The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank chronicles the life the author led during World War II as she and her family hid from the Nazis. During the war, the Nazis are vicious and the Jews endured many horrors. Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl who went into hiding with her family and several others in Amsterdam during the war. During the time that they were hiding, Anne kept a diary.
Although the Franks and the others try to make their lives as normal as possible, they lived in extremely close quarters. It was crowded and cramped in their secret annex. Moreover, the fear that overhung their daily activities and the need to be quiet in order to remain undiscovered caused them tremendous stress. The isolation also added to their sense of vulnerability and stress. Anne writes:
Not being able to go outside upsets me more than...
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I can say, and I'm terrified our hiding place will be discovered and that we'll be shot.
Moreover, Anne describes their lives as filled with “our monotonous routine.” Their only contact with the outside world was from the people who helped them and brought them news, gossip, food, and other items. They were fortunate in that several of Mr. Frank’s employees helped.
Nevertheless, given these conditions, what might otherwise have been minor inconveniences or nuisances had they been living their regular lives in the open were exacerbated in the annex. In the early scenes of the play, Anne manages to get on other people's nerves several times. She writes:
But this afternoon, when I wanted to rewrite something on Mother's shopping list because her handwriting is so hard to read, she wouldn't let me. She bawled me out again, and the whole family wound up getting involved. I don't fit in with them, and I've felt that clearly in the last few weeks ... Daddy's the only one who understands me.
Anne herself finds the others annoying, except for her father. She writes that, “Margot's and Mother's personalities are so alien to me.” She and Mr. van Daan “are always at loggerheads with each other. For the rest, things are going better. I don't think Peter's gotten any nicer.”
Anne, perhaps like many young people, is often careless. She says that she is “always having accidents ... Yesterday I broke one of Mrs. van D.'s soup bowls. 'Oh!' she angrily exclaimed. 'Can't you be more careful? That was my last one.'"
She also writes that the others find her constant talking annoying. “I'm continually being scolded for my incessant chatter when I'm upstairs.”
Mrs. van Daan thinks that Anne is spoiled:
If I take a small helping of a vegetable I loathe and eat potatoes instead, the van Daans, especially Mrs. van Daan, can't get over how spoiled I am ... Then Mrs. van D. really flies off the handle: "You should have been at our house, where children were brought up the way they should be. I don't call this a proper upbringing. Anne is terribly spoiled. I'd never allow that. If Anne were my daughter."
In another scene, Anne's mother scolds her:
Then she added that I talk about "later" so often and that I act as if I were such a lady, even though I'm not, but I don't think building sand castles in the air is such a terrible thing to do ...
Perhaps Anne’s childish and innocent belief that there will be a “later” raises the anxiety of the adults with her who fear that they will not survive the war.