1. What is the narrator’s purpose in writing these “confessions”? How do you know?
2. For Rousseau, what is the relationship between feeling and thinking?
3. How does Rousseau describe his childhood? What significance can we draw from this description
4. Why do you think Rousseau chooses to include the anecdote about stealing from his employer?
5. Using your own language, how would you describe the narrator, given his self-presentation in The Confessions?
The facts of Rousseau’s childhood show everything but a pleasant upbringing. From the very start of his life, Rousseau faced adversity with his mother dying. He was then raised by his father and an aunt, but that didn’t last every long because of his father deciding to leave. His aunt that was raising him also decided to leave with his father. Rousseau’s uncle ends up taking care of him, but even he sends Rousseau off to boarding school. So, we can see how all these challenges and hurt experienced throughout his childhood, would make one think he/she had a horrible upbringing, but Rousseau did not. Rousseau describes his childhood as pleasant and views it in a positive way. The significance we can draw from this is how Rousseau views and goes about life. The way he views life is unique and shows how he truly values
“feelings before thoughts”.
As far as we know, in order to shield himself from the public blame, Rousseau wrote this article ‘Confession’ about his past own life, while an anonymous pamphlet came out by Voltarie, the enemy of Rousseau, who made use of it to spread over the public that Rousseau abandoned all five of children but he told the reader how to raise and educate children in his book, Emile at the same time. By this way, Rousseau can clearly made a confession that what a man he is and what he has undergone and how he deal with everything in his daily life. Furthermore, he implied and criticized all kinds of social situation he confronted. All in all, confession is the optimum way for Rousseau to be trust by the public. Not only can he revealed all his true life no matter what beneficial things he did or mistakes as evidence unveiled to public to enhance his credibility, but he can also emphasize his complaints to the society.
The purpose of the narrator writing “The Confessions” was to get all that guilt off his shoulders. As we see, he has a lot on his mind from all that he has done. He is sharing his real life and wants his readers to hear something different. This wasn’t very common for someone to write about the bad things they have done. He showed the readers that its okay to make mistakes and share them because no one is perfect.
Rousseau describes his childhood as a perfectly normal childhood, like everyone else. However, it is not so. Rousseau’s upbringing was tumultuous. He lived in three spate households and never knew his mother. While his childhood was turbulent, Rousseau states that his taste in women can be traced to his relationships with “mother figures” in the homes he lived in. He says that he is attracted to assertive women who expect obedience from him. Rousseau thus argues that childhood is important. He believes that it is important to make sure that children are raised properly because it affects the rest of their lives.
How does Rousseau describe his childhood? What significance can we draw from this description?
Rousseau starts his Confessions by guaranteeing that he is going to leave on an endeavor at no other time endeavored: to introduce a self-representation that is “inside and out consistent with nature” and that conceals nothing. He starts his story by depicting his family, including his mom’s passing at his introduction to the world. He ruminates on his most punctual recollections, which start when he was five, an unfolding of cognizance that he follows to his figuring out how to peruse. He examines his adolescence in the years prior to his dad left him and his own particular choice to flee to see the world at sixteen years old. He regularly harps for some pages on apparently minor occasions that hold extraordinary significance for him.Throughout the Confessions, Rousseau every now and again talks about the more repulsive or humiliating encounters of his life, and he gives a significant part of the early area to these sorts of scenes. In one area, he depicts urinating in a neighbor’s cooking pot as an insidious kid. He additionally talks about the brilliant experience he had at age eleven of being beaten by a worshiped female babysitter twice his age and seeking to be beaten once more, which he breaks down similar to his entrance into the universe of grown-up sexuality.
Throughout the confession, Rousseau confesses about his childhood. As a child, he grew up with no biological mother or father. His mother passed away when he was just a baby, and his father left him. He discusses his childhood in the years before his father left him and his thought to run away from everything to see the world at the age of sixteen. I believe he explains his childhood and looks back upon it, as a means of clarifying and defending the views and personality he has as an adult.
3. How does Rousseau describe his childhood? What significance can we draw from this description
Rousseau had been brought up with a rough childhood. It is no disputing he had an abnormal childhood growing up by having to move a lot, having parental figures leave on multiple occasions and losing his mother at a young age. The unique part about this is, even though it sounds like a terrible childhood he had, Rousseau describes it as a good upbringing. It was a good upbringing in his view, which as a Romantic he tried to vocalize the idealization of the childhood and uniqueness of the individual. By confessing how his childhood affected him in the future and how he turned out okay for the most part showed his emphasis on the importance of a childhood.
What is the narrator’s purpose in writing these “confessions”? How do you know?
Rousseau wrote “confessions,” as a confessions of the non conventional life that he has led. He did the opposite of what society deemed appropriate at the time. He wrote about his life and in a way was able to free himself from any guilt he might have had. He was able to reach a lot of people who might have felt trapped in their lives. His words were an escape for those people. Rousseau found himself unhappy even though he always lived the life he wanted to so he was able to convey that message to his readers as well.
Rousseau main purpose for confessions is to use it as a journal and go in depth into his feelings/confessions. He was able to reach the masses using this strategy because like many writers who understand why some people write, a great way to let go of dead weight is to write about how you feel about it. I am certain of this idea because i am someone who writes my emotions that are bottled up inside when i have time.