-Anup Joshi
Jewish
Identity in Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl
This
paper explores how the identity of the writer Anne Frank plays pivotal role in
creation of her diary The Diary of a Young Girl. A Jewish girl born in
Frankfort, Germany and later moved to Amsterdam, her life would have been
totally different if she was not of the Jewish Heritage. In Hitler’s Anti-Sematic
regime, ethnic identity would decide who is to be cremated alive in gas
chamber. Franks were obliged to go into hiding from the authorities afraid from
Nazi capture once Anne’s sister Margaret was summoned to a concentration camp.
Frank wrote her diary addressing to her pen friend Kitty as a way of
scriptotherapy amidst lonely days of hiding during Holocaust. Though she mostly
talks about her coming of age experiences, her identity is the driving force
throughout the text. As Smith and Watson Put it, “autobiographical acts involve
narrators in identifying themselves to the reader. That is writers make
themselves known by acts of identification and by implication, differentiation”
(32). In her diary, Anne Frank introduces herself through her cultural, social
and personal identity so that we can grasp the feelings of her time. Depiction
of selfhood would not have been possible had not she described about her
identity.
Anne
started to write her diary in her early teenage, when she was thirteen. It is age
for children to have fun with friends, go to school and be cuddled in the
family. But due to the ongoing war and the Anti-Jews programs imposed by Nazis,
the life of her becomes nightmare and she comes to be familiar with all the
political gossips and the identity crisis. “The rest of our family, however
felt the full impact of Hitler’s anti-Jewish laws, so life was filled with
anxiety…After 1940 good times rapidly fled; first the war, then the
capitulation, followed by the arrival of Germans, which is when the sufferings
of us Jews really began” (4). In the earlier days of diary, she desperately
mentions about her origin, introduces her family, the place and structure of
her hidings and most of all, her Jewish heritage and their fugitive life as a
result of Nazi’s Anti-Semitism. She tells about the prejudices her group faced,
how Jews are treated as savages and her cultural anxiety. “Jews may not visit
Christians. Jews must go to Jewish schools, and many more restrictions of a
similar kind…Our freedom was strictly limited” (4,5). She continuously
describes how the life of family is obstructed by the ongoing ethnic biases.
Her childish innocence, right to go to school was all shattered by her Jewish
identity. Her freedom was paralyzed. As Maya Angelou implies in her poem, Anne
was like a caged bird in her hiding and as she could not leap forward on the
back of the wind and dare to claim the sky, all she could do was sing inside
the narrow cage. Her passion to be a journalist or writer in future, her
complicated relationship with her family members and Van Daans has made her
writing more real and interesting.
A young girl in her puberty, Anne does not confide with
her sister or her mother. She has difficulties in coping up with female members
in the family along with Mrs. Van Daan. She somehow is compatible with her
father and respects him. She is a very passionate, unconventional girl and has
big dreams for her live. She determines, “I have made up my mind now to lead a
different life from other girls, and later on, different from other housewives”
(249). As she has no girl of her age, she feels isolated and lonely. In the
earlier part of her diary, she mentions about her relationship with Harry
Goldberg. “I am honestly not in love, oh, no. I can surely have boyfriends – no
one thinks anything of that – but one boy friend or beau, as mother calls him,
seems to be quite different” (12). Harry was a member of Zionist group, and
advocated for the Jewish heritage. She seems to be pretty much influenced by
him and talks about her cultural identity at the beginning. But as she develops
intimacy with Peter in hiding, she becomes ambivalent about her Jewish
consciousness. Peter wants to make his Jewish heritage secret once the war
ends. Anne on the other hand, stands in between these two poles. As her diaries
progresses, she becomes more and more matured and indulges herself in
philosophical issues. In spite of all the horrific incidents going on, she
keeps up her optimism and believes that war will end soon. “Now I am getting
really hopeful, now things are going well at last. Yes, really, they’re going
well!” (295). Her optimism represents the Jews community and their decedents
who survived the holocaust and now are very powerful intellectuals and
scientists in the world.
Her identity related to class is not very apparent in her
diary. As the time she was living was horrible, and it was the greatest sin to
be born Jew, class and money seems less important. But her father is a good
businessman their economic condition does not look bad as per the time they
were living in. There were millions of Jews out there striving in mortal
danger. Many were already killed. Franks were lucky enough to have a hiding
place in such a city and there were people to help them. Out of their
generosity, the family invites Mr. Dussel to the safety. Burglars attempt to
rob their secret annex which suggests that there were many people out in the
street unprotected and poor at that time. Anne keeps mentioning about the
hardships family went through in her diary. But most of the economical
hardships are also due to the Nazi business. “Our food is terrible. Breakfast
consists of plain, unbuttered brea and ersatz coffee. For the last two weeks
lunch has been e. spinach or cooked lettuce with huge potatoes that have a
rotten, sweetish taste. If you're trying to diet, the Annex is the place to be!
Upstairs they complain bitterly, but we don't think it's such a tragedy” (167).
In that terrible time, thousands of Jews were facing torture and were devoid of
a piece of bread. But up to certain point, before they were captured, Frank
family were able to get some shelter despite the hardships they faced. Her
class does not seem to trouble much like her ethnicity to her.
Beside her ethnic identity, she identifies herself as a
daughter, lover and a young girl ongoing through differentiation confrontations
in her life. She views herself as an independent woman and aspires to remain
so. She compares herself with the other woman in the family and is determined
to be better when time comes. After her father disapproves of her relationship
with Peter, she develops a resolution to remain friend with him. She seems to
be trying to be a good daughter. Her constant clashes with Mr. Dussel shows her
stubbornness and her determination in her view. We know now that she could not
grow older due as she died in the camp but the impression she left on us is so
powerful that we start we wonder what will have she become had she stayed
alive. Maybe she would have become a great writer or a popular journalist. Her
passionate determinations are very much powerful in constructing her identity
to the readers.
Identity of a person is multiple and as Smith and Watson
claim “identities are marked in many categories: gender, race, ethnicity,
sexuality, nationality, class, generation, family genealogy, and religious and
political ideologies, to cite the most obvious” (33), there are many facets of
identity involved in Anne’s portrayal of self. But as it was the time of ethnic
cleansing and Hitler had taken away the sleep of all the Jews, being a Jew is
more important in her diary. It shapes all her thinking and daily activities.
She keeps talking about the current affairs of war and keeps listening to the
radio. When she hears about the allied force advancing or the news of mutiny in
Hitler’s affairs, she becomes optimistic the war will end and the days of Jews
misery will fade away.
To
conclude, religious and ethnic identity of Anne Frank is dominating her
thoughts throughout her writing process. She is facing all the dire
consequences in her life just for being a Jew. Though ethnic identity is
socially constructed and she has no control over it, Nazis are frenzy to wipe
her race form earth. There is no excuse for being a Jew. In such a scenario,
time and again she contemplates about her identity and tries to find a meaning
in life amidst all the horror. A young girl, she is forced to contemplate about
her religious identity when she had to be busy studying at school or on other
simple things during her childhood. But her Jewish heritage and the Nazi’s
enmity towards it changed the life of her family and millions of other people.
Jewish identity is very much important in construction of the autobiographical
subject in her diary.
Works Cited
Frank, Anne. The Diary
of a Young Girl. London: Brosis Publishers and Distributors, 2017.
Print
Smith, Sidonie and Watson
Julia. Reading Autobiography. London: University of Minnesota
Press,
2001. Print.
0 सुझाबहरु:
Post a Comment