from an american childhood by annie dillard

She becomes a voracious reader as a result and her readings and natural inclination to question things becomes the impetus for her continuous growth and maturity as a person.

As she continues to mature she realizes more and more how little she knows and becomes even more fascinated by facts and history. When she discovers however that the “monster” was nothing more than the shadow created by a car’s headlights she makes the conclusion that her imagination can be harnessed to work to her advantage. One of her earliest memories is being afraid of a “monster” in her room as a five year old child. Her life milestones aren’t marked by social events so much as key events that evoke a learning experience upon her learning experiences that usher her into a new stage of mental and emotional maturity. The novel is also a bildungsroman of Annie Dillard. Her opinions change over time as she reads more, experiences more, and is exposed to more and more of the world at large. Her intellectual development from an impulsive youngster to a more introspective adult is formed by her voracious appetite for reading, her innate curiosity, and her ability to observe and chronicle events around her. These insights regarding young Annie are shared by the narrator, no less than Annie Dillard as a mature adult. The novel is narrated in an omniscient third-person perspective and there is an interesting dynamic that occurs between events that are narrated, wherein she describes the experiences that make up the young/formative years of Annie Dillard, a precocious young woman. The most frequently featured theme within the novel is the theme of intellectual development.

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From an american childhood by annie dillard