In Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Samuel Keimer is a character who represents the antithesis of Franklin. The development of Keimer not only improves the reader’s understanding of the minor character, but also of Franklin, the big character. Franklin makes a point of displaying the reader each of Keimer’s faults and contrasting them with his personal merits.
When Keimer is initially introduced to the reader, he is in really substantially the similar situations as Franklin they are two young men attempting to make a fresh commence in a new town, the only difference being Keimer’s economic, and thereby social, advantage. In comparison to Franklin, even so, Keimer is a flawed and immoral man this difference is what makes him the ideal model for Franklin to scrutinize. As Benjamin Franklin regularly moves up the social and economic ladders, much more than surpassing Keimer’s achievements, Keimer quickly falls into poverty and loses almost everything. “With the rest I (Benjamin Franklin) started to live incredibly agreeably for they all respected me, the far more as they located Keimer incapable of instructing them, and that from me they learned something daily.”1 Franklin goes into great detail to teach the reader how one particular need to live one’s life in order to keep away from the same fate as Keimer. In Franklin’s opinion, lots of elements attribute to his rise to glory and Keimer’s fall to disgrace these elements enable to give the foundation for some of Benjamin Franklin’s thirteen virtues. The virtues are created to show how a particular person can lead a morally flawless life, which is why the morally corrupt Keimer is the great counter-instance for Franklin.