Summary Of Annie Dillard's An American Childhood

In William Faulkner’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in Literature, he discusses how it is a writer's duty to include the things that can be seen as negative, or quite simply bad. There is a disagreement whether it is a writer's duty to include all parts of a story whether they be good or bad. Some believe that these writers should not include all details of a story, the bad in particular, because it may promote misbehavior, while others believe they should include these details because it allows for the reader to understand the writer, and learn from the experiences that the writer is sharing in full detail. Writers should include these details because the reader can draw more out of it, however there should be a point where the details …show more content…
Annie Dillard’s An American Childhood describes the childhood of the author leading up to the day that she goes to college. It begins when she is only 5 years old. About 7 years later she is playing with some boys from her neighborhood in the winter and she is throwing snowballs at the passing cars with them. She throws one snowball and the driver of the car that got hit by it gets out, so the kids begin running away and the driver chases them. Eventually after ample running, he catches up and grabs them so they all stand catching their breath, “The point as that he had chased us passionately without giving up, and so he had caught us. Now he came down to earth. I wanted the glory to last forever” (Dillard 48). Dillard glorifies having thrown this snowball, the chase, and getting caught because she enjoyed it and she will not forget it. However, the reader is led to believe that they may do this and by doing it they will be rewarded with a sense of satisfaction same as Dillard. By her sharing her thoughts she was able to let the reader into her mind at the time and understand her but it promoted the misbehavior which led to the whole situation. J.D Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy is another memoir of the author’s life from childhood to the present. When Vance is around 14 years old, he is on his way to the mall and he angers his mother on their way, “So she sped up to what seemed like …show more content…
At the beginning of Dillard’s memoir she explains her earliest memories, one of them being of a monster in her room, “I dared not blink or breathe; I tried to hush my whooping blood. If it found another awareness, it would destroy it” (21). This monster she saw would be in two parts and glow above her sister’s bed but disappear as it approached Dillard. After trying to figure out what it was for a long time, she realized it was a car. It may seem like a quick little story, but from that story a reader can learn. The reader can learn that there is no need to be afraid of things such as monsters, or anything unless there is reason to fear it. Hillbilly Elegy offers many scenes where the reader may learn from Vance’s experiences, one being a time when he yells at his wife Usha. They had recently returned from interviews with law firms in Washington D.C. and Usha was trying to convince him that he had done well. He then yelled at her and stomred out, but he found her looking for him, “I realized then that I had a problem--that I must confront whatever it was that had for generations,caused those in my family to hurt those whom the loved”(Vance 225). The author shares this story so that others may learn to face their problems, and he explains what he learned from