The Curse by Karen Houppert

Author:Karen Houppert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

All of the preceding passages about sex and desire appear within the four months following Anne’s announcement that she is menstruating. It’s significant that another battle runs parallel to Anne’s struggles with her changing body, her budding sexuality, and her subsequent efforts to pin down the rules regarding both. In this battle, “reigning incessantly within,” Anne is growing up. Part of what she writes about—her separation from her parents and her growing independence—is textbook-variety adolescent development and could apply to either gender. But other aspects of Anne’s struggle seem specific to girlhood. For example, Anne has a rough time trying to reconcile her parents’ expectations of womanhood—as opposed to adulthood—with her own. Anne is looking for affirmation of her feelings and is devastated to discover she’ll get none. This takes its toll.

In the diary’s opening entries, a bravely self-confident girl notices that expectations about her behavior are changing. Navigating the new rules is trying, but hardly debilitating. In December 1942, a sassy and sarcastic twelve-year-old Anne complains about the grown-ups’ expectations.

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