Mapping the Survival Psyche: A Reading of Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl

Abstract

The instinct to survive enables human beings to endure even the most unbearable situations. During times of unimaginable troubles, the human spirit is tempted often to give up. But a tiny echo hover down the soul of the human spirit to keep going. In this point of view, Anne Frank resonates strong will power by expressing resilience over hopelessness amidst the chaos. This paper records and examines her emotional expressions as ways to cope through the chaos, by focusing only on the good that she had left despite the chaos. Through the lens of John Leach’s Survival Psychology, the study reveals the deeper endurance of the human spirit through Anne’s survival strategies. Humor is brought in as a shield against grief, her imagined futures act as a temporary escape from the state of being paralysed with hopelessness and her intimacy with her diary exposes her pain and heals her scars. By linking psychological insights with Anne’s literary testimony, this paper offers an insight to the emerging approaches in English studies.