Autobiography On Ben Franklin Essay Research Paper

Autobiography On Ben Franklin Essay, Research Paper

Franklin’s memoirs, his Autobiography, project a Benjamin Franklin who is a highly self-conscious individual able to reason himself into a life of self-control, self-improvement, virtue, and multifaceted success. To what successful ends does this Franklin apply himself. Some may argue that Franklin takes no action but that which ultimately benefits himself. This paper argues, however, that the Franklin we see in the Autobiography-as author, as boy, and as young man-is not merely self-serving (in the positive sense) but also other-serving. Indeed Franklin has eliminated self-denial from the picture, but has he eliminated self-sacrifice. When the interests of self and society seem to conflict, we discover a Franklin who from almost the beginning tries to find a way to be a good citizen as well as a good man, a friend both to himself and to others.

What shall we make of the motives the author gives for writing the Autobiography itself. Franklin explicitly lists eight reasons (Lemay 1307-8): (1) his son (though anyone may become Franklin’s moral descendant) may have a filial interest in the events of his ancestor’s life; (2) Franklin has the time and ability to write a good memoir; (3) his moral posterity, desiring self-improvement, may want to imitate those actions, “suitable to their own Situations,” that led to Franklin’s successes; (4) composing his autobiography provides Franklin the pleasure of recollecting his successes; (5) recording his memories permits him to return continually to more pleasures of recollection in the future; (6) old men, as a rule, tend to repeatedly recount their lives; (7) Franklin aims to gratify his vanity; (8) he desires to acknowledge God’s part both in leading him into success and in making his efforts successful. Of these eight, (2) is merely instrumental, (8) is beyond anyone’s control, (1) and (3) overlap considerably, and (4) through (7) overlap as well.

Franklin’s insertion of the phrase “suitable to their own Situations” emphasizes from the start that Franklin has in mind a more diverse audience than himself and his son. The author envisages a book available to anyone. Through specific examples it teaches general means and methods that may be used to different degrees in different situations. Franklin charges each member of his audience to command an independent reading of the book, even to the extent of deciding whether to read it in the first place: “this may be read or not as any one pleases” (Lemay 1307).

More telling, while reasons (4) through (7) are characterized primarily by simple vanity, Franklin creates the paradoxical oxymoron of useful vanity: vanity “is often productive of Good to the Possessor & to others that are within his Sphere of Action.” Even Franklin’s professed inclination towards doting self-love ostensibly carries an outward component. The reader begins to notice that Franklin sees writing the Autobiography not as merely self-indulgent words but as a moral action valuable to others. For rhetorical reasons he explains later, Franklin remains content merely to suggest his strong moral purpose.

Having begun to examine Franklin as author, let us examine him as the historian in the narrative. This Franklin finds that his family name had a noble public presence in the distant past of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Franklins of old had “great possessions” and served admirably on juries; Chaucer’s Franklin was “worthy . . . generous, just, . . . Renown’d for courtesy, by all beloved” (Lemay 1308-09). But this Franklin also finds himself, quite humbly, “the youngest Son of the youngest Son for 5 Generations.” Nevertheless, his great-great-grandfather was an ingenious freethinking Protestant, his grandfather worked until he was too old to keep going, and his father and uncles became important in public affairs. (Lemay 1308-12, 1314-15) We justly conclude from this genealogy that Franklin prepares to set himself up as a model through his ancestors, especially via the image of the transmigration of the virtuous character of his uncle Thomas into Benjamin himself (1310). But the ancestors perhaps are models enough, described well enough for us to understand the broader lesson: Fortune’s wheel may bring any Franklin high or low into the world, but industry and ingenuity make the real difference in both personal and social success.

Lest we read Franklin’s history of his ancestors as a mere exercise in Franklin’s own vanity (Franklin’s overweening pride only becomes more pronounced later), he punctuates the first part of the narrative with two initial, humble glances at Franklin the boy (Lemay 1310-11). In the first instance, the boy is dwarfed by his older relatives. Benjamin does nothing but observe. In the second, we note that the first real action attributed to the boy is a failure: he neglected to practice the shorthand skill that his uncle had taught him, and so Benjamin forgot it. This lesson to the reader is drawn from shameful failure: in the presence of your betters, keep quiet and observe them, but stay alert and put into practice right away what they have to teach. Franklin the author must be aware that the careful reader tacitly assents to this encouragement (if he chooses to continue reading) to assume the same position toward the author as that of an apprentice boy to his master, remembering all the while th