The book by Anne Frank “The Diary of a Young Girl” is an example of a work of personal psychological prose. The book, initially written as a diary of a young Jewish girl, who had to hide from Nazis and died in their concentration camp, is a brilliant piece of the art of literature (Urban, 2004). Anne Frank has compiled several versions of her diary, and one of them was directed at the readers of the future who should know about all the misfortunes of civilians during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands (Fleming, 2008).
To begin with, the diary of Anne Frank is marked by the sharp sense of audience that the author possessed. In other words, taking into consideration the possible readers of her diary, Anne Frank chose to cut all the irrelevant, minor scenes or those that might seem too personal to the readers from the edited variant of her work. Moreover, the appeal to the audience is also observed in the regular addressing of the author to either fictional or real-life characters. Thus, for example, in the latest chapters of the diary, Anne Frank addresses “Kitty” many times, and the experts tend to think that it is her real-life friend Kitty Egyedi (Sassen, 2003). In any case, direct address, whether it is made to a real or a fictional character, makes the reader feel included in the discussion that takes place on the pages of this work. This inclusion is a sign of the sense of audience, and it marks the works of the real geniuses of literature.
Moreover, the diary of Anne Frank is a work with a clear sense of purpose: “Still, what does that matter? I want to write, but more than that, I want to bring out all kinds of things that lie buried deep in my heart.” (Frank, p. 2) Needless to say, the major purpose of every diary is an expression of emotions and personal experiences that the author has lived through. But the specific type of the epoch, i. e. the World War II and the Holocaust against Jews, made this purpose into an auxiliary one. The forefront of the sense of this diary is taken by the attempt of Anne Frank to preserve her memories for the future generations to learn about all the issues and troubles people experienced during the Nazi occupation. Thus, the mind of a young girl created this masterpiece of literature with the clear awareness of its global destination in the future (Shunfenthal, 2006).
Further on, the work under consideration is a rather personal paper as the author expresses her deepest fears and emotions about the position of her family in hiding, as well as about the lives of other people during that war: “If I just think of how we live here, I usually come to the conclusion that it is a paradise compared with how other Jews who are not in hiding must be living…” (Frank, p. 71) Thus, capacity for honesty and self-examination is evident in the work by Frank. Needless to say, there was no need for her to invent some events as World War II was not the time for games. The young girl understood this and made sure that next generations will have a clear and full picture of the events she had to live through with her family (Frank, 1997).
To prove this, it is enough to take a look at the images and themes Anne Frank uses in her diary. These are either personal things like philosophy of life, or purely political ideas, like for example her lines about Germans: “Nice people, the Germans! To think that I was once one of them too! No, Hitler took away our nationality long ago. In fact, Germans and Jews are the greatest enemies in the world.” (Frank, p. 36). Moreover, the writing style of the author is another distinctive feature of this work. It seems like personal talk and official communication have merged in this diary. For example, Anne Frank ponders on the philosophical ideas of the beginning of the end of her life, and at the same time thinks about the lives of other in a purely practical way (Frank, p. 42). On the whole, “The Diary of a Young Girl” is a masterpiece of literature, and one would never think that its author is a teen-age girl, as far as ideas found in it have actual global significance.
Works Cited
Fleming, Grace. “The Diary of a Young Girl.” About.com. 2008. Homework/Study Tips. 2009. Web.
Frank, Anne. The Diary of a Young Girl: Definitive Edition. Bantam, 1997.
Sassen, Robyn. “Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust – Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum.” Women in Judaism 3.2 (2003).
Urban, Susanne. “On the Rise of the House of Rothschild and the Death of Anne Frank: The Jewish Museum in Frankfurt/Main-Regional History with International Accents.” European Judaism 36.2 (2004): 48+.
Shunfenthal, Sherri Waas. “Anne Frank in the World.” Women in Judaism 4.1 (2006).