Class 10 English Chapter 1 Question Answers - First Flight

The  Class 10 English chapter, "From the Diary of Anne Frank," portrays the story of a young Jewish girl who hides during World War II to escape persecution by the Nazis. Throughout the chapter, Anne shares her experiences and emotions, including her struggles with depression. Let us see some Long Answer Questions of the chapter.

Q1: “Paper has more patience than people.” Elucidate.

Ans: Anne Frank felt lonely in the world. She had loving parents, an elder sister, and a number of friends. But she was not intimate with anyone. She could talk to them about common everyday matters. But she could not express her inner feelings to them. She wanted a patient listener with a sympathetic heart. But she found that people had no patience to listen to her. She could not relieve the feelings of her heart to anyone. Anne wanted to lighten the burden of ideas in her heart. So she decided to maintain a diary. A diary is not a human being. It has a lot more patience than man. One can express one’s thoughts freely. The diary does not get boring. It is a true friend. It never rejects the offer of friendship. That is why Anne Frank says that paper has more patience than people.

Q2: Give a brief sketch of Anne’s life.

Ans: Anne Frank was a young Jewish girl. She lived with her parents in Germany. But Hitler’s Nazi party was against the Jews. The Nazis were killing the Jews or forcing them to work in the concentration camps. The Frank family fled from Germany in 1933 and took shelter in the Netherlands. But in 1940, Germany attacked the Netherlands and captured it. Now the Nazis started arresting the Jews and sending them to concentration camps. The Frank family went into hiding. They lived secretly on the upper floors of their business premises. They hid there for 25 months. Their non-Jewish friends gave them food. Anne had started writing her diary before going into hiding. In August 1944, the Germans came to know of their hiding. They were arrested and sent to Germany. Anne, her sister, Margot, and her mother soon died in a concentration camp. Her father survived and published part of Anne’s diary. In this diary, Anne gives a moving and tragic account of the difficulties faced by her family and the other Jews. The part of the diary reproduced in this chapter is about the days when Anne was a schoolgirl and she and her family had not yet moved to the secret quarters.

Q3: Why did Anne Frank maintain a diary?

Ans: Anne decided to keep a diary, as she had no "true" friend. She figured paper had more patience than humans did. She felt that there was no one with whom she could share her thoughts and feelings. She had caring parents, a sixteen-year-old sister, and about thirty people she could call her friends. She could not talk about anything except ordinary everyday matters. She could have a good time with them. However, she did not have any true friends. She did not confide in any of her friends. She knew the situation would never change so she decided to keep a diary.Illustration of Diary of Anne Frank

Q4: What does Anne say about her parents, elder sister, and her stay in the Montessori School?

Ans: Anne calls her father very adorable. When her parents were married, her father was thirty-six and her mother was twenty-five. Margot was Anne’s elder sister. She was born in Frankfurt in 1926. Three years later, Anne was born. She lived in Frankfurt until she was four. Her father migrated to Holland in 1933. Her mother, Edith Hollander Frank, went with him. Anne and her sister Margot were sent to Aachen to stay with their grandmother. Margot went to Holland in December and Anne went three months later. Anne started studying at the Montessori School. She stayed there until she was six at which time she was in the first form. When was in the sixth form, her teacher was Mrs Kuperus, the headmistress. Both loved each other. When she left school, both Anne and her teacher were in tears.

Q5: Anne had loving parents and a number of friends. Even then she thought that she was alone. Why?

Ans: Anne Frank was a thirteen-year-old girl. She had loving parents and an elder sister. She had loving aunts and lived in a good home. She had about thirty friends also. Even then she felt that she was alone in the world. She had no intimate person. She had no true friend with whom she could share her feelings. She could not confide in anyone. She had a number of thoughts that she wanted to express to someone. But she could not get close to anyone. She could have a good time with them. She could talk to them about ordinary everyday matters of life. But there was no one with whom she could share the deepest thoughts of her heart. Thus, she felt lonely in the world. She wanted a true friend so she decided to make the diary her friend.

Q6: Why was the whole class shaking in its boots? How does Anne Frank describe the behavior of her classmates?

Ans: The time of the declaration of the annual results were coming closer. The teachers were going to hold their annual meeting. In that meeting, they were going to decide which of the students would be promoted to the next class and which of them would be kept back in the same class. As a result, the students were nervous because of their worries about their future. Half the class was making bets. Anne and her friend G.N. laughed heartily like their classmates, C.N. and Jacques had staked their entire holiday savings on their bet. They were all the time speculating who would pass and who would not. Anne was angry with many of them. But they would not calm down. There were many dummies in Anne’s class. She felt that at least half of them should not be promoted to the next class. But she also felt that teachers are the most unpredictable people on earth.

Q7: Describe the three essays written by Anne Frank.

Ans: Anne Frank was in the habit of talking in class. Her Maths teacher, Mr Keesing was annoyed with her. One day, Mr Keesing gave her extra homework as a punishment. He asked her to write an essay on the subject, ‘A Chatterbox’. She gave amusing arguments in her essay. She wrote that it was a trait of a student to talk. Moreover, she could not cure herself of this habit as her mother also talked as much as she did. It was an inherited trait. Mr Keesing liked the essay. But Anne talked again for the class. So, he asked her to write another essay on the topic, ‘An Incorrigible Chatterbox.’ Now for two lessons, she did not get any punishment. But she talked again. This time, Mr Keesing asked her to write an essay on the topic, ‘Quack, Quack, Quack, Said Mistress Chatterbox.’ Anne wrote this essay in verse form. She wrote about a mother duck and a father swan. They had three ducklings. But the father killed the ducklings because they quacked too much. Mr Keesing liked the essay greatly. He read it out to the class. He read it to other classes also. After that, he stopped punishing Anne.

Q8: Anne believed that paper has more patience than people. She could confide more in her diary than in people. Why did she feel so? Was she free from bias and stereotypes? Explain in 100-120 words the values we need to imbibe from the diary as a friend.

Ans: Anne was a sensible and intelligent girl. She believed that paper has more patience than people as it can confine secrets and share confidence better than people. Anne didn’t have a true friend hence she shared her thoughts and feelings in her diary. She felt people may not be interested in what you have to say. They also may not be there when you need them. However, paper can never show disinterest and is free from bias and stereotypes. It can’t talk and hence can keep your secrets. She felt paper was more dependable than people and hence treated her diary as her friend.

Q9: Mr Keesing punished Anne by giving her an essay to write. Did he lack empathy and compassion? Was it not in his attitude to respect differences among the students? What values would you like to build in him and why? Write in 100-120 words.

Ans: Mr. Keesing was annoyed with Anne as she was a very talkative girl. He warned her several times, but when she didn’t change, he punished her by giving her an essay to write. I think he lacked empathy and compassion. As a teacher, he should be more patient and considerate and should have understood Anne’s condition. He lacked the qualities of a good teacher. A good teacher understands that all students are not the same, and there are different ways to teach different students. However, Anne was able to change his attitude through her essays. She taught him that talking was a student’s trait and that it was the teacher’s responsibility to change it.

Q10: Anne wanted to write convincing arguments to prove the necessity of talking. What does this tell you about her? Did she possess a sense of freedom? Explain the values she possessed to justify herself in 100-120 words.

Ans: Mr. Keesing punished Anne by giving her an essay to write on the topic, ‘A Chatterbox’. Anne, in her essay, argued that talking was a student’s trait. The only thing that she could do was to try to control. But that would not be very effective. Her mother talked as much and hence nothing could be done about an inherited trait. Then in her next essay, which she wrote in verse, she expressed her quality of talking through a story. In the poem, a father swan bites his three ducklings to death as he cannot bear their excessive quacking. This changed Mr Keesing’s attitude and he never punished her after that. This shows that besides being talkative, Anne was an intelligent, and sensible girl and had a good sense of humor.

Q11: Anne justified her being a chatterbox in her essay. Do you agree that she has the courage to defy the injustice? What values do you learn from Anne’s character through this? Write in 100-120 words.

Ans: Anne was a 13-year-old intelligent and sensible girl. She was very talkative and hence her maths teacher punished her and asked her to write an essay on ‘A Chatterbox’. She expressed her ‘talking’ as a student’s trait. She defied the injustice through her three essays on the same topic. She said that she could do nothing with her inherited trait. Finally, she wrote her third essay in verse. It was about three ducklings bitten to death by their father swan because they quacked too much.This changed Mr. Keesing and he never punished her after that. This showed the power of the pen to express her feelings and the sense of injustice done to her, without annoying others.

Q12: On the one hand, Anne Frank says that she is not all alone in the world. On the other hand, she says that she seems ‘to have everything, except my one true friend’. Why can’t she confide in and come closer to her friends?

Ans: Anne Frank seems to be a split personality. On the surface, there are about thirty people she can call her friends. She doesn’t seem to be alone in the world. She has loving parents and a sixteen-year-old elder sister. She has loving aunts and a family. She has the ‘most adorable father’. However, she feels very lonely. She can’t talk about ordinary things with them. Personal issues can’t be shared with them. She can’t confide or repose complete trust in them. She has reasons to believe that `paper has more patience than people’. Therefore, she wants her diary to be her only true friend. She can power out her heart and express her most intimate emotions through her writings in her diary.

Anne Frank

Q13: Give a brief character sketch of Mr Keesing highlighting the transformation that comes to him in the end.

Ans: Mr. Keesing was an old-fashioned teacher of maths in Anne Frank’s school. He was rather strict with his students and didn’t allow much talking in class. He was annoyed with Anne as she talked too much in the class. Being irritated, he gave several warnings to her. Ultimately, he assigned her to write an essay on ‘A Chatterbox’. Anne wrote the essay justifying that talking is a student’s trait. She inherited this trait from her mother. Mr. Keesing was not amused. He assigned her two more essays. They were: ‘An Incorrigible Chatterbox’ and ‘Quack, Quack, Quack, said Mistress Chatterbox’. Anne wrote the story of three ducklings who were beaten to death by their cruel father because they quacked too much. The essay gave the right message to Mr Keesing. By chance, the joke fell on him. He was a transformed man now. He allowed Anne to talk and never assigned her any extra homework again.

Also, Check out EduRev:

• Complete Chapter Explanation 
  
• Character Sketch: From the Diary of Anne Frank

If you want to make the most of your studies and get the grades you deserve, then EduRev is a perfect choice!