Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "diary"

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


It goes without saying that this a life-changing book for anyone who reads it. I learnt about Anne Frank's Diary when I was a teenager, about the same age as Anne was when she wrote her diary. I decided to read it because I couldn't remember if I'd ever read the whole thing when I was younger or whether I only read certain parts.

It is fascinating because it's a diary; there is something intriguing about reading someone's diary anyway, but this is no ordinary diary. I couldn't help wishing for a different ending to this young girl's story even as I was reading it, even though I knew the ending already.

Anne was a very typical teenager with all the angst, all the dreams, all the hopes and insecurities. Her diary sets out the goings-on in the 'secret annexe' where she and her family along with another family and others were hiding from the Germans during World War II, for fear of being shot or taken to concentration camps. The daily fear that Anne and the others would have felt comes across so strongly in this journal. The way members of the household would argue over the littlest things gives us an idea of the amount of stress they were under. Despite all they were going through, it seems that the people in the annexe were ultimately always there for each other and they had grown close to each other, even though they often couldn't stand each other!

I found Anne's writing to be very thoughtful. It seemed that she was going through a difficult time trying to balance her own needs and trying to deal with her changing moods. In her final journal entry we get an insight into what the real Anne was like when she tells how she often hid her real self from the others because of what she feared they would say or how they'd react. She was definitely a deep thinker and there are many quotes floating around the Internet from this book, passages from this diary that make you think and make you question the world around us.

When the diary ends, it is an abrupt ending. It's heartbreaking because it's just another diary entry from quite a high-spirited Anne telling her diary (which she calls 'Kitty') about the day, and then the book ends. We all know that in the days that followed that diary entry the family would have been captured and taken away to the concentration camp where they were killed. It really brings home the fact that this young girl's life was cruelly cut short and that she had so much more to offer the world.

Anne Frank's dream was to be a journalist and then to become a world-famous author. Ironically, she achieved both of those dreams with this diary. This young girl's writing has captured the imagination of a generation. She was wise beyond her years and one thing she has taught us with this very honest diary is that people are human and we all have the potential for good and bad within us. Hopefully, one day her dreams of a more tolerant and peaceful world will also become a reality.



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