The American Dream In The Autobiography Of Benjamin Franklin

The American Dream Through the creation and the rise of the United States, the question of if a person has lived the American Dream is tossed around. People will compare a person’s accomplishments against others and ask if they lived up to their goals in mind. Many people have the belief that someone must be rich or have fame to live the American Dream, that they must be known for something. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin writes about how he achieved the American Dream. Frederick Douglass also wrote about how he achieved his American Dream in the book The Narrative of Frederick Douglass. Some doubt that Frederick Douglass actually lived the American Dream since he did not achieve great fame like Benjamin Franklin, however, …show more content…
When he was young, his family had little money. By the time Franklin was thirty, he has a great abundance of wealth. In The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Franklin describes his life and how he lived in. In part three of his self-narrative, he talks about all of the many great accomplishments he had throughout his life. Benjamin Franklin had many accomplishments, he “invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms” (Franklin 92) to a whole Fire Company. He did this from his hard-earned education and his hard work in general. When putting his whole together, it is easy to say that Benjamin Franklin lived the American Dream. He came from a poor family with almost nothing and then became a wealthy, well known man. Franklin had accomplished the goals he set and went to the point of helping others. Essentially, Benjamin Franklin’s American Dream was that he earned a lot of money, created inventions, and did some civic engagement. It was that he did all this coming from nothing, that Franklin had to teach himself how to read and write and put an enormous amount of effort in to get to the point he ended up. Benjamin Franklin did live his American Dream, but that is just it, it was his American Dream for his life and his conditions. That is why it can be said that Frederick Douglass’ American Dream was a better one than Benjamin …show more content…
There was nothing he could do about it since he was born into slavery. The type of pain and suffering Douglass had to face is almost unimaginable. Douglass was beaten, saw death, and was even not able to know how old he was. Slaves were thought as property back then, not humans. There was even a Three Fifths Compromise where slaves would only be counted as three fifths of a human. Douglass encountered a hard life being traded from master to master. He was even sent to a Mr. Covey, a man who was meant to break him as a slave and make him obedient. In the middle of Frederick Douglass’ stay with Mr. Convey he reflected that “Mr. Convey succeeded in breaking [Douglass]. [He] was broken in body, soul, and spirit” (Douglass 38) which just proves how hard the slave life was on him. Douglass had to grow up with torture and death surrounding him, he grew up with challenges from day one. Even when he had a time where he was working at a shipping yard to get money, he still had to give the money he earned to his master. Benjamin Franklin also faced some challenges with work. Franklin had to work hard to get to where he went because his own brother kicked him out of his printing company and made sure no one near them would hire his brother. Benjamin Franklin had to move away from everything he knew to just to get a job. Both of these men had struggles with their work. Douglass went from working in the fields to