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Back to Subjects - Biographies

Franklin

Franklin “The life that Franklin depicts is more than a success story. It is a story of nothing but success. What makes Franklin’s success great is that he does nothing compulsively, irrationally, or out of weakness, but appears to be governed by reason, moderation, and virtue. With his strong sense of identity he seems singularly immune to the workings of the conflict-torn inner self that Yeats called the “Foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart,” his existence untroubled by stretches of ennui and waste. The absence of a sense of the harshness and inexplicability of life, together with his emphasis on material success is what seemed to allow Franklin to succeed.” (These quotes were taken out of the introduction to Franklin’s autobiography). With all this in mind, I chose to read “The Autobiography and Other Writings of Benjamin Franklin.” This book as you could tell was written by Benjamin Franklin and it’s publisher is Penguin Classics. The main topic of this biography was the life of Benjamin Franklin and about all of his accomplishments and the hardships that he faced growing up. This autobiography was written in the first person point of view, as a letter that Franklin wrote to his son William. Because of the fact that this book was written by Benjamin Franklin and about Benjamin Franklin, I believed everything that was said but what I disliked was how Franklin wasn’t able to complete this book and how he didn’t spend more time on discussing his major philosophies. The main thesis of this book was the hardship that Franklin was faced with and how he grew up to become the man that he did. I believe that the one sentence that deals with the theme of this autobiography is a quote which Franklin once said; “I cannot boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of this Virtue; but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it.” So with the belief that working hard will help achieve goals, Franklin also states, “If you work hard you will lead a fulfilling life.” A third quote from Franklin's autobiography that states the importance he placed on hard work to achieve success is; “Industry, Lose no time.-Be always employ'd in something useful.-Cut off all unnecessary Actions.” This shows about how Franklin wasn’t the type of person who waits for something to happened but works Through reading this autobiography I have found three major themes that Franklin may have written this biography to express. Even though this novel was published for everyone to read and enjoy, this first theme of the autobiography as the main theme was intended for Franklin’s son William to whom Franklin has dedicated this autobiography to. The first theme of the book was as a narrative of his life for his family with anecdotes that show why and to some degree how to be a virtuous person. Some of his examples are chastity, through the story of losing a friendship by pusuing his friends wife, and frugality, seen in the stories of his indebtedness, while others were more brightful, like his first major accomplishment, which I think was founding the Philadelphia library. The second part to the theme however is much more explicit. Franklin gives less personal narratives and more explicit guidance, as in listing and explaining his thirteen virtues. It is also clear that this part is meant to be instructive from the direction given him by Benjamin Vaughn as to why the biography should be written. So not only was this a book to read about the life of a genius but also as a guide to help others to become a better person and to shape lives like Vaughn did for Franklin. If we look at the theme in an historical context I can also see another connection. According to the introduction, America was struggling to find its own identity. This theme of virtuosity was probably a response to this movement. Then I could draw the conclusion that Franklin was writing his autobiography to show something about who Americans are, what we should be, and how to do it. The connection between the three themes is the lessons of virtuosity and from this arrive to the conclusion that this is the major reason for the undertaking of the This autobiography helped me realize just how important of a man Benjamin Franklin really was. I used to think, “Ooohhh the kite guy, and the U.S. Constitution signer,” but now I learned that he was more then just a “Kite guy.” This book taught me about many facts about Franklin’s life, and about how his hard work really paid off. Here I have written a few of Franklin’s accomplishments that I believe were his most important. In 1727, Franklin with a number of his acquaintances organized a discussion group known as the Junto, which later became the American Philosophical Society. Next in 1729, Franklin bought the “Pennsylvania Gazette,” a dull, poorly edited weekly newspaper, which he made, by his witty style and judicious selection of news, both entertaining and informative. Later in 1731 he founded what was probably the first public library in America, chartered in 1742 as the Philadelphia Library. About five years later, in 1736, Franklin became clerk of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and the next year was appointed deputy postmaster of Philadelphia. About this time, he organized the first fire company in that city and introduced methods for the improvement of street paving and lighting. Always interested in scientific studies, he devised means to correct the excessive smoking of chimneys and invented, around 1744, the Franklin stove, which furnished greater heat with a reduced consumption of fuel. Later Franklin advanced a tenable theory of the Leyden jar, supported the hypothesis that lightning is an electrical phenomenon, and proposed an effective method of demonstrating this fact. He invented the lightning rod and offered what is called the “one-fluid” theory in explanation of the two kinds of electricity, positive and negative. His final major accomplishment which I found was that in 1749 he wrote “Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania” and its publication led to the establishment of the Philadelphia Academy, later to become the University of Pennsylvania. Then the autobiography ends, without even touching the facts about Franklin in America or with signing the U.S. Constitution. (The reason for the end of the autobiography is that Franklin died before he was able to Usually autobiographies are very boring books, about some guy that average people like me don’t really care about. But then this book was more then just another boring autobiography. This book amazed me by how a lower class son of a candle maker could grow up to become who he did. That man was Benjamin Franklin. Even though I enjoyed much of this book, I like any average teenager found some parts of book to be boring. For instance, to be honest I didn’t enjoy how Franklin went so far back in time to describe his grandparents and his older generations. This information about Franklin’s older generations helped me as a reader to get more insight about Franklin’s family but wasn’t that informative about how it didn’t relate his family to what goals or influences they had for Franklin growing up. So the book was interesting to some perspectives, while others were just ok. Even with the ambiguities, I found this book doesn’t relate about the life of Franklin, but about how he outdid others. This was not only a story of success but also of triumphs over the odds. Thus I would like to recommend this book to those that believe that one person can’t make a difference, or that if someone was born into poverty, they can’t make a difference in life. Mainly I found this book to be a inspiration towards my life and could hopefully be one for others to read. Bibliography:

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