Confessions For the Rest of Us :: Literary Analysis, God, Augustine of Hippo

Novels are written with the drift to entertain, textbooks to educate, and scripture to exhort. All writing has a purpose, intentional or differentwise. If this were non the case, writing would contain nonhing of value. Autobiographies typically serve to inform the referee virtually the life of a specific person, yet, in Confessions, Augustine of Hippo displays loftier aims. Among other goals, he attempts to use his life story to indirectly guide others to perfection and truth, an objective to which he applies his considerable literary skill. Often famous historical icons seem to tower in the public eye, casting a touch of influence that just increases through the ages they seem somehow more than human. St. Augustine is save such a figure, yet his simple, candid commentary of his life in Confessions paints him as an ordinary man. Augustine went to great lengths to achieve this image, especially in the scratch of his narration. He begins by hyperbolizing his sine e ven in childhood stating, At the time of my infancy, I must have acted reprehensibly (Augustine 9), and continues this pattern of self-degradation throughout, not out of false humility, but to prove to his audience that he was not born a saint. Augustine spends greater time than necessary covering his sin of stealing pears (Augustine 29-34), an act that nigh would consider a childish prank, and his familiar desires (in which he certainly was not the greatest sinner of his time) not only to explore the nature of transgression but to a fault to build his report (or lack of it) with his reader (Augustine 24-28). Later in the narrative he describes what most would view as a moral triumphI also recall how, when I had decided to enter for a poetry argument at the theatre, a soothsayer of some sort sent to investigate what fee I would give him to ensure victory. But I replied that I hated and abominated those vile mysteries, and that even if the crown were immortal and made of gold , I would not allow a fly to be killed to bring about my success. For in his mysteries he would be going to kill animals, and by pass these creatures in honour of daemons, his intention was to gain their support for my winning. (Augustine 53-54)He consequently proceeds to condemn his intentions saying, I refused sacrifice to daemons on my behalf yet by adherence to that superstition I sacrificed myself to them (Augustine 54).