Mr Van Daan And The Anne Frank Conflict

574 Words3 Pages

n the Anne Frank play many people were living in the Frank's three-bedroom secret annex. They all got on each others nerves and created conflict amongst each other, but I think Mr. Van Daan caused the most conflict. Mr. Van Daan was one of the Jewish people hiding with the Frank's during the Holocaust. They all mostly got along, but Mr. Van Daan would steal food and was mean to his son. This angered the others. If you look deeper into the story, you can see that Mr. Van Daan was not very nice to the others in the annex. Mr Van Daan was extremely rude to his son for no reason. For example, when his son, Peter, was doing his school work, Mr. Van Daan got upset at Peter because he was not finished. The Frank girls had already finished their work. Mr. Van Daan basically was putting Peter down and did not want to help him because he "Did not listen to him." Some evidence from the play that shows this is "You haven't finished yet?", "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," and "Not me, I can't do anything with him. He wont listen to me." This shows just how rude Mr. Van Daan was being to Peter. …show more content…

Van Daan caused the most conflict is because he sold his wifes coat solely for his own benefit. Mr. Van Daan needed some cigarettes and could not do without them. He decided to go and grab Mrs. Van Daan's extremely expensive fur coat and give it to Miep to sell. This made Mrs. Van Daan extremely upset because it was one of the only things she brought and her father had gotten it for her. Two examples from the play that show this are, "No! No! No! Don't you dare take that! You hear? It's mine! My father gave me that!" and "As I have often reminded Mrs. Van Daan, it's very selfish of her to keep it when people outside are in such desperate need of clothing... So if you will please sell it for us?" This caused lots of conflict between Mr. Van Daan and Mrs. Van