Tuesday, September 10, 2013

LITERARY ANALYSIS #1

The Diary of a Girl by Anne Frank
Topics and Events
1.
a) This book is a diary written by Anne Frank as a young, Jewish girl trying to not become a victim of the Halocaust. She writes nearly everyday and explains everything in her journal: her hideout, her family, and her emotions. Her and her family along with one other family remain in hideout barely being able to make noise day to day in fear of being found. As the war goes on, situations become worse.
b) Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, along with her family records her experiences in a diary as her and her family overcome one of the most brutal acts on humanity, the Halocaust.
2.The author, Anne Frank chose to right about this event because she was directly affected by it. Her people were targeted for all social and economic problems. Anne Frank wanted to record this time in her life because she knew that one day this racial act on Jewish people would be over and people needed to know what life at this time for a targeted group was. She herself wanted to remember this time of life in detail as you can tell in her descriptive entries. Anne Frank wanted people to see a real insight of the Halocaust. Aside from what text books say, but a real account. A true, personal story.
3. I chose this book because I had some background on the history of this event. Knowing the cruel acts that went on then, I knew that reading a true story of this time period would further advance my knowledge of the Halocaust. I also thought it would be interesting reading of a poor girl's experiences and really imagining her life as it continued and how hard it must have been living day to day in fear for your life. Also, an emotional appeal on literature really appeals to me because I enjoy relating or furthermore imagining. This book is clearly emotional considering the tragic conditions. This book is very famous and world-wide, so I had her about it before, but never sat down and actually read it.
4. I found this book to be EXTREMELY realistic because of not only my historical knowledge, but the fact that this book is so widely known and it was published after the time of Anne's death. She didn't know that her diary would be published therefore she couldn't have made major changes to her story. I don't think I could relate this story so much to my life because it is so intensely sad and I have not dealt with such tragedy. However, I did relate her story to what I have learned over the years between movies, history class, and other literature pieces. I also connected her story to my emotions directly. As I read, I felt how she felt to a certain degree. As I read, I could hardly bear the thought of Anne actually living through what she did.
People
1. Anne is a young teenage girl at the time of the event. She, therefore encountered many young people as well through school. At the beginning of the book, she actually takes a whole days worth of an entry to describe each person in her class. Because of her age, she has a developing attitude and is self revolved. You can make this assumption because many of her classmates are described as dumb, annoying, or dirty minded. Also, Anne describes her mother as someone who does not listen to Anne's needs or understands Anne much at all. From this I came to a conclusion that Anne has a snotty demeanor. The only person she speaks good of is her father. We now know that Anne is a daddy's girl.
2. Mrs. Van Daan is the mother of the other family in hiding. Mrs. Van Daan is only referred to as this, and Madame. She alone is enough to make the household go crazy. She can best be described as stingy, snotty, and abrupt. Anything that she brought to their "hideout home" cannot be used by the Franks. One by one, she starts removing items that were in public vicinities and storing them for her family's personal use. She is also snotty and abrupt in that she punishes Anne herself for things Mr. nor Mrs. Frank would punish her for. She also has the nerve to continually criticize Anne's upbringing. Peter is Mrs. Van Daan's son. Peter is a young boy who is shy and immature. Peter does not get along well with Anne at all. He also continues to mouth off to his parents which send him to his "room" without a bed or dinner. Peter can be easily angered, but can also easily anger anyone. Anne vaguely describes him as unfriendly. I would characterize them indirectly because their actions speak for themselves. Through the mishaps they perform the readers are able to tell what kind of character they are.
3. These two characters make the story more interesting. Between them two, they create enough arguments to last the whole war. Because they are from the same family, they have many similar characteristics. Anne is always finding a reason to complain with Peter and his mother, Mrs. Van Daan hiding with them. The way that the son and mother are so similar makes them interesting characters to compare and contrast.
Style
1. This author, Anne Frank chose to use a journalistic style because she wrote her diaries day by day. She never knew what the next day would bring. She also died before her diary was published so she was not able to even go back and edit things about her story. Not many fictional techniques were used. One that was used throughout her story was pathos. Her whole diary was appealing to emotion. I think this was not even done intentionally. Just the fact that the story was so tragic was enough to say pathos was used.
2. Anne frank definitely uses lengthy descriptions to show the personalities of all the characters. At the beginning of the book, she describes each member in her class with a detailed description. She also does the same for any main character later in this book. Eventually, you see how Anne is right about her characters through their dialogue, but the initial introduction to her characters are descriptions by Anne.
 3. Personally, I think the mood of this story sets itself. It is already a horrific story so people are already sympathetic to this. But, Anne appeals to emotion as I said before, using pathos. The way she describes each sad event that takes place, for example, their living conditions, the description really uses pathos because of the extreme measures.
4.The authors attitude toward the subject was, in a sense, calm and suttle. Anne never though, even after the whole war was over, that humanity was evil. She still, even after all that she went through, had a positive outlook on life. She quoted near the end of her book this amazing quote,  "I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart." This quote alone truly shows her attitude at the end of the war and her outlook on life. Her attitude toward the audience was not pity. She was never looking for anyone's approval or disapproval of her experience. She simply wanted to record her story for her own self. If people were to read it one day, she simply wanted readers to know what happened at this time. Not in pity for her or her family, but for the historical aspect of the matter. Anne Frank was an amazing girl with an even better outlook on life.
5. Anne Frank personally didn't include any kind of historical information about her story. This was because, it was strictly a diary. She wasn't trying to prove anything to anyone. She also didn't have access to any sort of these items as she was in hiding, and died before her book was even published. She herself did not include these things. However, her father who ended up deciding to publish her diary, chose to include family photos. These family photos helped put a face to the name I read about. These family photos helped understand the time period. These family photos helped relate for me in a sense. This extra piece of history didn't so much influence my thinking, but it made the book that much more interesting for me.

 “Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite independent of anyone.”-Anne Frank, The Diary of a Girl. This is one idea I love from this book. Anne represents herself as such an independent, mature girl. So many adults think that young teenagers are immature or not capable of many things. Here Anne expressed her mature attitude. In a couple of years of Anne's life, she experienced more hardships than many adults do in a lifetime. This helped Anne develop at such an early age. Like the famous quote says, tough times don't last, but tough people do. Anne remained tough at this time and got through this tough time. I will remember Anne's bravery and mature demeanor through this rough time in her life.


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