Benjamin Franklin Autobiography Part 1

Question

What role do Benjamin Franlkin's friends play in his autobiography and what is the attitude of the narrator toward the people in his life?

Answer 1

Ben Franklin represents the pragmatic, proverbial mindset of an 18th century Yankee Deist, with a positive, rational, and independent philosopher steeped in Scottish folklore, cultural homilies, and the lyricism and allusions as the ideal time for planting herbs, the old wise man or old woman's adages of cultivating vegetables, roots, mushrooms, and seasonal changes. Ben Franklin uses the anonymous and ironic perspectives for improving one life's experiences. Ben Franklin hides behind the experiences, flawed traits of family, friends, public pundits, and pokes fun at pretentious political figures. Friends encouraged Franklin to forge his humor, wit, irony, and satire at society.