Category A Prompt 4
Anne Frank enters seclusion at pivotal time in her development: puberty. Her understanding of her sexuality, even when isolated from the world, helps establish her identity as a young girl growing up. Moreover, her willingness to write about a normally “hush-hush” topic also adds to her identity. She has no limits, which I think is very healthy, but unusual for the time period. I chose a passage from January 5, 1944, in which Anne speaks of the changes in her body. She notes that she has a “terrible desire to feel [her] breasts.” Anne goes on to describing how she had the urge to explore her best friend’s body and compare breasts. These thoughts are common to young people going through puberty. As Anne’s willingness to explores these areas is also a testament to her character. She is a naturally inquisitive girl whose questions have not be silenced by moral rigidity of her society. A big factor in Anne’s personality is her ability to think for herself. She doesn’t take the words of adults as absolute truth because she knows that her parents and other adults are trying to shelter her. Instead, she takes time to form her own conclusions. Her fascination with the human figure-especially the female body- is not uncommon. Anne, a young girl, wishes to know what her body might develop further into. That she finds beauty in the human figure impresses me. People tend to shy away from it or label that as perverse or perverted. This same diary covers another topic: sexual fluidity. Anne writes that “when [she] slept with a girl friend [she] had a strong desire to kiss her, and that [she] did do so.” Young children have a tendency when they are younger to explore the body’s of their close peers. Again, Anne’s actions speak to her desire to know more, to explore the feelings inside her. In this instance, she refrains from judging herself, which most would do. She allows these thoughts to pervade her mind without admonishing herself. She allows herself to experience what she is feel. She is emotionally open with herself as opposed to repressing “unwanted thoughts”. This openness speaks greatly to her sense of self. Contrastingly, Anne also wishes she had a girlfriend though we see throughout the novel her crush on Peter van Daan. She never thinks twice about how these two desires may be conflicting or contrary. I think in a some way she understands that it is acceptable to be a contradiction. Overall, Anne Frank had a stronger sense of self and her identity as a young girl than most in her time period and our own.
Hi Ashley,
ReplyDeleteYou selected a really fascinating and important feature of Anne's diary. I think both her positive body image and her sexual fluidity read as progressive and, as you mention, pretty mature for what we usually associate with young girls of that time. Part of me wonders, though, whether she really is different from other girls or if she is just more honest and open because she is writing in a diary. If we read other girls' private diaries would we find the same confident explorations? Your response really hits its strongest argument at the conclusion of the brief essay, and I encourage you to map that argument into the introduction in future responses and divide the paragraph into shorter singular-themed paragraphs, just like you would with a longer essay.