The Book The Life By Francine Prose Analysis

Francine Prose the author of Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife has a writing style that has a unique technique and strategy. Within the common punctuation placement, paragraph construction and sentence standards; Prose escapes the generic structure of writing. In The Book, Part I, Prose makes a point to draw the attention of the audience by beginning with a story. The story is introduced in the first paragraph with only one sentence. She gives a detailed description that is a surprise yet still on topic. Prose demonstrates her skill in the first line, “In Amsterdam, on the sunny and otherwise quiet morning of Friday, August 4, 1944, a car pulled up in front of the Opekta warehouse at 263 Prinsengracht” (63). Though the structure is not traditional it is not a run on. Automatically the readers are transported to the event in Anne’s diary when they are captured. With this common interest she then starts to give a background and scene narrative. She sets the scene by

Most recently discussed is the narration, she also adds reflection, characterization and comic relief; that alternates in her writing as well as Anne’s. Prose does the same by dedicating a section of The Book to the comic interludes and analysis of Anne’s character descriptions. Prose explains matter further when she writes “if the characterization of the Van Pelses is a marvel of literary portraiture, the image of their son, Peter, is another matter. If Peter strikes us as an interesting character, a closer reading reveals that this is largely because he is lit by refracted glow of Anne’s interest” (112). In making this comment Prose shows both Anne’s and her own ability to share details that convey the audience. In other words, Anne writes about Peter based on her relationship with him, on so the readers are most likely going to perceive Peter in that way; Prose seamlessly elaborates further on Anne’s clever