Is it important to summarize your philosophy in an early chapter when writing an autobiography? Is it even important to mention it?
When writing an autobiography, I think it is very important to include philosophy early on. An autobiography is very important for the history of any country, city, or town. This is because of the important context it gives of time periods and ideas. This includes ideas and philosophies of the writer. Philosophies are important to the novel as the give insight to the writers mind, and how they think. This sometimes can create sympathy for the writer, and sometimes won’t. Philosophies are important for the reader and the writer, and create an important connection.
As stated previously, I think it is very important to include personal philosophies in ones autobiography. Not only do autobiographies show insight into a specific era, but they show insight into the writers mind. This insight can prove to be useful as a connection that can be made between the reader and the writer. These connections are important because the book will get high praise, and do even better. To put a philosophy in early chapters can prove to be useful. Putting them in early can show what the writer thinks about, and how he thinks about it.
Previously noted above, putting in personal philosophy is a good idea. The reader is interested in the writer’s life, or else the book would have not been purchased. So including as many details as possible about ones self, will not only improve the book, but will improve the readers experience. . And . Putting this crucial information in the beginning of the book is always a good idea.
An example of this is the book Walden. The author did not include much background information on his life. This caused the book to feel empty, and become dull quickly. There was not bumf or context to his early life, and really no context of his interests. The stories were meaningless and desolate. Without such information books and stories become colorless and subdued. The book not only failed because of the lack of background. There were other reasons as well. Some of these reasons would be the hypocrisy and contradiction throughout the entire novel. He would prove himself wrong on almost every account. For example, he claimed to dislike and be independent of the division of labor. This is far from veracity. In truth, he was completely dependent on it. He built his house on someone else’s land. He bought tools from other people, he got commodities in town. The biggest being he bought crops and hired men to work a farm for him. This is the least independent thing he could have done.
Adding personal philosophy is extremely important. There is a lot to benefit from when including such background information. There are plenty examples of how books can fail. One of the biggest, is the book Walden. He included none such information and the book failed. Not many people read it, and the people that did read it, did not like it. Including as much information as possible will improve the book.
JBSchool 