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Comparing Benjamin Franklin's The Way To Wealth

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Benjamin Franklin once said, “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” That quote described Franklin's portrayal of life in one sentence. Hard work and success go hand in hand, and while Benjamin Franklin and Washington Irving both write passages regarding it, they both have two different ideas or approaches with it. In Benjamin Franklin’s The Way to Wealth, Franklin establishes a firm belief in what it means to be hard working and in Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle, the life of the main character puts that belief to the test. In life, generally to be successful one must be a hard worker and be wanting to strive to reach their goal. Benjamin Franklin strongly believes in having to be a hard worker to be …show more content…
Rip Van Winkles wife, Dame, constantly had an issue with him. Irving first reveals this by writing, “but his wife [Rip Van Winkles] kept continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the ruin he was bringing on his family” (Irving 32). Judging from this, maybe she was better off with a man like Franklin. Right off the bat, Irving portrays Winkle as being a careless individual not by outside sources, but Winkles wife herself. While Franklin's philosophy was being a hard worker and all about being successful, Irving on the other hand shows the flip side of this not so perfect image that everyone needed to follow. But does this mean that just because someone can't help himself, he can't be successful in helping others? Franklin describes being lazy and having leisure time as different things. He writes, “Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but he lazy man never…”(Franklin 459). In Washington Irving's story, Rip Van Winkle although doesn't help himself, he likes to help others. Irving writes, “Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business but his own; but as to doing family duty...it was impossible” (Irving 31). Irving describes this man as being a man that would help a neighbor out no matter the issue although he would never help himself or his

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