In Augustine’s Confessions, he begins with the story of his early childhood going into high school, while also talking directly to God throughout those times in his life. While there is much to reprehend from this story, there is still such a lack of detail that it can be hard to picture Augustine. He wrote his book in the context of his life back in the 400’s, so it can be very hard for a reader to visualize it very clearly. I am sure if I were to write about my current life in the 21st century, I would leave out details as well. Whether they be intentional or not, there is much that we would forget about if we were to describe our lives right now.

As Augustine told the story of his childhood and adolescence, he may have left out important details, but I am sure anyone would too. If I were writing about my own life in the 21st century, there would definitely be details that I would leave out, whether they be intentional or unintentional. One of the main things I would probably forget about would be technology. There would be many times where I would mention my I phone or Mac, and someone reading that even 30 years ago let alone hundreds, would be so confused. Technology is such a huge part of everyones life now, but I feel like we take it for granted and don’t give it much thought anymore because it is our new normal. Another detail would be politics and how the government works in our modern world. Especially now in 2020, I would probably mention the presidential election, but of course would forget the background of politics and what it all means. Another big detail would be the coronavirus. Of course there has always been sickness, but I would forget the context of what this certain virus is and how it has been effecting our society today. The world “sickness” can mean anything, so I would probably forget to include information behind that so others would be able to understand.

While most of my readings of Confessions has been hard to visualize, there are some details that leak through that helped me dive deeper. He always talked about what was happening in his life and what time they took place, but there was never a lot of description. He would mention liking certain books in school or even bullies , but because of the lack of detail, it was hard for me to picture what that would have actually looked like. I would love to have known what they wore to school, what the weather was like and even how it felt. In the book, he is telling the story as if he is just going down a timeline. It seems as if he is trying to get through certain points in his life stating “this happened, then this, and then this”.

While there was not much detail, there were some “leaks” here and there that helped me see a little bit of more contexts in his story. One example is when he talked about the subjects he learned in school. He mentions the three R’s which are “reading, writing, and arithmetic”. Of course after reading this I noticed that there was not anything about religion or even critical thinking. This portrayed what society in that time may have deemed as important for children in school. It helped me see what people valued during that time which was, reading, memorizing literature and math. Another example is when he mentions his hate for aggressive teachings in school. He mentions there was “violent pressure on [him] to learn..by means of fearful and cruel punishments”, and this gave me a little more detail about how school life was like back then for children and how they were treated. The last example I found is when he mentioned how his father paid for him to go to an expensive school to continue his education. Augustine says “at that time everybody was full of praise for my father because he spent money on his son beyond the means of his estate..”. It is in that quote that helped me once again dive deeper into how society may have been like back then. It must have been such a privilege to attend school and even people that were better off than Augustine’s family did not spend that much money on their kids to send them to schools. In my opinion, I do not think that he is leaving out all of these details on purpose. As mentioned before, if I were to write about my life now in the 21st century, I would for sure leave out details that I would not give a second thought to. But someone may be reading it even just 100 years from now may be very confused about certain things that I may mention. 

Augustine tells the story of his childhood and young adolescence not in the sense of much detail, but more of a timeline and hitting each point. While there is not a lot of detail, there are “leaks” here and there that I was able to pick up on to be able to understand the environment more back then. I do not think this lack of detail is on purpose, as if I were to write about my life right now in the 21st century, I would be sure to leave out certain details as well without realizing it. Augustine tells his story in a different way, but is still able to tell us about what life was like back then.