The Diary of Anne Frank
Reading Comprehension/Analysis Questions
Directions: Write your answers on a separate sheet of paper. Use blue/black ink. Write in
complete sentences.
Act 1, Scenes 1-3 Making Meanings
1. What do you think would be the hardest part of life in the Secret Annex: the fear
of discovery, the need to keep silent for hours at a time, the sharing of cramped
quarters with strangers, or some other aspect? Explain.
2. Do Anne and Peter seem to have typical teenage attitudes toward their families?
Go back to the text for examples to support your response.
3. List the conflicts that have developed among the characters by the end of Scene 3.
Why are these conflicts dangerous for the people in the Secret Annex? What
other conflicts do you predict might arise?
4. Compare Mr. Frank’s and Mr. Van Daan’s reactions to the arrival of Albert
Dussel. Which seems like the right way to respond? Why?
5. When the play opens, only months have passed since Otto Frank was freed from
Auschwitz. What do you think makes him return to Amsterdam and revisit the
place where he and his family were captured by the Nazis? Would you do the
same? Explain.
6. If you were going into hiding and could only take as many items as you could
carry in a single trip, what would they be? List the contents of your bags, and
explain why you chose them.
7. Mr. Frank tells Anne, “There are no walls, there are no bolts, no locks that anyone
can put on your mind” (pg. 357). What does he mean? Do you agree? Support
your opinion with examples from your own experience or knowledge.
Act 1, Scenes 4-5
1. Now that you have read Scenes 4 and 5, how have your feelings about Anne and
the other characters changed?
2. Anne is a dynamic character; that is, she changes in the course of the play.
What does Anne’s gift giving reveal about her? How do her gifts to her mother
and Peter show that she has changed?
3. Describe the reversal----the sudden change in the characters’ fortunes that is
central to Scene 5. How did it make you feel?
4. Imagine that you are watching this play in a theater. What questions do you have
as the curtain comes down on Act One? What do you predict will happen in Act
Two?
5. Reread Anne’s conversation with her father on page 376. What does she say that
reminds you the most---or the least---of yourself? Explain.
6. The play’s version of events differs in many ways from what actually happened.
For example:
a. In real life, Anne was given the diary as a present for her thirteenth
birthday, several weeks before her family went into hiding.
b. The Frank family moved into the Secret Annex a week before the Van
Pels family did.
c. Margot was sixteen, not eighteen, when the Franks went into hiding.
d. The occupants of the Secret Annex often ventured to the lower floors of
the office building after working hours.
Why might the writers have chosen to change each of these details? Do you think
the changes make the play more effective? Explain.
Act Two
1. Do you agree with Anne that “people are really good at heart”? Does the play
offer any evidence to support this statement?
2. In your opinion, is Mrs. Frank justified in demanding that the Van Daans
leave the Secret Annex? (Why or why not?) What do you think would have
happened if Miep hadn’t come in with news of the invasion?
3. The climax of a play is a moment of greatest tension. What is this play’s
climax?
4. In Act One, Scene 4, Mr. Frank tells Anne, “You must build your own
character (page 376). Do you think she has succeeded in doing this by the end
of the play? Explain.
5. On page 404, Anne says, “I want to go on living even after my death.” Do
you think her wish has come true? Explain.
6. What do you think is the main conflict in the play? Is it the conflict between
the occupants of the Secret Annex and the Nazis, or something else?
7. Before The Diary of Anne Frank was first performed, Otto Frank wrote in a
letter to the actor who would portray him, “Please don’t play me as a
‘hero.’…Nothing happened to me that did not happen to thousands upon
thousands of other people.” Do you see anyone in the play as a hero? What
qualities or actions make someone a hero?
8. There is no evidence in Anne’s diary that Mr. Van Daan stole food; the
playwrights may have invented this incident for dramatic effect. What do you
think of such changes in fiction or drama that is based on real events?