Essay Database

Benjamin Franklin and Nathaniel Hawthorne were both very important to America’s early literature. Franklin’s “Autobiography” and Hawthorne’s “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” represents the extremes of leaving home. Franklin makes accomplishing the American dream of the self-made man look easy. Hawthorne, however, revises and critiques that dream, showing the harsh realities of the real world. Franklin reveals his life story as a way to show the people of America that determination, hard work, …

…Hawthorne wrote his short story to give the public a more realistic view of leaving home and trying to make it in the world. Franklin’s life represents the great American dream, but it is an unrealistic achievement. Hawthorne’s story shows the more realistic cruel world that people face as they enter adulthood. Everyone goes through the transformation from youth and innocence to guilty adulthood; some just experience the change easier than others do.