American Literature / Unit 5 AML 0404 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The *Autobiography* as a Model of Self-Making
Captions available
The idea
Franklin's Autobiography, published after his death, tells a life as a sequence of problems solved. It is written to instruct, addressed first to his son, and it supplies the shape countless later American memoirs use: humble origin, early error, correction, method, and public usefulness.
In practice
Origin, error, method, usefulness.
Where people slip
The book teaches a pattern more than it confesses.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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