The book Confessions, written by Augustine in the late 300 AD, is an autobiography to remember as readers dive deep into his life as he envelops himself behind the Christian faith. In all autobiographies it is vital to “paint the picture” for the audience and at times in order to achieve full knowledge of someone’s life. In Augustine’s novel, we get to understand the big picture/significant events throughout his life. Though as a reader of his novel I find it difficult to really depict the more minuscule events in his life that otherwise might not have been important or relevant to Augustine himself. Augustine does a great job of explaining how his mind is thinking at times during the book but there could still be more details that could better help the reader understand not only the time period but how life was back then.

If I were to write an autobiography like Augustine wrote I would make sure to fill the novel with every detail possible. In my life today, small details like waking up in the morning and deciding what to eat are the types of experiences I would’ve liked to read about during Augustines time. I believe that political and societal events would play a huge role in my autobiography as did Augustine’s. The main idea that I would try to focus on is the impact that political and societal events have on my everyday life. For example, the Coronavirus outbreak has affected my daily life tremendously from everything to shutting down my university to having to wear face masks in public areas. In my opinion, to truly understand someone, it takes not only the “big picture” events but the “day-to-day” as well because if we as readers are able to pick up and understand Augustine’s daily life, we would be more knowledgeable about the type of character he was. I believe this example clearly outputs the struggle an individual, me in this case, faces in life. I’m not saying that readers don’t know what kind of person Augustine was because he constantly preaches and worships to God in every book, but it would be nice to learn anything and everything about him (including the smaller details). If I was writing my life story today I would without a doubt leave out some minor details that go over our heads just as Augustine did. Everyday items such as my phone, laptop, or car, might not be as recognized or appreciated now, but historians and other prestigious scholars in the future could read my autobiography in hopes of learning more about the technology of our time today. 

In Augustine’s case, when writing Confessions, we are lost in the sense that we can’t paint that image of what his everyday life looked like. I feel like at some points I am learning about Augustine as if I was reading a textbook because textbooks only display the more general and bigger events in life. When reading his story we see instances where in one book he is Carthage and in the other he sets off to a new destination. We don’t know how long it took for him to get there? We don’t know what he used as transportation to get to new places? We don’t know anything about how he traveled and I believe that is a major thing to not include in his autobiography. We would have a better overall understanding of human life during the late 300 AD if we knew how Augustine got around. I don’t believe that Augustine has intended to leave out any information about himself in this autobiography because he seemed extremely in-tuned with understanding the world around him whether it was physically or spiritually. It seems only right and just to assume that Augustine would want the future to understand his life through his mindsets, struggle and overall success. 

In conclusion, after exploring Augustine’s novel Confessions I have come to the thought that Augustine never tried to intentionally leave out any information in our lives. Augustine was human just like the rest of us and we have to accept that man kind tends to filter out the events in life they find bland or non-worthy. We as readers also need to take into account that the writing period of his autobiography was in a completely different time period compared to ours and life wasn’t as evolved in the sense that Augustine still seems to be searching for the “answers” to Christianity arguably making him one of the founding fathers of his time.