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An American Childhood Annie Dillard Analysis

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An American Childhood Annie Dillard Analysis
What is feeling alive? To feel alive is to live in the moment and to immerse one’s self in everything she is doing. It is important to feel alive because it helps one to wake up and turn on the light that allows her to be attentive to the world around her. Feeling alive is not only a feeling but also a mindset. In An American Childhood by Annie Dillard, the significance of feeling alive is shown in her every actions. As Annie Dillard is coming-of-age, feeling alive is important because it gives her freedom, it helps her to find herself and it drives her to find new things. As Dillard is coming-of-age, feeling alive is critical because it gives her freedom. After throwing a snowball at a car, Dillard and the boys are being pursued by …show more content…
Because Dillard wants to feel alive, she sets herself on an adventure to finding new things. At the point when Dillard finds the 1919 dime in the ally, she is driven to go and discover more because her father tells her that the older a coin is, the greater value it has. “I decided to devote my life to unearthing treasure” (40). Treasure in this case are not only dimes, but it is a symbol for anything that has yet to be found. Dillard wants to be the person to find these things that no one has found before because it makes her feel alive. What fun would it be if she only found things that everyone else has already seen? Indeed, even as she goes on finding one thing after the other, Dillard is never idle. She is always looking for what to discover next. Learning about new things through the reading of books is something that makes Dillard feel alive. “everywhere, things snagged me. The visible world turned me curious to books; the books propelled me reeling back to the world” (160). As Dillard acquires knowledge from the books, she is driven to experience it for herself. Encountering things for herself and not only through books excites Dillard, causing her to feel alive. Even before discovering the amoeba, it is after reading a book that Dillard wants to get a microscope. “After I read The Field Book of Ponds and Streams several times, I longed for a microscope.” After getting a microscope Dillard starts to
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