Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary
devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Becoming a Woman
Anne is thirteen years old when she first goes into hiding
in the annex, and she turns fifteen shortly before the family’s
arrest. Thus, her diary is a powerful firsthand record of the experience
of a young girl as she matures. Although Anne faces the challenges
of puberty under unusual circumstances, the issues she struggles
with are universal. She frequently contemplates the changes in her
body and her psychology. Because Anne does not readily confide in
her mother or her sister, she turns to her diary to understand the
changes she perceives and to question issues about sexuality and
maturity. In later entries, as Anne begins to see herself as an
independent woman, she compares herself to her mother and to other
women of her mother’s generation, imagining what she will be like
in the future. She often thinks about what it means to be a woman
and a mother, typically using her mother as an example of the type
of woman she does not want to become. Instead, Anne seeks to overcome
the obstacles of gender bias and prejudice, just as she hopes to
escape the persecution faced by the Jewish people.
Fear
The Franks and the van Daans are fortunate enough to have
made advance plans to go into hiding should the need arise, but
they still know they are not completely safe from the Nazis. Their
security depends on the cooperation of many different people outside
the annex, as well as a good amount of luck and hope. Their fear
grows each time the doorbell rings, there is a knock on their door,
or they hear that there is a break-in at the office building. They
hear reports from the outside world about their friends who are
arrested and about non-Jews who are suffering from a lack of food.
As the war rages on around them, all people—Jews and non-Jews—suffer. Anne
knows that her family’s situation is precarious, and she spends much
of her time trying to distract herself from this frightening reality.
However, each scare does color her diary entries. She knows what
would happen to her and her family if they were discovered, and
this fear that permeates life in the annex likewise permeates the tone
of Anne’s diary.
