Ben and Me: An Astonishing Life of Benjamin Franklin by His Good Mouse Amos

Amos is the novel’s narrator and protagonist. He is a dynamic character, changing from one who professes indifference about being acknowledged for his contributions to Ben’s achievements to one who insists on being acknowledged when he sees the way biographers memorialize Ben. Amos’s basic criticisms of Ben—whom he characterizes as somewhat “dull” and often “ridiculous”—never lessen and he never learns to see that Ben is wise in his own way or even to see him as one capable of making decisions. Amos is motivated by pride, by the desire “to see justice done, credit given where credit is due, and that’s to [him]—mostly” (2), he claims. Despite allowing Ben to take full credit for their inventions and accomplishments during his life, after Ben’s death, the proud mouse cannot sit by while others credit Ben for Amos’s ideas and work. In short, Amos’s view of Ben doesn’t change, but his desire to be recognized as the brains behind Ben’s success as a statesman and scientist grows, and this is what prompts him to pen his narrative. He says that Ben’s “ill-informed” biographers are “astonished at Ben’s great fund of information, at his brilliant decisions, at his seeming knowledge of all that went on about him.