The essay “The Autobiography” (1791), Benjamin Franklin, acclaimed politician and historical figure in the American Revolution, argues that everyone should strive to reach perfection. Franklin conveys his beliefs by laying out how and why he tried to reach perfection, by explaining how he was unsuccessful but made a happier, better man for it, and by admonishing the audience and his posterity to follow in his footsteps. Using his own life as an example, Franklin presents his goals to achieve moral perfection and how he went about doing it in order to encourage his audience to do as he did. Franklin’s audience is his posterity because he closes the essay by directly addressing his descendants (“I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants
