Wednesday, February 10, 2016

In Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl, what were Anne's description of her wishes during the bleak winter?

I wonder if you are refering to the entry that Anne Frank
wrote on Christmas Eve of 1943. In this passage, she talks about her mounting sense of
frustration about being trapped in their secret apartment and not able to leave and to
enjoy the feeling of fresh, cold air, and the festivities that are going on around them.
It really helps us understand the kind of claustraphobic atmostphere that must have
existed in the appartment and the way that Anne would have been desperate for a chance
to move out of those four walls. Note what she says:


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Cycling, dancing, whistling, looking out into
the world, feeling young, to know that I'm free--that's what I long for; still, I
mustn't show it, because I sometimes think if all eight of us began to pity ourselves,
or went around with discontented faces, where would it lead us? I sometimes ask myself,
"Would anyone, either Jew or non-Jew, understand this about me, that I am simply a young
girl badly in need of some rollicking fun?" I don't know, and I couldn't talk about it
to anyone, because then I know I should
cry.



Her wishes are therefore
clearly to be able to get out from the apartment and enjoy the life and activities of a
"normal" girl of her age, that have been taken away from her like so much else due to
the need for her to remain hidden and secret.

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