Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Essay | Critical Essay #5

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl Critical Essay #5

Upon hearing a radio broadcast in the Spring of 1944, in which the exiled Cabinet Minister of Education and Culture announced that the Dutch government would be collecting wartime diaries and letters as testimony of "Holland's struggle for freedom," Anne began revising and writing her diary for future publication. How did this internal assessment of "good" and "bad" selves affect the revision process as Anne was consciously constructing an image of herself and life in the Annex for the outside world and posterity? Were there parts of herself she wanted to keep hidden because she considered them too personal, immature, or shameful? Her decision to cut out a passage (one of the missing pages) that relays her physical attraction to a childhood girlfriend and her "ecstasy" at seeing female nudes in art history books suggests that she considered this revelation inappropriate within this new, public forum. Even before hearing the...
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