Analysis Of Honest Abe And Backwoods Boy

One honest man, two different perspectives. Abraham Lincoln was such a righteous man, yet it is no surprise that his life’s events shaped him to be this way. The author of both Honest Abe and Backwoods Boy portray how the events in Lincoln's life caused him to become so remarkably honest, yet both authors portray this idea by focusing on different lengths of time in Lincoln's life; Barbara Radner focuses on two specific life events, whereas Russell Freedmen focuses on Lincoln's entire childhood. Did Lincoln become honest and well-known on his own? Or did it all unfold in his youth?

Radner and Freedman both depicted Lincoln’s honesty by using their own examples. The two authors used similar examples, too. Paragraphs 3 and 4 in Honest Abe are
For one thing, Radner only focused on 2 events in Lincoln’s life (both which occurred at Offutt’s store), whereas Freedman focused on Lincoln’s entire youth. Despite the fact that Freedman did have a section about Offutt’s store in his piece, it wasn’t as specific as Radner’s example. Furthermore, Freedman began his story talking about Lincoln’s family, and continued to bring it up throughout the story. Radner did not focus on Lincoln’s family whatsoever. In addition, Radner didn’t focus on Lincoln’s home life and how he grew up. Freedman starts his story by saying, “Abraham Lincoln never liked to talk much about his early life. A poor backwoods farm boy, he grew up swinging an ax on frontier homesteads in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois” (410). That doesn’t exactly sound like the life of luxury. As Freedman continues, the reader learns that Freedman more focused on the fact that Lincoln started at the bottom in a life of poverty and worked his way up. In Honest Abe, when Lincoln realized that he had only given a women half of the amount of tea that she paid for, the text says that, “Of course, the woman would never know the difference, and it meant walking several miles and back, but the honest clerk weighed out another quarter pound of tea, locked the store and took that long walk
In conclusion, both authors used different methods to describe Lincoln’s remarkable honesty. Barbara Radner writes about two minor (which she makes major) times in Lincoln's like when he illustrated his honesty by doing what was right, whereas Russell Freedman described the entire youth of the amazing man who ended slavery. As a result, the two authors passed two extremely important messages across. First, honesty is vital and extremely important. If Lincoln was a liar, do you think he would have been as successful and as adored as Radner and Freedman had described? The authors also send a second and very significant message; when you are given the option of doing what's right and what you feel like doing, choose to do what is