Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl 455Cecil grew up in London with more cosmopoli-
tan traditions and so becomes very impatient and
frustrated when he has to make trips to all the
country homes to meet many friends of the family.
He cannot abide how his “engagement is rendered
as public property.” Cecil and Lucy cannot decide
whether country or city traditions are superior.
Lucy finds herself bored with her neighbors’ “kindly
affluence, their inexplosive religion, their dislike of
paper bags, orange-peel, and broken bottles.” At the
same time, Cecil doubts his own environment and
instead wants to “bring [his children] up among
honest country folks for freshness, send them to
Italy for subtlety, and then—not till then—let
them come to London.” Regardless of any final
decision on the matter, Lucy and Cecil are curious
about each other’s traditions and use their differ-
ent backgrounds to explain why they have trouble
understanding one another.
Mr. Emerson and his son, George, represent a
rejection of typical English traditions and ways of
thinking. Mr. Emerson brags that he gave his son a
childhood “free from all superstition and ignorance
that lead men to hate one another in the name of
God.” He startles fellow tourists in Italy when he
complains loudly in a church about unfair treat-
ment for laborers and the ugliness of religious art.
Whereas Lucy comments on her admiration for
Giotto’s paintings because she remembers reading
about them, Mr. Emerson ignores traditional opin-
ions. Mr. Emerson teaches Lucy to care less about
other opinions and instead encourages her to con-
tinue on her tour even after she loses her guidebook
and her chaperone.
By the end of the novel, Lucy becomes more
open-minded and realizes that a break from tradi-
tion is sometimes necessary for personal happiness.
At first, Lucy had thought that “life . . was a circle
of rich, pleasant people, with identical interests and
identical foes.” Her experience in Italy opens her
mind, as when she observes, “social barriers were
irremovable, doubtless, but not particularly high.”
She takes a risk and breaks off her engagement
with Cecil. Lucy causes her mother great shock
when she moves to Italy with George. A letter from
home reminds Lucy that “she had alienated Windy
Corner, perhaps for ever.” By abandoning her fam-
ily traditions and defying their expectations, Lucy
learns to trust her own conscience and explore more
unconventional views as well.
Elizabeth WalpoleFrank, annE Anne Frank: The Diary
of a Young Girl (1950)
Like many girls before and after her, Anne Frank
began to write her deepest secrets, greatest fears,
and strongest desires in the confines of her adoles-
cent diary. Unlike most girls, Anne’s diary became
known throughout the world. Anne Frank: The
Diary of a Young Girl is one of our most profound
insights into the lives of Jews in hiding during
World War II.
Anne’s initial revelations of schoolyard crushes
and birthday party plans change drastically when
she is forced to go into hiding in 1942, following
the 1940 Nazi occupation of Holland and the insti-
tution of strict policies against Jews in that country.
Although cloistered in the annex of her father’s
warehouse, Anne’s life is a rich one as she navigates
the throes of adolescence. Although often in despair
over the atrocities committed against Jews outside of
her little world, the constant battle of identities with
her mother, and the sheer dreariness of a life spent
entirely indoors, Anne manages to take comfort in
her writing, a crush on her roommate, Peter Van
Daan, the warm relationship she shares with her
father, and her tireless studies.
Although Anne died at the Bergen-Belsen con-
centration camp in Lower Saxony in March 1945,
her words and thoughts have lived on. Following
Anne’s removal from the annex, Miep Gies, one of
the Dutch women who helped care for the Franks
and their companions, collected the scattered pages
of Anne’s diary and saw them published in 1947
with the help of Anne’s father, Otto Frank. Since
then Anne’s diary has become one of the most
widely read and widely published books in history.
Jeana Hrepichcruelty in Anne Frank: The Diary
of a Young Girl
Although readers know nothing of Anne Frank’s
life in Bergen-Belsen, the concentration camp