Amy Character Analysis in An American Childhood

Annie’s younger sister, Amy plays a somewhat peripheral role in Annie’s narration of her childhood. The two sisters spend a great deal of time together, but are often thrown together without their choosing, and as Annie becomes a teenager she has less and less patience for Amy. Amy is far less wild than Annie: she is quiet, tidy, obedient, and sweet. She is clearly in awe of her older sister.

Amy Character Timeline in An American Childhood

The timeline below shows where the character Amy appears in An American Childhood. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

Family, Authority, and Institutions Theme Icon

...of it by people gathering on the bridge: these stories thrilled Annie and her sister Amy. The colleagues had a betting pool guessing the next date and time a jumper would... (full context)

...room and she believed that if she mentioned it, it would kill her. Her sister Amy, at two, slept unaware in the other room. Transparent and bright, the thing had a... (full context)

Mother would wake up Annie and Amy by racing into their room and opening the windows to say “It smells like a... (full context)

Dillard moves on to discussing her father’s parents, with whom Amy and she dined each Friday night for years. Her grandfather, Frank Doak senior, was a... (full context)

...on her shirt to make her breasts stand out; Annie marveled at this. Together with Amy the three of them would shower together in the bathhouse, Annie always getting sand in... (full context)

...full-time volunteer for twenty years, and she’d return there after each summer. Oma would deliver Amy and Annie, suntanned, covered with poison ivy, and happy, to their mother. (full context)

...Henry Watson dug two holes in their yard to plant maple trees when Annie and Amy were born, and once he found an arrowhead. Each time their mother remodeled the houses... (full context)

...The leaves were turning colors; Molly was beginning to smile and crawl around. Annie and Amy had started at a girls’ day school called the Ellis School. (full context)

Annie considered Amy the world’s most beautiful child. She was smart, quiet, and obedient. She dramatized her dolls’... (full context)

Amy had a friend, Tibby, whose older brother Ricky began playing a two-handed baseball game with... (full context)

...that she’d be a goner if she touched it. During the tornado, Mother had gathered Amy and Molly away from the windows, while Father and Annie ran over to the windows... (full context)

...them in her games: if someone called and it was a wrong number, she’d tell Amy to take the phone and pretend her name was Cecile. Once, when Annie and she... (full context)

...also rattled around Annie’s head: phrases from the Bible, from the Gospels mainly. She and Amy went to Presbyterian church camp every July for four years and became much more pious... (full context)

Now, nine years later, Father picked Annie and Amy up from church and, back home in the kitchen, began to explain American economics to... (full context)

...in the summers selling men’s bathing suits. For a few spring vacations as a teenager, Amy and Annie visited Oma in her Pompano Beach apartment. On her last visit, Annie was... (full context)

...then said it’d been two years. When Oma said he’d never been cross with her, Amy asked if he hadn’t even once. She launched into a story about him driving on... (full context)

...the day, Oma and Mary shopped, and in the evenings they went out to dinner. Amy was bored too, but Annie ignored her. Everyone knew it’d be their last Florida trip. (full context)

Annie’s parents grounded her for the school suspension, and Amy began visiting her in her room. Amy had become tidy and pleasant-looking as a thirteen-year-old.... (full context)