Liana Krajnak on Annie Dillard's An American Childhood: A Memoir

Prompt A

"I walked. My mother had given me the freedom of the streets as soon as I could say our telephone number. I walked and memorized the neighborhood. I made a mental map and located myself upon it. At night in bed I rehearsed the small world’s scheme and set challenge: Find the store using backyards only. Imagine a route from the school to my friend’s house" (42).

In our approach papers, we were required to choose key passages. If I were to choose a key passage for this memoir, I would choose this one. The main theme of this book is the author’s search and longing for understanding and knowledge. She read books to satisfy her fascination, and she seemed to be mesmerized with almost anything. In the course of the childhood she described, she was enthralled by several different subjects, most of which probably would not have held the interest of modern day children, at least not to the detail she paid each of them.

The first subject of her fascination was streams and ponds, because of a field guide she found in the library; then with geology because of the free rock collection she received; and then with bugs, killing and pegging each type. Also, throughout the book she was fascinated by detective work.

Later in the chapter, she compares exploring her town to reading a book: "Walking was my project before reading. The text I read was the town; the book I made up was a map" (44).

This utter fascination and rather obsession with knowledge is, prevailingly in the book, common for many children of the age in which the memoir takes place. Because she calls her book An American Childhood and not "My American Childhood", one can surmise that she considered herself fairly normal, and equipped with the ability to project an image of an average, wealthy family after the Second World War. Not all modern technology, distractions from every child’s thirst for knowledge, was available during the time this memoir describes. Therefore, in An American Childhood, we see an undiluted, clear, and very nostalgic view of the ideal American childhood.

Prompt C

The prevailing American theme in An American Childhood is the American idea, in some form, of freedom. Even if it was just Annie Dillard’s freedom to walk around her neighborhood without supervision, the author’s very typical American childhood always included freedom. She used well her freedom to feed her love of learning, and in everything, she distinguished herself as different. The most American theme described in the book was that of freedom.

First, at a very young age, Annie Dillard explored the lands around her area. She read the text that was the town (44). This was, granted, a small freedom, but for a child as young as Dillard was in this portion of the story, it was considerable. She ventured out into the world to explore, an idea that is decidedly American. We did, after all, explore and map the New World for our own, very much like Annie Dillard did with her hometown of Pittsburgh.

Second, the book describes the freedom to learn. During the course of the book Annie learned about a broad range of different subjects, from French poetry to entomology. A main theme of the book is the author’s love of learning.

Third, Annie Dillard displays the American freedom to be different. She never seemed to want to slip into the routine of normal life. She never wanted to be like other girls of her age. She played sports as child (this was almost unheard of in the time period) and never found any particular interest in the gossiping and chatting of other girls her age. In fact, she "hated it so passionately I thought my shoulders and arms, swinging at the world would split off from my body like loose spinning blades, and fly wild and slice everyone up" (215).

What free American doesn’t feel this way? Who doesn’t, even occasionally, feel the longing to break boldly away from the norm, and live and leave and go somewhere far, far away? American children, specifically, grasp their freedom this way, as a longing. It is freedom—the freedom of children, the freedom of all—that is the main American theme of the book.