Erin Cinney
THURSDAY, JANUARY 6, 1944
“I think that what's happening to me is so wonderful, and I don't just mean the changes taking place on the outside of my body, but also those on the inside. I never discuss myself or any of these things with others, which is why I have to talk about them to myself. Whenever I get my period (and that's only been three times), I have the feeling that in spite of all the pain, discomfort and mess, I'm carrying around a sweet secret. So even though it's a nuisance, in a certain way I'm always looking forward to the time when I'll feel that secret inside me once again.”
If Anne Frank didn’t have it hard enough trying to hide from the Nazis on account of her identifying as a Jew, she also hit puberty right around the time she had to go into hiding. The whole reason this diary is so famous though is because it was written by someone as insightful and optimistic as Anne herself. Here she is expressing her body changing and becoming more womanly as she copes with menstruating in hiding. She explains that it annoys her but that she is fascinated by the female body and how it’s changing from the inside. Anne seems to love that she has a secret but also craves a companion to share her secrets with (specifically a girlfriend). Menstruating and puberty are generally seen as difficult times that people find no enjoyment in, so to have Anne, a young girl trapped inside a house with only her family and several close friends, rejoicing in her changing body, speaks volumes about her character.
There is also a difficulty in finding her identity since following this passage she exclaims that she wants to explore her sexuality through other females, and the only person she has for company close in age is Peter. Anne has this entire question mark surrounding her femininity and is deprived of the ability to act on any of her impulses given her situation. Rather than growing frustrated though, at puberty much less this whole circumstance, she keeps a tone of childlike wonder in her entries. She seems to be exactly on the brink between childhood and adolescence which makes her situation that much more tragic. This identity crisis parallels her religious identity crisis seeing as that is what confines her in the first place. The diary then serves as her only companion in which she can be fully honest about her thoughts. In her last days of life as well as the entirety of her death, this diary has then become her identity.
I agree with you that Anne is optimistic as ever about both of these situations, when it comes to hiding and getting her period. This optimism is what keeps the reader entertained and hopeful for her dreams of the future. It is very clear that she confines in her diary and herself only, as she states throughout the book. Her claim of self awareness is powerful for someone going through the situation she is at this rough age in a young girl's life.
ReplyDeleteHi Erin,
ReplyDeleteThank you for selecting this passage. It is one of the most-frequently cited passages in the text and it is so important to the diary as a whole, which is as much a coming-of-age adolescence story as it is a story about the atrocities of the Holocaust. While it seems strange to us as adult readers that she rejoices so much in her period, it is also a common response in adolescent literature as the adolescent girl celebrates the evidence that she is becoming a woman. So even while Anne's story is pretty unique, this moment connects Anne to adolescent girls across time and place. I would like to see your statement of argument be more specific. Your first paragraph concludes with "it speaks volumes to Anne's character," but I would like to see a more narrow claim about what this passage shows about Anne and why that is important to the text as a whole. There is a thread in here about optimism and then also one about finding an identity. I'd like to see a more cohesive and unified argument throughout in such a brief argument.