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My sister Margot has also gotten her report card. Brilliant, as usual. If we had such a thing as “cum laude,” she would have passed with honors, she’s so smart.
After Anne receives her report card with some middling grades, she quickly mentions that Margot also got her report card and earned top marks. We can see even before Anne and her family go into hiding that, while the family views Anne as social and spunky, Margot is viewed as more of a quiet intellectual.
You can easily see the difference between the way they deal with Margot and the way they deal with me.
Here, Anne recounts how her mother treats Margot when she makes a mistake as opposed to how she treats Anne when Anne insults Margot’s handwriting. Especially after the Franks move to the Annex, Margot is a constant source of jealousy for Anne, both because of Margot’s personality and because of the way their parents treat her.
Now Margot will have to bear the brunt of it. Or rather, won’t, since Mother doesn’t make such sarcastic remarks to her. Not to that paragon of virtue! I’m always teasing Margot about being a paragon of virtue these days, and she hates it. Maybe it’ll teach her not to be such a goody-goody. High time she learned.
After the seating order at dinner changes, Anne feels relieved as she assumes her mother will no longer pick on her but on Margot. When Anne suggests that Margot may have to take their mother’s criticism, she immediately dismisses the idea and uses the teasing nickname she calls Margot. While Margot seems to value being more quiet and studious than Anne, Anne thinks she is sucking up to their parents and needs to loosen up a bit.
I confess that I have absolutely no desire to be like Margot. She’s too weak-willed and passive to suit me; she lets herself be swayed by others and always backs down under pressure. I want to have more spunk!
When Anne writes that the adults often tell her to be more like Margot and Peter, she writes that she would never aspire to be more like her sister. Anne’s natural personality is sassier and louder than Margot’s, perhaps as a result of her trying to be different from her sister while growing up.
The situation is this: I’m not jealous of either you or Peter. I’m just sorry I haven’t found anyone with whom to share my thoughts and feelings, and I’m not likely to in the near future. But that’s why I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that you will both be able to place your trust in each other.
After Anne and Peter begin spending time together, Anne asks Margot if she is jealous of her relationship with Peter. Margot writes her a letter in response, which Anne recounts in her diary here. While Margot does not wish to have that kind of relationship with Peter, she does long for someone to confide in, much like Anne did at the start of her diary, which shows that the sisters are not very different after all.
