Anne Frank: Diary of a Literature Review

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There were times when Hitler's life was threatened, when it seemed to become clear that people weren't going to stand for what he was doing. Frank notes that there were even "lots of officers and generals who are sick of the war and would like to see Hitler descend into a bottomless pit" (Frank 264). Frank finds hope in the fact that there are people who are Jewish like she who are appalled and sickened by Hitler's actions. This is another example of Frank's spirit grabbing onto whatever hope she can find. For such a young girl she follows the war closely and though she never allows herself to get her hopes up too high ("I don't want to anticipate the glorious events too soon") (265), there is always a sense that she has a deep belief in the power of the human spirit, in general, and that people always come back to the good side.

Frank always maintains a sense of hope within her, yet she notes that she sometimes feels as if she has a "dual personality" (Frank 266) because there is a part of her that feels compelled to maintain a more positive nature and to "take everything lightly" (266). This is the strength of her human spirit at work. One cannot expect that a child living in these war-torn conditions would always be overtly cheery and positive about the future. It is as if she grapples with the side of her that has all the faith and the side of her that has a difficult time believing what she is seeing.
She is a child and she notes that there is a very childlike side to her that may lead one to think that she never worries about her life. She thinks that people view her as "deep-thinking people" view clowns (266). She may be amusing for a while, but then eventually people get sick of her. Frank makes sense of this in her own head by saying that there is nothing she can do about this. She is resigned to that being who she is and she even says "My lighter superficial side will always be too quick for the deeper side of me and that's why it will always win" (266). This "lighter superficial side" is, of course, the description of a 13-year-old girl of her self, however, it can be seen as her true human spirit. Her true human spirit fights for the light and it is this light that will always win out over the dark.

Anne Frank's book, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, depicts an adolescent in the middle of the Holocaust fighting for truth and light. It is her ambitious and stubborn lighter side that is symbolic of her human spirit. During her life, Frank worried that people saw only this side and saw it as childish and even irritating, but years later people all over the world would come to see this side of Frank as the epitome of what it means to be a fighter -- a fighter for peace, gentleness and light.

Works Cited

Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: Diary of.....

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