The Diary of Anne Frank Essay | Critical Essay #1

The Diary of Anne Frank Critical Essay #1

Korb has a master's degree in English literature and creative writing and has written for a wide variety of educational publishers. In the following essay, Korb discusses the play's narrative structure.

Upon the initial production of The Diary of Anne Frank, critics commented upon the careful structure of the play. In creating the play, Goodrich and Hackett faced the challenge of adapting a personal diary, which spanned about two years' time, into narrative shape. Whereas Anne Frank's diary chronicled the day-to-day life of the families in hiding, all the while touching upon her past and her hopes for the future, the play needed to create a plot with a distinct beginning, middle, and end. Goodrich and Hackett needed to find in Anne's descriptive words a mechanism for creating a play that depicted the growth of a pre-adolescent girl into a young woman as well as the experience of a...
(read more)