8th grade: READING: MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 8, 1943 Dearest Kitty, If you were to read all my letters in one sitting, you’d be struck by the fact that they were written in a variety of moods. It anno

8th grade:READING:MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 8, 1943Dearest Kitty,If you were to read all my letters in one sitting, you’d be struck by the fact that they were written in a variety of moods. It annoys me to be so dependent on the moods here in the Annex, but I’m not the only one: we’re all subject to them. If I’m engrossed in a book, I have to rearrange my thoughts before I can mingle with other people, because otherwise they might think I was strange. As you can see, I’m currently in the middle of a depression. I couldn’t really tell you what set it off, but I think it stems from my cowardice, which confronts me at every turn. This evening, when Bep was still here, the doorbell rang long and loud. I instantly turned white, my my stomach churned, and my heart beat wildly—and all because I was afraid.    At night in bed I see myself alone in a dungeon, without Father and Mother. Or I’m roaming the streets, or the Annex is on fire, or they come in the middle of the night to take us away and I crawl under my bed in desperation. I see everything as if it were actually taking place. And to think it might all happen soon!    Miep often says she envies us because we have such peace and quiet here. That may be true, but she’s obviously not thinking about our fear. I simply can’t imagine the world will ever be normal again for us. I do talk about “after the war,” but it’s as if I were talking about a castle in the air, something that can never come true.    I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds. The perfectly ground spot on which we’re standing is still safe, but the clouds are moving in on us, and the ring between us and the approaching danger is being pulled tighter and tighter. We’re surrounded by darkness and danger, and in our desperate search for a way out we keep bumping into each other. We look at the fighting down below and the peace and beauty up above. In the meantime, we’ve been cut off by the dark mass of clouds, so that we can go neither up nor down. It looms before us like an impenetrable wall, trying to crush us, but not yet able to. I can only cry out and implore, “Oh, ring, ring, open wide and let us out!”Yours, AnneThursday, November 11, 1943Dearest Kitty,          I have a good title for this chapter:                  Ode to My Fountain Pen                          In Memoriam   My fountain pen was always one of my most prized possessions; I valued it highly, especially because it had a thick nib, and I can only write neatly with thick nibs. It has led a long and interesting fountain-pen life, which I will summarize below.  When I was nine, my fountain pen (packed in cotton) arrived as a “sample of no commercial value” all the way from Aachen,where my grandmother (the kindly donor) used to live. I lay in bed with the flu, while the February winds howled around the apartment house. This splendid fountain pen came in a red leather case, and I showed it to my girlfriends the first chance I got. Me, Anne Frank, the proud owner of a fountain pen.     When I was ten, I was allowed to take the pen to school, and to my surprise, the teacher even let me write with it. When I was eleven, however, my treasure had to be tucked away again, because my sixth-grade teacher allowed us to use only school pens and ink pots. When I was twelve, I started at the Jewish Lyceum and my fountain pen was given a new case in honor of the occasion. Not only did it have room for a pencil, it also had a zipper, which was much more impressive.When I was thirteen, the fountain pen went with me to the Annex, and together we’ve raced through countless diaries and compositions. I’d turned fourteen and my fountain pen  was enjoying the last year of its life with me when …It was just after five on Friday afternoon. I came out of my room and was about to sit down at the table to write when I was roughly pushed to one side to make room for Margot and Father, who wanted to practice their Latin. The fountain pen remained unused on the table, while its owner, sighing, was forced to make do with a very tiny corner of the table, where she began rubbing beans. That’s how we remove mold from the beans and restore them to their original state. At a quarter to six I swept the floor, dumped the dirt into a newspaper, along with the rotten beans, and tossed it into the stove.  A giant flame shot up, and I thought it was wonderful that the stove, which had been gasping its last breath, had made such a miraculous recovery.     All was quiet again. The Latin students had left, and I sat down at the table to pick up where I’d left off. But no matter where I looked, my fountain pen was nowhere in sight. I took another look. Margot looked, Mother looked, Father looked, Dussel looked. But it had vanished.“Maybe it fell into the stove, along with the beans!” Margot suggested.     “No, it couldn’t have!” I replied.     But that evening, when my fountain pen still hadn’t turned up, we all assumed it had been burned, especially because celluloid is highly inflammable. Our darkest fears were confirmed the next day when Father went to empty the stove and discovered the clip, used to fasten it to a pocket, among the ashes. Not a trace of the gold nib was left. “It must have melted into stone,” Father conjectured.     I’m left with one consolation, small though it may be: my fountain pen was cremated, just as I would like to be someday!Yours, AnneSATURDAY, JANUARY 15, 1944My dearest Kitty,There’s no reason for me to go on describing all our quarrels and arguments down to the last detail. It’s enough to tell you that we’ve divided many things like meat and fats and oils and are frying our own potatoes. Recently we’ve been eating a little extra rye bread because by four o’clock we’re so hungry for dinner we can barely control our rumbling stomachs.     Mother’s birthday is rapidly approaching. She received some extra sugar from Mr. Kugler, which sparked off jealousy on the part of the van Daans, because Mrs. van D. didn’t receive any on her birthday. But what’s the point of boring you with harsh words, spiteful conversations and tears when you know they bore us even more? Mother has expressed a wish, which isn’t likely to come true any time soon: not to have to see Mr. van Daan’s face for two whole weeks. I wonder if everyone who shares a house sooner or later ends up at odds with their fellow residents. Or have we just had a stroke of bad luck? At mealtime, when Dussel helps himself to a quarter of the half-filled gravy boat and leaves the rest of us to do without, I lose my appetite and feel like jumping to my feet, knocking him off his chair and throwing him out the door.Are most people so stingy and selfish? I’ve gained some insight into human nature since I came here, which is good, but I’ve had enough for the present. Peter says the same. The war is going to go on despite our quarrels and our longing for freedom and fresh air, so we should try to make the best of our stay here. I’m preaching, but I also believe that if I live here much longer, I’ll turn into a dried-up old beanstalk. And all I really want is to be an honest-to-goodness teenager!Yours, AnneWEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 19, 1944Dearest Kitty,I (there I go again!) don’t know what’s happened, but since my dream I keep noticing how I’ve changed. By the way, I dreamed about Peter again last night and once again I felt his eyes penetrate mine, but this dream was less vivid and not quite as beautiful as the last.You know that I always used to be jealous of Margot’s relationship with Father. There’s not a trace of my jealousy left now; I still feel hurt when Father’s nerves cause him to be unreasonable toward me, but then I think, “I can’t blame you for being the way you are. You talk so much about the minds of children and adolescents, but you don’t know the first thing about them!” I long for more than Father’s affection, more than his hugs and kisses. Isn’t it awful of me to be so preoccupied with myself? Shouldn’t I, who want to be good and kind, forgive them first? I forgive Mother too, but every time she makes a sarcastic remark or laughs at me, it’s all I can do to control myself.I know I’m far from being what I should; will I ever be?                                                                                  Anne Frank      PS. Father asked if I told you about the cake. For Mother’s birthday, she received a real mocha cake, prewar quality, from the office. It was a really nice day! But at the moment there’s no room in my head for things like that.SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1944Dearest Kitty,Can you tell me why people go to such lengths to hide their real selves? Or why do I always behave very differently when I’m in the company of others? Why do people have so little trust in one another? I know there must be a reason, but sometimes I think it’s horrible that you can’t ever confide in anyone, not even those closest to you.      It seems as if I’ve grown up since the night I had that dream, as if I’ve become more independent. You’ll be amazed when I tell you that even my attitude toward the van Daans has changed. I’ve stopped looking at all the discussions and arguments from my family’s biased point of view. What’s brought on such a radical change? Well, you see, I suddenly realized that if Mother had been different, if she’d been a real mom, our relationship would have been very, very different. Mrs. van Daan is by no means a wonderful person, yet half the arguments could have been avoided if Mother hadn’t been so hard to deal with every time they got onto a tricky subject. Mrs. van Daan does have one good point, though: you can talk to her. She may be selfish, stingy and underhanded, but she’ll readily back down as long as you don’t provoke her and make her unreasonable. This tactic doesn’t work every time, but if you’re patient, you can keep trying and see how far you get.     All the conflicts about our upbringing, about not pampering children, about the food—about everything, absolutely everything—might have taken a different turn if we’d remained open and on friendly terms instead of always seeing the worst side.     I know exactly what you’re going to say, Kitty. “But, Anne, are these words really coming from your lips? From you, who has had to put up with so many unkind words from upstairs? From you, who is aware of all the injustices?”     And yet they are coming from me. I want to take a fresh look at things and form my own opinion, not just ape my parents, as in the proverb “The apple never falls far from the tree.” I want to reexamine the van Daans and decide for myself what’s true and what’s been blown out of proportion. If I wind up being disappointed in them, I can always side with Father and Mother. But if not, I can try to change their attitude. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to stick with my own opinions and judgment. I’ll take every opportunity to speak openly to Mrs. van D. about our many differences and not be afraid—despite my reputation as a smart aleck—to offer my impartial opinion. I won’t say anything negative about my own family, though that doesn’t mean I won’t defend them if somebody else does, and as of today, my gossiping is a thing of the past.     Up to now I was absolutely convinced that the van Daans were entirely to blame for the quarrels, but now I’m sure the fault was largely ours. We were right as far as the issues were concerned, but intelligent people (such as ourselves!) should have more insight into how to deal with others.     I hope I’ve got at least a touch of that insight, and that I’ll find an occasion to put it to good use.Yours, AnneWednesday, May 3, 1944 Dearest Kitty,Why all this destruction? The question is very understandable, but no one has found a satisfactory answer to it so far. Yes, why do they still make more gigantic planes, still heavier bombs, and at the same time, prefabricated houses for construction. Why should millions be spent daily on the war and yet there’s not a penny available for medical services, artists, or for the poor people? Yours, AnneSaturday, July 15, 1944 Dearest Kitty,In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness. I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too. I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.Yours, AnneTuesday, August 1st, 1944:  Anne’s Final Entry  Dearest Kitty,“A bundle of contradictions” was the end of my previous letter and is the beginning of this one. Can you please tell me exactly what “a bundle of contradictions” is? What does “contradiction” mean? Like so many words, it can be interpreted in two ways: a contradiction imposed from without and one imposed from within.The former means not accepting other people’s opinions, always knowing best, having the last word; in short, all those unpleasant traits for which I’m known. The latter, for which I’m not known, is my own secret.As I’ve told you many times, I’m split in two. One side contains my exuberant cheerfulness, my flippancy, my joy in life and, above all, my ability to appreciate the lighter side of things. By that I mean not finding anything wrong with flirtations, a kiss, an embrace, an off-colour joke. This side of me is usually lying in wait to ambush the other one, which is much purer, deeper and finer. No one knows Anne’s better side, and that’s why most people can’t stand me….     Oh, I can be an amusing clown for an afternoon, but after that everyone’s had enough of me to last a month. Actually, I’m what a romantic movie is to a profound thinker – a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either.I hate having to tell you this, but why shouldn’t I admit it when I know it’s true? My lighter, more superficial side will always steal a march on the deeper side and therefore always win. You can’t imagine how often I’ve tried to push away this Anne, which is only half of what is known as Anne-to beat her down, hide her. But it doesn’t work, and I know why.I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the “light-hearted” Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the “deeper” Anne is too weak. If I force the good Anne into the spotlight for even fifteen minutes, she shuts up like a clam the moment she’s called upon to speak, and lets Anne number one do the talking. Before I realized it, she disappeared.So the nice Anne is never seen in company. She’s never made a single appearance, though she almost always takes the stage when I’m alone. I know exactly how I’d like to be, how I am… on the inside. But unfortunately I’m only like that with myself. And perhaps that’s why-no, I’m sure that’s the reason why I think of myself as happy on the inside and other people think I’m happy on the outside. I’m guided by the pure Anne within, but on the outside I’m nothing but a frolicsome little goat tugging at its tether.As I’ve told you, what I say is not what I feel, which is why I have a reputation for being boy-crazy as well as a flirt, a smart aleck and a reader of romances. The happy-go-lucky Anne laughs, gives a flippant reply, shrugs her shoulders and pretends she doesn’t give a darn. The quiet Anne reacts in just the opposite way. If I’m being completely honest, I’ll have to admit that it does matter to me, that I’m trying very hard to change myself, but that I’m always up against a more powerful enemy.A voice within me is sobbing, “You see, that’s what’s become of you. You’re surrounded by negative opinions, dismayed looks and mocking faces, people, who dislike you, and all because you don’t listen to the advice of your own better half.”Believe me, I’d like to listen, but it doesn’t work, because if I’m quiet and serious, everyone thinks I’m putting on a new act and I have to save myself with a joke, and then I’m not even talking about my own family, who assume I must be sick, stuff me with aspirins and sedatives, feel my neck and forehead to see if I have a temperature, ask about my bowel movements and berate me for being in a bad mood, until I just can’t keep it up anymore, because when everybody starts hovering over me, I get cross, then sad, and finally end up turning my heart inside g out, the bad part on the outside and the good part on the inside, and keep trying to find a way to become what I’d like to be and what I could be if… if only there were no other people in the world.Yours, Anne On August 4, 1944, police in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam raided a warehouse and arrested Anne Frank, her family and the other Jews who were hiding in an annex disguised behind a bookcase. They had spent over two years living in the cramped safehouse.Questions:1) At the end of the entry dated November 8, 1943, Anne uses a simile to describe her situation. What does she reveal about her perspective with the use of the simile “I see the eight of us in the Annex as if we were a patch of blue sky surrounded by menacing black clouds.”?2) How does Anne compare her situation in the Annex to what others are facing, especially Margot and Peter? 3) How does Anne’s perspective change over the course of these entries?  Use evidence from the text to support your answer.4) Reread the paragraph written by Anne on July 15th, 1944 . What are your thoughts about her feelings?  How do you think you would have felt had you been forced into hiding and had to witness what Anne had seen?