Today there are so many prominent and important figures in the world who either have written their own autobiography or have one ghost written. Today, almost anyone can have an autobiography written. The shelves of book stores are jam packed with autobiographies of the rich and famous, world leaders, and even Paris Hilton. Literally just about anyone could have their own autobiography. That said, it doesn't mean that every autobiography ever published has been read.
Most people would say that you have to be somehow important or noteworthy to warrant an autobiography. This is obviously not how the publishing world and the PR reps for the rich and famous think when they release that hot new tell-all, but the average person considers an autobiography to be about someone who did something with his/her life. The question of whether or not the average person should warrant an autobiography is interesting. There are two was of looking at an autobiography: the first is simply as the story of one's life; the second is as a way of strategic remembrance. I think that according to either of these views of an autobiography that the average person could warrant an autobiography. The average person should be able to tell the story of his/her life if he/she wants to. Also the average person might find the exercise of writing an autobiography very useful as an exercise in strategic memory. An exercise in strategic memory could be a great way to examine and evaluate one's life just as St. Augustine does in Confessions.
Finally, as for the question of whether a person's life must be dramatic to warrant and autobiography, the answer is not. The focus of an autobiography can be any ordinary person. Every one's life contains excitement and drama, just on different scales. The human experience in and of itself is dramatic. Every life is worth living; therefore, every life is worth remembering no matter how ordinary.
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You are right, everyone now days have an autobiography. I just want to add one autobiography where the person who wrote it was, somehow, obligated to write it. It was Benjamin Franklin who was asked many times to write his autobiography because people wanted to know everything he did to become who he was. More than anything people wanted him to leave his political ideas and strategies before dying to be read and used in the future. So, my point is that autobiographies can be used as well as didactic materials.
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