benjamin franklin autobiography summary

The sloop proceeded to Philadelphia where. Here we see Franklin improve and educate himself through imitation. He spent time at the printing office during set hours, and he also worked outside of those hours, meeting potential customers or business associates, who were... What does Benjamin Franklin mean by saying:though it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that for a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not possible to be exactly observed by a master? The business continues to grow during this time and Franklin then marries his childhood sweetheart, Deborah Read. Franklin employs prolepsis (foreshadowing) to tell how the Socratic Method was useful to him in his future civic career. Benjamin Franklin begins writing Part One of his Autobiography in 1771 at the age of 65 while on a country vacation in England in the town of Twyford. Copyright © 1999 - 2020 GradeSaver LLC. This was the creed of the party. Here we get our first and only glimpse of Franklin behaving imprudently with his earnings. Starting as a letter to his son, William, Franklin explains that this autobiography is written with the hope that he (his son) will enjoy hearing more about his father’s life. It seems, when it came to his early dealings with James, Franklin’s vanity consistently got the better of him. A lacking transformed into a skill, for Franklin, was akin to an error corrected, and Franklin’s industriousness was such that even his “leisure” time was devoted to intellectual productivity. One gets the impression from the Autobiography that Franklin’s early religious beliefs were somewhat less conservative than the one’s he later espoused when writing the Autobiography, which were still, though common among intellectuals during the Enlightenment, radical. But he returned home when a merchant named Denham offered him a good job as clerk and manager of Denham's Philadelphia store. He traces it back three hundred years to Ecton in Northamptonshire, England, and then brings it to his father Josiah’s arrival in New England to escape religious persecution. Franklin himself admits to exchanging promises and letters with Ms. Read, but, as we soon see, he himself fails (temporarily) to make good on them. Aquila Rose, for a virtually unknown printer’s apprentice who died before Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia, makes a remarkable number of appearances in the Autobiography. He pays them respect and homage in his poetic epitaph, perhaps even as an effort to atone for his long absence from the family after he moved away from Boston. Predominantly protestant, Franklin’s family were frequently in danger during this time due to the reign of Queen Mary. After passing up cutlery, Josiah noticed that Ben was particularly bookish, and so he put Ben to work for his brother James a printer. Required fields are marked *. The thing most like living one’s life over. This is the first time news of Franklin’s abilities reached a governor. He is proud to show off the compositions of his relatives, especially those that flatter his own vanity. He therefore was forced to spend several months working in a London printing house. Franklin's tone at the beginning of the book is humble and indicative of a belief in utilitarianism. Perhaps due to accusations of atheism he faced early in life, Franklin is quick to give credit to God. Some errors, even when they are clearly foreseen (as this one for Franklin surely was) cannot seem to be avoided. It is ultimately left unfinished, but its contents and the actions spoken of still have a significant impact today. Firstly, a man named Abel James had written to Franklin while Franklin was living in Passy, France. Franklin quickly apprehended Keimer’s plan for his (Franklin’s) service and began to think of ways to counteract it while still fulfilling his duties. Again, we see the questionable moral character of Franklin’s friends. The Franklins were by no means aristocrats; in fact, it is apparent that the family was of relatively humble means because all the sons went to work at very early ages. The Junto began to meet in a little room of. He borrowed many books from a local bookseller, and developed his own writing skills by imitating the style used by the professional authors. Franklin begins the unusual tale of how he was able to escape his brother’s employ, unusual perhaps because of the strange legal phrasing used by the Assembly in its order. LitCharts Teacher Editions. Franklin did not just want to produce a dry reference to names and dates. These “curiosities” of Franklin’s, which are mentioned more or less in an aside and with little detail, are one of our first clues concerning his scientific interests, which take a back seat throughout the book to his daily moral concerns. A few months after they landed, however, Denham died, and Keimer rehired Franklin as his manager. He becomes a member of the Royal Society based on his experiments and theories regarding the similarity between lightning and electricity. His society, Junto, continued to develop and grow throughout his life. Not only does civic mindedness run in the family, according to Franklin, so does literacy and even literary accomplishment. Next Franklin speaks of the Socratic Method often—perhaps a sign that he feared his son, William, was too disputatious himself. This function of the narrative (entertainment) increases the utility of the work as an educational tool, and, perhaps, the educational elements make the narrative more engrossing. Franklin justifies his decision to split with Meredith, and the way he discredits Meredith’s contributions to his business with the evidence that his benefactors shared his opinion of Meredith’s character. Once again we see Franklin called back to a life of the body, to explore physical exercise or athleticism rather than a more mercantile or semi-intellectual profession (like printing). In the perfect hindsight of history, even the history of Franklin’s own life, it seems Franklin’s pragmatism was vindicated. This one-page guide includes a plot summary and brief analysis of Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin. Franklin believed vanity to be a good thing, for both the individual and the people around them. Why Keith ingratiated himself so thoroughly to a boy of 18 is unclear, perhaps he genuinely liked Franklin and his company and genuinely sought to do him a good turn without being able to acknowledge to himself that he was incapable of setting Franklin up in his own business. Franklin’s satire proved effective (or Keimer was simply incapable of producing a good newspaper) and Keimer’s paper failed. We also see in this opening section Franklin's sense of humor. Leo Lemay states, “Franklin gave us the definitive formation of the American Dream.”. Two of his inventions are pictured below, both of which are still used to this day.

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