Abstract

The article deals with the concept of frame (and framing) and with aspects of verbal and visual representation in the acclaimed picturebook Anne Frank written by Josephine Poole and illustrated by Angela Barrett. The frame can be considered as a pervasive semiotic code in both literature and painting, the so called “sister artsµ. How many types of frames can be identified in the picturebook in question and what are the differences between literal and figurative frames? In what ways a frame creates or perpetuates ontological borders between the so-called reality and its representation? What is more, according to which tropes of artistic representation Anne Frank, as a realist adolescent in development, is represented as “framedµ, bordered within strict bounders, and violently confined? The book is a realistic and yet imaginative re-creation of Anne’s life and, at the same time, a multimodal (verbal and visual) narrative about the legacy of Anne and her diary’s everlasting memory. For the analysis two conceptual /theoretical tools are applied: the philosophical concept of the parergon (frame/framing) after Kant and Derrida, and the female development plot which is associated with an established generic tradition in literature from 19th century to the present.