I’ve been reading the Diary of Anne Frank at school and having not finished it yet have a few questions about it’s author. Now considering how famous the book is and how all diaries are analyzed heavily by academians who probably have three hundred page reports (BTW it’s SARCASM) on each of my questions I will ask:
What was Anne Frank’s thoughts and feelings on sex and love?
Is there any evidence that Anne Frank had Asperger’s.
Anne’s original diary included her thoughts on sex. Her father edited out these passages prior to publication, and the version commonly used in schools is the edited one. You can get the full republished version at the library if you like.
The edits also spin Anne’s personality in a particular way, possibly not reflecting reality when compared to the full edition.
Why would you think she had Asperger’s? Seemed like a perfectly normal (somewhat sheltered) girl to me.
Doesn’t sound like much of an aspy to me.
Even if she had Asperger you couldn’t prove it, could you? It would remain pure speculation. And while we’re speculating, no I don’t think was an Aspergie. She was popular in school before she went into hiding, so no evidence of the social awkwardness often associated with Asperger.
I’m wondering if the OP is asking this just because she kept a diary. Maybe that sounds asocial these days.
Anne Frank sounds about as far from Asperger’s as you can get. By all accounts (her own and others) she was an outgoing chatterbox, who enjoyed keeping the diary because it was one more “person” at whom to chatter.
I saw a copy of what appeared to be her diary in her own hand at the Anne Frank Mueseum in Amsterdam and thought that I’d be able to find a used copy cheaper once I got back home. I’ve had no luck, does anyone know if this was unedited as well and where I could get one?
There is quite a difference between the actual diaries and the diaries that are read. Read Anne Franks diaries many years ago in school and then the full unedited (or at least fuller diaries) later. The difference was quite a lot.
She had some not so flattering comments on her parents marriage IIRC.
It would be pretty difficult to read “in her own hand”, even if you read Dutch. After she filled up her original diary, she wrote more in account books and on loose-leaf paper, and then started editing and adding marginal comments to the original.
For an English translation as close to unedited as possible, given the somewhat fractured nature of the original, see the “critical edition” published in the 1980’s.
Yes, that’s how it appeared diary plus a collection of loose notes and stuff sribbled in the margins (including some sketches) translated into english (and several other languages). It cost about 60 euro, which was more than I wanted to spend that day . . .
Still, I’ll check and see if the library has a copy of the critical issue. It’s been one of those thinkgs I’ve put off looking into until I had more time and this thread has brought my interest in the subject back to my frontal lobes.
People with Asperger’s may be ‘socially awkward’ but they are just as likely to be chatterboxes and enjoy having many friends as a neurotypical person. ‘Socially awkward’ does not mean shy, in this case. It means a deficient ability to pick up on other people’s cues. My longtime friend with Asperger’s is an extrovert, has many friends, and loves to talk to people… but she tends to only talk to people about her specific interests, and will not realize it when she is annoying or boring someone. She can’t ‘read’ other people the way I can.
So no, I don’t think it’s so crazy to suggest AF was an Aspie. But I haven’t read the book in many years.
Thank God- I thought this was going to be questions like “how was the original written in ballpoint pen even though that would not be invented till after the Holocaust?” (Yeah- a common accusation from HoloHoaxers.) But then, I didn’t know that Curtis was the questioner at first, and he doesn’t roll like that.
She wrote the diary so she could write with complete confidence in the person, she apparently did not have complete confidence with her friends and family. Also I have Asperger’s and If I were a girl and was going to write a diary it would sound vaguely like her’s actually especially in prose style and so on. Also nobody’s been answering question #1, please answer it.
If you were living in essentially a small prison with 7 other people, frequently hungry and always bored, not to mention in constant fear for your life, you might find it very very politic to keep certain of your thoughts private. Her choice to write a diary suggests a higher than average understanding of human emotions and social relations, rather than a deficit in that regard.
A lot of people with Asperger’s do understand human and social matter quite well depending on their severity.
She started the diary before she went into hiding, but still. Diary keeping isn’t all that common nowadays, but in the past it was very common. Here, for instance, is a diary an American woman in the 40s kept.
Anyway, keeping a diary was extremely common in the past, and isn’t a sign of autism.
She aged from 13 to 15 while writing the diary, during which time she fell in love with her male house-mate, and like most of us her feelings evolved a great deal as she matured. I would say, read the “critical edition” of the diary (or some other unexpurgated version), as it would certainly answer such a broad question better than we can.
And lots of people, male and female, keep and kept diaries without being antisocial. It’s just that no matter who you are, you’re not going to have nice thoughts all the time. Everyone’s going to have a few mean thoughts that they can’t fully express.
Also, is it just me or does question number one sound like a homework assignment? I’m not saying the OP is asking for that, but it’s such a broad open ended question it almost reads like an essay question. I mean, if you’re reading the book for yourself, won’t you get some sense of the answer?
We’re reading at homeroom very slowly at something like two pages per day.