An American Childhood (III)

Did the book come to a satisfactory closure for you? Why/why not?

The book's ending did not fully satisfy me. The majority of the last chapter consisted of Dillard talking about her drawing, which I do not personally care to hear about. There is the possibility that her drawing was a metaphor for something, but I failed to realized what.

I did like, however, the last page of the An American Childhood. It talked about Dillard leaving her high school and moving on to college. The college of her choice was Hollins College in Virginia. The headmistress wanted Dillard to attend there in the hope that Hollins College would "smooth off her rough edges." Dillard's response was "I had hopes for my rough edges. I wanted to use them as a can opener, to cut myself a hole in the world's surface, and exit through it. Would I be ground, instead, to a nub? Would they send me home, an ornament to my breed, in a jewelry bag?" This dialogue, to me, summed up every wild girl's fear of growing up. Will society chew you up and spit you out as a conforming, well-behaved young lady? Dillard was completely content with who she was and didn't want any one to change her. I, personally, applaud her stubbornness and hope that she never changed.

Unfortunately, that small snippet of dialogue was the only part of the ending that I truly enjoyed. The last sentence ends with Dillard once again talking about early settlers around the rivers, which leaves the reader wondering about how the past came to be the present.