Contrast of Childhoods: Analyzing Dillard and Rodriguez's Experiences

Most everyone has experienced a time when they did not have to worry about financial problems, jobs, or even lives. That time for most individuals is a time of immaturity and learning. Childhood is an important part of everyone’s life. Who a person will become is the result of this period in one’s life. Although the majority had an enjoyable and carefree childhood, there are still many that do not have the chance to enjoy it. Just as a coin has two faces, Annie Dillard’s “An American Childhood” and Luis Rodriguez’s “Always Running” have shown the readers that not everyone had a fun and exciting childhood.

In “An American Childhood”, Annie Dillard was a child. As she described within her writing, she used to hang out with the boys more than the girls in her neighborhood. She and her friends would throw snowballs at passing cars in the winter and had much fun doing so. Even though most of the cars did not stop for the childish prank, there was one time when they were chased down by a stranger.

These two words were used multiple places to express the author’s joy of running away from someone without the fear of getting caught. It was also clear to see that Dillard was not looking at the chase as something terribly scary because she added many descriptive word about how the things were around her such as, “yellow brick house,” “mazy backyards,” “picket fences,” and “thorny hedges.” Those descriptive words that she used tell the readers that she was not only running because of the thrill, but because she was not afraid of being punished