Confessions

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions has the entire life of its author’s experiences, virtues, and detailed imperfections. Rousseau’s Confessions is one of the first notable autobiographies and has influenced many forms. Rousseau wrote this autobiography in order to tell the world about himself and express the nature of man. Rousseau begins Confessions with by stating, “this is the only portrait of a man, painted exactly according to nature and in all of its truth, that exists and will probably ever exist”(57). He included embarrassing experiences and personal thoughts throughout his life to show every possible virtue of his life. He portrays what every boy encounters from mischievous trickery to entering sexual adulthood. The subject of nature and the freedom of man become a consistent subject throughout his books. One of the most common subjects in Rousseau autobiography is the story of his childhood that most boys can relate to. Rousseau’s mother passed away during his birth, which made the relation between him and his father difficult. Because his father saw Rousseau’s mother through Rousseau, when they tried to speak of her they would cry. His father never forgave him for taking his mother’s life even “forty years after losing her he died in the arms of a second wife, but the name of the first on his lips”(60). No one could replace the love Rousseau’s father had for his mother causing mental anguish on young Rousseau. He still partook in mischievous activities such as stealing fruit and even urinating in neighbors cooking pot. Rousseau kept his autobiography unfiltered by included childhood pranks that every boy does in spite of boredom. He even questions himself “how could I have learnt bad ways, when I was offered nothing but example of mildness and surrounded by the best people in the world”(62). Boys naturally desire to cause havoc even if they are never surrounded by it and told to do otherwise. It is the rebellious side of most males to do