Reaction to Criticism on Benjamin Franklin

So, i read the artice by J.A. Leo Lemay, i and liked it quite a bit. In my opinion, he brought up some pretty interesting points about the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. First of all, he starts the whole article beginning with discussing the idea of the American dream. I think that the author of the article brought up many interesting points because of how much the whole concept of describing the american dream made me think. In all honesty, before reading the rest of the writing, i had no idea how to define the american dream. I also did not know how specific of vague the term would be if one had to define it. So, i kept reading to learn that the author thinks that the American Dream is the simple idea of going from rags to riches. I thought that that part of the article was very funny because i never thought that the idea of the american dream could be so simpe. i always thought that the idea of the american dream was so much more complex. That is actually waht the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is about. It is about his rise from realy being a nobody in the colonies, to becoming one of the most influential polititians in our nation's history (Franklin 104). The story of Benjamin Franklin is actually one of the first and also most famous rags to riches stories in our country's history. The story of Benjamin Franklin basically influenced the idea of the American Dream. An important idea that Benjamin Franklin also introduced to America, as stated in the article, was individualism. He introduced the idea that one man and ony one man can make a huge difference in the world (Lemay 1). He himself made people realize that you can be one of the most influential or powerful people in a massive crowd of others without having extreme wealth or having a high ranking status from the beginning. To me, after reading the author's article on refecting his thoughts on Franklin's autobiography. I find it interesting how the author uses many different types of quotes from the works to kind of reflect his thoughts and to try to explain the significance of certain quotes or even events in Franklin's life. For exampe i think that it is extremely interesting how the author points out how much Benjamin Franklin's autobiography relates to the American Dream in general. I also think that it is interesting how Benjamin Franklin includes many life lessons and different morals and values in his writing and how the author expains the significance of them. To me, i never realized how much the certain morals and values that Franklin included in his autobiography implied about his writing style. I mean, there is a lot that Benjamin Franklin gives away in his writing just by including some examples of certain morals and values and certain rules that you live by in your writing. The author gives many examples of how these ideas can give away your writing style.

Lemay, J.A. Leo. "Franklin's Autobiography and the American Dream." InThe Renaissance Man in the Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1978. Quoted as "Franklin's Autobiography and the American Dream." in Bloom, Harold, ed. The American Dream, Bloom's Literary Themes. New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=BLTTAD005&SingleRecord=True (accessed October 11, 2010).

Holden, Liberty Emery, and Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin: Autobiography. 1898. Print.