The Importance of Decisions in Franklin’s Autobiography Claudia Excaret Santos Campusano College

Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography presents the life of its author from his early years until he worked as an Agent of Pennsylvania in London. The biography starts as he writes to his son about his success, his mistakes, and most of the important events that occurred in his life. However, he constructs the narration of his life not by the situations that he happens to be in, but by the decisions that he makes, showing himself as an example of the “arquitecto de [su] propio destino” that “En paz,” by Amado Nervo, presents.

The importance of decisions can be clearly perceived from the beginning of the text. The word “choice” appears very early in the autobiography (in the second paragraph): “were it offered to my choice, I should have no objection to a repetition of the same life from its beginning, only asking the advantages authors to have a second edition to correct some faults of the first” (Franklin 1912, 1). The second paragraph deals with the determination to choose his life again asking only for some changes, or even if no changes were allowed: “though this were denied, I should still accept the offer”(Franklin 1912, 1). Franklin perceives life as something that could offer possibilities for one to take, to ask for a...