margot was entitled to because that was farthest from the truth.

Anne adored her father; she refers to him as the most adorable father she had ever seen. Her father loved Anne for being the person she was, defending his daughter but also reprimanding her when it was necessary. He was also quite protective towards her and interested in the little things that she was interested in. Her father had brought Annes entire postcard and movie-star collection to the Anne without waiting for his daughter to ask him to do. He was very concerned about their lives in the annex, especially in their personality development and education. They worked on projects together like making the family tree and also took a keen interest in supplying her with all the paraphernalia required to continue her studies. She called him Pim which was the pet name for her father. Anne admired her father for handling situations and people with patience, whether in the family or outside it and also for being so supportive of her. Her father believed in her and had it not been for him then she would have given up on herself a long time ago. He would intervene and uphold her right to refuse a dish if she did not wish to eat it; he would defend his daughter’s upbringing when it was brought to question saying that she had learned not to respond to other people’s interminable taunts and sermons. Anne engaged in a lot of activities with her father but she was not quite comfortable when it came to unburdening her heart to her father. The level of intimacy was as father and daughter and not that of friendship which could enable her to say anything to him. There was a sense of alienation she felt because of the gap in understanding between them. Her father was an honest and simple man who could not understand the intricate nuances that defined the personality of a growing young woman, especially one so astute, perceptive and mature as Anne.