An American Childhood

What would you say to your adolescent self if given the chance? Would you praise yourself for your successes, criticize yourself for your shortcomings, or simply sit back and watch as you make your mistakes and learn from them? In her 1987 memoir An American Childhood, author Annie Dillard (1945-) reflects on her youth and responds to her naive but constantly learning younger self. Set in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, the memoir tracks Dillard's life as she grows into her actualized adult self. An American Childhood by Annie Dillard reflects on themes like identity, self-awareness, and time.

An American Childhood Summary

Set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, An American Childhood tells the story of Annie Dillard's childhood growing up and growing into herself in the 1950s. The prologue describes the natural world of Pennsylvania and introduces readers to Dillard's parents, whom she calls "Mother" and "Father" throughout the memoir. Dillard's parents were well-to-do white Americans whose privilege allowed them certain luxuries not available to the working class in Pittsburgh.

The memoir separates the writer, adult Dillard, from the protagonist, Annie Doak, her adolescent self. In the prologue, Dillard remembers when her understanding of the world began to shift and mature. When she was ten, her father quit his job and decided to sail from Pittsburgh down the Allegheny River to New Orleans via boat. He soon became lonely, sold his boat, and returned home to his wife and children. Around this time, Doak began to feel more aware of her identity and the world around her. Her perception of the world irrevocably changed.

Part one of the novel begins when Doak is five in the early 1950s. Like other families in her privileged neighborhood, her family is eager to shake off the burden of World War II and carry on with their lives. Father goes to work while Mother stays home and tends to the children. Young Annie is terrified of what she thinks is a monster in her room, but she later discovers it is really just shadows cast by cars passing by outside. She becomes very interested in observation, allowing her mind to combine reality with imagination.

Fig. 1 - Doak first encounters the intersection between reality and her imagination when she thinks shadows are monsters.

Doak spends much of her time playing with other children in her neighborhood. She plays football and baseball with the older boys and relishes getting in trouble because of the thrill of misbehaving. Doak remembers one particular day when a man chased her and her friends around the neighborhood after they threw snowballs at his car.

Doak spends the summers with her father's parents, Oma and Frank Doak senior. They are wealthy and have established themselves as prominent members of Pittsburgh's social elite. Doak and her sister Amy stay at Oma's and Frank's lake house for weeks in the summer.

When Doak is 10, her parents move her family to a new neighborhood in Pittsburgh. Doak becomes painfully aware of how fast time passes as she rides her bike between the old neighborhood and the new.

Doak falls in love with the Homewood Library in one of Pittsburgh's poorer neighborhoods at an early age. Seeing the library's poor, primarily Black patrons makes the young Doak aware of class and racial divisions. She becomes fascinated by Pittsburgh's history and legacy and reads nonfiction books about the indigenous people and the French and Indian War. Doak also becomes fascinated by drawing and soon finds herself interested in working as a detective. She receives a hand-me-down rock collection from a neighbor and spends her time cataloging rocks and later insects.

In 1955, Doak begins to attend Ellis School, an all-girls preparatory school. She also starts dancing school, where she observes boys being groomed from a young age for social interactions with girls. The dancing school is very exclusive and allows only children from wealthy, white Presbyterian families to attend.

Eventually, Doak's interests shift to the recently-ended World War II. She knows many personally affected by the war, and her family has built a bomb shelter in their basement in case the United States is bombed during the ongoing Cold War. Her family moves up in the world when her grandfather dies, and they move into his house in a nicer neighborhood.

As a teenager, Doak traces the rise of industrialist families like Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, H.J. Heinz, and the Mellon family, who deeply impacted Pittsburgh's identity and history. While many of these industrialists donated money to build museums, libraries, and other community buildings in Pittsburgh, they also treated their workers horribly. Doak struggles to reconcile these two histories.

Fig. 2 - As a teenager, Doak becomes aware of Pittsburgh's complicated history with industrialism and oppression.

Now more educated and socially aware, teenaged Doak begins to rebel against society's expectations of her. She quits her church, exasperating her parents, and begins smoking cigarettes. Amidst the tension of who her parents and society expect her to be and her own growing sense of identity, Doak becomes self-aware and cognizant of her position in society.

The memoir ends as Doak prepares to leave high school and start life anew at Hollins College in Virginia. She is excited to learn more about herself in the move, realizing that growth requires one to be open to the unknown. Although she hasn't learned everything about her hometown, part of her identity will be forever linked to Pittsburgh.

An American Childhood Characters

An American Childhood centers around Anne Doak's coming of age in Pittsburgh. Other important characters include Doak's parents, grandparents, and sister.

Annie Dillard/Annie Doak

Most of the memoir is narrated by Annie Dillard as she reflects upon her childhood as Annie Doak (Dillard is her married name). Dillard is the adult Annie writing about her past, while Doak is the child Annie in the 1950s, constantly changing and growing. Dillard speaks fondly of her younger self but does not hesitate to admit Doak's innocence and ignorance regarding life. As an adult, Dillard is impressed with her self-awareness and wiseness at such a young age, but she also recognizes her weaknesses. The novel centers around Doak's adolescence from five to 18 years old.

Mother

Annie's mother is a housewife and spends her days caring for her children. As an upper-class Pittsburgh woman, Mother does not have to worry about working or being able to support her family. Unlike most upper-class women of her time, Mother loves comedy and is sympathetic to the poor.

Fig. 3 - As an upper-class woman, Mother does not have to work to support her family and spends the majority of her time doting on her children.

Father (Frank Doak)

Annie's father is a wealthy businessman in Pittsburgh. He believes people achieve success by working hard and that poor people are at least partially to blame for their lack of success. Annie comes to disagree with her father after studying millionaires like Carnegie and Frick, who exploited their workers. Although Father yearns for a life more exciting than Pittsburgh—hence the boat trip down the Allegheny River—he never considers living elsewhere.

Amy Doak

Annie's younger sister, Amy is the quiet counterpart to Annie's wild side. The two spend a great deal of time together, not out of choice but because their families make them. As Annie grows and adopts a rebellious attitude, she becomes distant from Amy.

Oma and Frank Doak

Annie's paternal grandparents, Oma and Frank Doak are wealthy, upper-class Pittsburghers. Oma especially was raised against a backdrop of privilege and elegance and hopes to pass this on to Annie. Annie has great respect for her grandmother but can't help feeling distanced from her extravagance.

An American Childhood Main Idea

In the epilogue of An American Childhood, Dillard considers how she can connect her past identities to her current, adult self. She believes each of her past selves led her to become the fully formed, self-aware person she is today. While her childhood naïveté amuses her, Dillard honors her efforts to educate herself and become more conscious of the world around her. Even though she does not remember everything from her past, Dillard is still grateful for her the memories, experiences, and identities she has built over a lifetime.

Fig 4 - Dillard acknowledges how her previous selves have led her to who she is now.

Taking her ideas a step further, Dillard challenges readers to awaken intellectually within themselves. Instead of just reading about her childhood, Dillard insists readers must examine their own past and consciously strive to understand how they fit into the world around them. Without doing this, Dillard warns the reader will not be able to live a fully-formed life. An American Childhood might be a recollection of Dillard's personal experiences, but the themes explored in the memoir can apply to every person hoping to build a deeper connection to place, history, and personal identity.

An American Childhood Analysis

Instead of simply writing about her childhood from her current perspective, Annie Dillard creates a separate presence in Annie Doak, the novel's protagonist. Dillard writes the memoir as if Doak is actively experiencing life in the 1950s and growing throughout the novel. This allows Dillard to authentically observe her past and reflect on her personal growth instead of simply listing the facts of her life. It is Doak, not Dillard, who experiences the coming of age and transition from child to adult. In fact, while Doak learns, grows, and makes mistakes, the older and wiser Dillard can critique her past self for her limitations and marvel at her growth.

Fig. 5: Annie puts her present self in conversation with her past self.

The presence of both a fully-formed, self-aware character and her limited-but-learning counterpart enables Dillard to explore how identity and self-awareness evolve. Whereas Doak takes her identity—as a Christian, daughter, student, etc.—at face value, Dillard knows each of her past selves led her to who she is now. Unlike Doak, who struggles to understand the nuances of the world as a child, Dillard allows her life experience to guide her identity and understanding. Dillard knows she will eventually die, but because she is aware of her position in the world and who she is herself, she can make the most of the time she has left and live life fully.

An American Childhood Quotes

Below are some of the meaningful quotes from the novel, examining themes like identity, self-awareness, and time.

In this quote, Dillard reveals how she slowly became self-aware of her identity as an individual and as part of a collective humanity. As a child, Annie was able to live her life in ignorance, experiencing things but never really understanding them or their consequences. As she grows older and becomes more self-aware, however, Annie realizes she will never again be able to experience life without the inhibitions of her own identity.

Even as a child, Dillard is aware of her own mortality and how quickly time passes. This realization terrifies her, as she knows her time will eventually run out. Dillard makes the most of the time she does have by experiencing life fully and authentically.

While reflecting on her journey to awareness, Dillard admits that even now it takes work for her to be aware. Awareness of oneself and the greater world isn't something that can be accomplished once to be successful. Instead, awareness takes a constant vigilance of challenging one's misconceptions and changing to one's environment.