Jan 3, 2010

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek | Characters

The Narrator
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is written in the first person; that is, the narrator continually refers to herself as ‘‘I.’’ But the book is not an autobiography, and the author is not the narrator. In fact, an early draft of the manuscript was set in New England and was narrated by a young man. For Dillard, the identity of the speaker was not central to her explorations. The narrator of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, then, may more properly be thought of as a persona than as Dillard herself.

Few biographical details can be...