The Big Picture?
“All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself.”
--Ralph Ellison from Invisible Man
Question: What connections can you suggest that link Franklin's Autobiography and Ellison's aforementioned quotation? How might Ellison's quotation suggest "Big Picture" ideas that correlate with American Literature? (If needed, use the best portions of your first quickwrite.)
--Ralph Ellison from Invisible Man
Question: What connections can you suggest that link Franklin's Autobiography and Ellison's aforementioned quotation? How might Ellison's quotation suggest "Big Picture" ideas that correlate with American Literature? (If needed, use the best portions of your first quickwrite.)
posted by Greg T at Friday, August 15, 2008
31 Comments:
With trying to do what everyone else thinks and tells you to do, your taking away from yourself and your true beliefs. When Franklin talked about his virtues, the virtue RESOLUTION; Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve, this talks about what you think is fail, how you need to resolve it. When others tell you how to do things it takes away from what your capable of thinking and accomplishing.
When everyone tells you what to do, you start to get sick of it and most of the time you never want to do what they tell you to do. Franklin got sick of his brother not letting him write, so he moved on. Franklin was trying to find himself which could be a reason why he made the virtues; the virtues helped him become the person that he wanted to be.
I know that it's hard to think straight when you have people constantly telling you what to do. Sometimes you just need to rise above everything and do what YOU want to do. It might take a lot of thought but in the end it will only make you feel more comfortable with yourself.
When you're in the process of finding yourself and fuguring out the type of person you want to be, you usually look for help with the people around you. But nobody can tell you who to be, you have to do that yourself. In Franklin's case, he wrote the 13 virtues to help himself shape the person he wanted to become.
Ellison's quote shows that everyone has trouble finding out who they are, and that we all go about figuring that out in different ways. But in the end you just have to look inside yourself and you'll see who you truly are.
when i read this i myself had alot to think about. it's hard when u have to ask urself questions b/c how do u know ur answering them right and not just what u want to hear. its like what franklin said about sincerity -if u speak speak accordingly (innocently and justly).but another but problem is that maybe the reason we ask other people these questions is b/c we are afraid, afraid of finging out what we might be and at first it was easy then when u felt frusterated b/c u never got the right answer and felt hopeless. u started asking urself the questions and found it to be harder. so like ralph ellison explains u keep broomeranging,but u have to ask these questions b/c if u dont ur going to feel like something is missing. maybe that is why so many people become followers instead of leaders b/c they dont know and follow others to see if that is who they are when in reality they didnt have to look any farther then themselves
Sometimes being told what to do or what to be like is what we want, but it never really changes who we are or how we feel. We try to please too many people with how we act or what we do, but many times we have to be able to choose for ourselves and make our own decisions. Franklin ultimately had to choose to make his own choices in life and follow his own path, instead of trying to just please his brother. Nobody could answer the questions that were put in front of him, but himself, and he ultimately had to leave and continue on his own.
Sometimes tere are so many different people trying to tell you all of the different things tat you should be doing, or how you should be acting, or even who you should be, but the people thatmake the most oftheir lives, and oppurtunities ar those who make those decisions for themselves.
The only connection I see between Ellison's quote and Franklin's autobiography is that each one is about how people try to find themselves. However, the quote and autobiography differ in the ways that the people try to find themselves. Franklin tries to find himself without seeking much help from others. He created the list of virtues which he hoped would help him accomplish his goal of being a better person than he was.
The speaker in Ellison's quote seeks the answers of others when he can't figure out what he is missing. He seems very unsure of what he is looking for or what he wants, so he asks everyone else but himself.
Both Franklin and Ellison were trying to become strong individuals who could think for themselves. Yet it seems as though Ellison struggled to grasp who he really was as a person. It took a long painful trip for him, whereas Franklin set his 13 virtues to live by and never questioned his decisions.
I believe that the writer of this paragraph was trying to tell everybody to think for themselves and not worry about what other people's opinions are no matter if they are your parents or your closests friends. What may be good for them may not be the same for you. What Ellison wrote relates to Franklin's autobiography because when Franklin had a fight with his brother because he wanted to get out from under his thumb and not have a stanndard to live up to he decided to go off on his own and sart a new life.
I feel that Franklin and Ellison are similar in that they both feel that a person cant find inner peace by looking into other peoples live. They both realize that but compairing your life to another person will only leave you feeling empty and incomplete. Franklin made these virtues not so that he could become a perfect human being but only so that he might be albe to achieve a higher standard of living. He made these so that in stead of searching how he should live his life by observing others, he could look within and find himself.
Ellison talks about how he felt invisible, he spent so much time trying to find himself by compairing his life with other people and finds that in doing so you he isn't even close to finding out who he really is. In fact he finds out it is inevitable that a person becomes invisible if they look throughout instead of within.
I think that Franklin was defined by what he did. He tried to make something of himself so he wouldn't have to look to other people to tell him who he was. Ralph Ellison's quote says that he would often look to other people to tell him who he was unlike Franklin. Ellison's quote suggests "big picture" ideas that correlate with American lit by, I think, the universal feeling of not knowing who you are as a person, not being clearly defined as your own person; always looking for other people to tell you how you're supposed to be.
The hardest person to question is yourself, because deep down you know whatever you're doing is "right" or "wrong." Friends are there to comfort you and tell you what you want to hear, however this only helps in the short run. Franklin, wrote the 13 virtues as something to abide by and make him the best person he could possibly be. Ellison was the type who wanted to avoid questioning himself. He sought friends for answers instead of questioning the only source for answers, himself.
Our world that we live in based solely on peoples opinion towards one another. So often times we think heavily of what others say to us. What we need to do is make decisions based on what makes us feel happy and comfortable. Franklin through his virtues was able to block out peoples opinions and to live the life that he wanted to.
Ellison talked about asking other people questions about himself that only he could answer. Franklin's 13 virtues helped Franklin with answering those questions himself. So if Ellison wanted to know the answers to his question like Franklin did all he had to do was look at himself and in himself.
I feel as if both Ellison and Franklin were trying to find themselves in the real world. The difference is Ellison struggled for a long time as people told him what he was and he accepted that. It wasn't until he wrote this quote that he understood that he had to make this desicion himself. Franklin, on the other hand, decided to find out who he was and what he could accomplish. To help him with this goal he gave himself 13 virtues to live by.
When everyone is telling you what to do it is usless because everyone is there own self, and you may not know what is best right away. But in the end of everything people know what to do and what they have to do for them selves. I think both men were trying to say that although you may need guidance and support through your life, when it comes down to it only YOU can know whats best for YOU.
I feel like Franklin and Ellison are both trying to find themselves. Franklin is trying to find himself by seeing if he can live up to his own expectattions and seeing what type of person he can be Ellison is trying to see what type of man he is and what position he has in this world. They both end up finding who they are and realizing what they have become and I think that is the connection bewtween the two.
This reminds me of when people always try to please everybody else. When he asks everybody else his questions it sounds like he is looking for their approval. I think a lot of people are like that where they are trying to make other people happy when they should be asking themselves questions, so they can be satisfied about themselves.
Franklin and Ellison where both right on what they wrote.
On one hand Franklin was trying to be himself with no one telling him what to do.
And on the other hand Ellison is very correct. We all want to be ourselves but everybody else's opinion always affects us in every way possible.
And with American Literature people try to say what they want, be who they are with out no one telling them anything. But it still affects people in a lot of ways.
franklin's brother wasn't letting him write what he wanted so he was"accepting everyone elses answers" then he left because he is "nobody but himself" and if he stayed and wrote what his brother wanted he wouldn't be writing his own things they would be his brother's
Both of the writings show a reflection of each persons life, and looking back upon how they could have done things differently. Ellison makes a bold statement at the end of his quotation, saying that he realized that he cannot be anyone else, but himself. Both writings also discuss about finding yourself and your place in the world.
I think that the big picture that no one ever wrote a good book, or did anyhting inpressive in life if the followed what everone said. every person needs to live there own life, take orders from no one but them selfs, inless there is someone trying to teach you something. No one has ever done anything impressive by conforming to what the major populaton did. Everyone is capible of acomplishing anything if they just be them self. Just like Ben Franklin.
There are always people that we would like to please in our lives but that doesnt mean that we need to. Franklin's brother didnt want him to write for the news paper so franklin went else where. instead of accepting his answer he left all that he knew to find where he could write.
It is interesting to hear Ben Franklin say that because many people feel the outside pressure as well. Nobody knows who they are so they look to others to find it. But, who they turn to is probably having the same problem as you. Ben Franklin looked over his life through virtues and was able to work things out. Others arent that fortunate and never find their true lifes meanings.
There are many virtues that Franklin could have written down that could have been more meaningful than the original 13, but everyone has their priorities and everyone wants to become their own person. The quotation from The Invisible Man shows us that even though we are someone, we are not the person we want ourselves to be. Franklin made these virtues to perfect HIS life in his own way and we should take the moral from that. Everyone goes through a stage in their lives where a "rebellion" is acted out for everything and Franklin did not deny this, but he embraced it. He marked the things he had done wrong or abused on his chart and he constantly tried to better himself accordingly.
Ellison talked about questions to others that only he could answer.why? when others are telling you their answer to your question as a what you should do thing it takes away from who you are and what you believe. It also takes away from your own capability of thinking and acting for yourself.Franklins virtues talked about what he should do. He came up with those on his own so why can't Ellison do the same.
when you question what and who you should be, you should take people's advice, but not conform to what they want you to be. Ben Franklin's virtues were guidelines to help shape the person that he wanted to be. if everyone tried to please everyone else, then they're being someone completely different than who they truly are.
After reading Franklins autobiography and the quote from Ralph Ellison I see many similarites. They both talk about not trying to be someone your not and that no one can help you find yourself except you. You cant let other people tell you who you are, you need to figure it out for yourself. The main idea that both of these men are trying to get at is that you cant be anybody but yourself.
I think that there is at least one major connection between these peices of literature. The connection is that they both deal with what these specific people want to achieve themselves. We are all different so we should all do things that make us seem better in our own opinion, because that is all that matters.
Ellison and Franklin both tried to shape their life and who they wanted to become.. Franklin however didn't let people tell him what to do or who to be. His 13 virtues explain just how he wanted to live his life and what was most important to him. Ellison however wasn't able to find himself because he let everyone else tell him what he was. when you let others tell you what to do or how to live your life it takes away from your capability of thinking for yourself.
I like this blog alot... it makes a lot of sense and i agree with what it says a lot. I go by that with basically everything in my life. I've been through a lot where i have realized that you can't go to other people to help you with your problems, you have to be the change you want to see. If you want something done.. you have to do it nobody but yourself can do it. Yes, advice from other people is probably very helpful, but the big picture is that you and only you will be able to make the change.
I agree with this quote in a lot of ways. I believe that often times people try to find out who they are by listening to others. For example they might do something that some one tells them to do thinking it will make them more aware of who they are. Instead it makes them more aware of who the other person is. Many people do not realize this when they do that though.
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