“(…) we’re treated like children when it comes to external matters, while, inwardly, we’re much older than other girls our age”. : – A generational and queer reading of the diary of Anne Frank.

Abstract: In this thesis, a generational and a queer reading were conducted on Anne Frank’s diary latest edition, containing substantial parts that were omitted in earlier editions. The aim was to contextualize the negotiation of discourses in relation to Anne’s nonconformity to the time in which she lived as a child (generational) and her girlhood (gender). Themes were identified in order to conduct a generational and a queer reading: negotiation of temporality and age, generational power relations, gender nonconformity/conformity, compulsory heterosexuality and negotiation of gender and sexuality. Three research questions were addressed. They concerned the discourses of generation and gender that are being negotiated within the historical context in which the diary was written, the power relations and societal power dynamics that can be identified in the narrative, and the ways in which the generational and gender aspects intersect, as well as its effect on the narrative. It was found that Anne is negotiating and resisting dominating age discourse, sexuality discourse and child discourse. Much like an extension of this, Anne was shown to resist and negotiate different forms of power relations in her narrative that were connected to binary ideas of male/female and adult/child. Anne narrated traits of resistance towards male and adult dominance as well as her own feeling of illegitimate subordination. Additionally, our results suggest that the historical context and the environment of the Annexe that Anne lived in influenced her narrative heavily and hence her negotiations of power relations and discursive formations. This thesis makes an important contribution to research on Anne Frank as it emphasizes the value in the intersectional aspects of her narrative.