10 First Flight


Diary of Anne Frank

NCERT Exercise

Question 1: What makes writing in a diary a strange experience for Anne Frank?

Answer: Writing a diary is a strange experience for Anne Frank because of two reasons. The first reason is she has not written anything before. The second reason is the apparent disinterest which most of the people would show in musings of a thirteen year old girl.

Question 2: Why does Anne want to keep a diary?

Answer: She needs some channel through which she can get off all the burden and pain she is suffering from. Hence, she wants to keep a diary. Anne Frank is also searching for a friend in the form of her diary.

Question 3: Why did Anne think she could confide more in her diary than in people?

Answer: Anne Frank believes that paper has more patience than people. She believes that a diary will have more patience to listen to her plight. That is why she could confide more in her diary than in people.

Question 4: Why does Anne provide a brief sketch of her life?

Answer: A good introduction helps drawing reader’s attention to the topic. Moreover, it gives background information about the topic. By providing brief sketch of her life, Anne gives an overview of her family, her relatives, and her age. This helps the reader to develop connect with the author.

Question 5: What tells you that Anne loved her grandmother?

Answer: Her statement, that no one could understand her intensity of love for her grandma tells that she loved her grandmother. Moreover, the touching gesture of lighting up one candle for grandmother during Anne’s birthday is also a poignant reminder of the love for grandma.

Question 6: Why was Mr Keesing annoyed with Anne? What did he ask her to do?

Answer: Anne was fond of talking too much. It can be assumed that like all strict teachers Mr. Keesing thought talkativeness as distraction for study. So he was annoyed with Anne. He asked Anne to write an essay on ‘chatterbox’, the person who talks too much.

Question 7: How did Anne justify her being a chatterbox in her essay?

Answer: In her first essay Anne justified her talkativeness by explaining that it was in her genes, because her mother was also talkative.

Although detail about second essay is not given but it can be assumed that it was a good essay, because Mr. Keesing didn’t complain about Anne’s habit for a long time. In the last essay Anne made a humorous poem about a father duck and his ducklings. That essay amused and pleased Mr. Keesing so much that he stopped rebuking Anne for her talkativeness.

Question 8: Do you think Mr Keesing was a strict teacher?

Answer: Whatever actions a teacher takes, that is done in good intention. Teachers always think about knowledge development of child. It is the differences in perspective of students vis-à-vis that of teachers which creates an image of a strict teacher.

Mr. Keesing was also trying to control a supposedly bad habit of Anne. When he was convinced that Anne was good at writing and her talkativeness was not coming in the way of her studies then he started behaving properly with Anne.

Question 9: What made Mr Keesing allow Anne to talk in class?

Answer: Anne’s last essay was like an anecdote. This helped Mr. Keesing to see the lighter side of a natural bubbly behaviour of a teenager. This helped bridge the generation gap between the teacher and the student.

Question 10: Was Anne right when she said that the world would not be interested in the musings of a thirteen-year-old girl?

Answer: Anne was probably right when she said that the world would not be interested in the musings of a thirteen year old girl. Most of the people do not want to see the world from a child’s perspective because children are too immature for them. People seldom believe than a child can also have beautiful insights about the trials and tribulations of human life.

Question 11: There are some examples of diary or journal entries in the ‘Before You Read’ section. Compare these with what Anne writes in her diary. What language was the diary originally written in? In what way is Anne’s diary different?

Answer: Anne Frank’s diary was originally written in Dutch. Anne’s diary was entirely different than most of the examples given before the text. It is somewhat closer to the memoir in which the name of Raj Kapoor has been mentioned. However, Anne’s diary has informal tone which exudes the exuberance and carefree nature of a teenager.

Question 12: Why does Anne need to give a brief sketch about her family? Does she treat ‘Kitty’ as an insider or an outsider?

Answer: Anne understands that no one would believe that a thirteen year old girl was completely alone in this world. She needed to give a brief sketch about her family so that readers could correlate with her in a better way.

Question 13: How does Anne feel about her father, her grandmother, Mrs Kuperus and Mr Keesing? What do these tell you about her?

Answer: Anne has fond memories of her father, her grandmother, Mrs. Kuprus and Mr. Keesing. These persons had left indelible impressions on her mind. The way she tells about these person reveal that Anne was very good at understanding people and at developing interpersonal relations.

Question 14: What does Anne write in her first essay?

Answer: In her first essay on “Chatterbox”, Anne wrote about the reasons of her being a chatterbox. In the essay; she accepted the drawbacks of being a talkative person but she was also frank enough to admit that it was difficult for her to give up the habit.

Question 15: Anne says teachers are most unpredictable. Is Mr Keesing unpredictable? How?

Answer: Mr. Kessing appears to be unpredictable; as Anne had said. No reaction by Mr Kessing after the second essay is a pointer to unpredictability. Even the reaction after the third essay shows unpredictability because Mr. Keesing’s behavior was altogether different than what he earlier did.

Question 16: What do these statements tell you about Anne Frank as a person?

  1. We don’t seem to be able to get any closer, and that’s the problem. Maybe it’s my fault that we don’t confide in each other.

    Answer: Anne is searching for someone in whom she can confide everything. She does not talk more than everyday affair with anyone. She may have failed to break her inhibitions; as indicated by her confession of being at fault.
  2. I don’t want to jot down the facts in this diary the way most people would, but I want the diary to be my friend.

    Answer: Anne does not want to maintain a diary for the sake of maintaining a diary. She wants to jot down her true inner feelings so that she can be relieved off all the burdens. She appears like a person who wants to shift from a paradigm.
  3. Margot went to Holland in December, and I followed in February, when I was plunked down on the table as a birthday present for Margot.

    Answer: This sentence shows that Anne was very good at understanding a particular situation. “Plunking down on the table as a birthday present” shows the inconsequence of being Anne Frank.
  4. If you ask me, there are so many dummies that about a quarter of the class should be kept back, but teachers are the most unpredictable creatures on earth.

    Answer: Anne Frank appears to be more intelligent than fellow students in her class. She also has some satirical streak; as shown by her comment about teachers.
  5. Anyone could ramble on and leave big spaces between the words, but the trick was to come up with convincing arguments to prove the necessity of talking.

    Answer: Anne is not the average student who relies on rote learning which could be regurgitated during examination. Anne wants to develop convincing arguments to justify a particular thought process or line of action. She does not believe in filling reams of pages with useless words in the name of writing.