Part 1 of Essay
FRIEND OF SELF, FRIEND OF SOCIETY: THE BENJAMIN FRANKLIN OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY 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 ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... 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 recoll ....