Critical Review Of The Life of P.T. Barnum

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P.T. Barnum is one of the most conniving and intriguing authors of the 1th century. His autobiography, The Life of P.T. Barnum, is the story of a man who made a fortune off of the “American Mass Culture.” P.T. Barnum set out to write a book in which he confessed to the countless number of “humbugs” he pulled all over the world. He shows no sympathy in the book for the multitude of customers he cheated during his lifetime, in fact he seems to embellish the idea that he was able to get away with almost all of them and profit from it. This is ironic however because if he wouldn’t have said anything then the majority of the population would have never found out that he cheated them. Barnum also writes to try and make the entire world to understand that he is not just a “serial-hoaxer” but also a man of temperance and intelligence. After the whole story has been read, the reader understands that P.T. Barnum was a ingenious man who used capitalism and “short term sensations” to prove himself the world’s ultimate showman. All in all The Life of P.T. Barnum is an ironic story because it tells of one man “exposing and mocking” the very schemes that made him rich in the first place.


Throughout his life Barnum was involved in many controversies over himself and the acts he brought with him. Whether it was because he was thrown in jail after writing an article about a orphan boy and a minister, or accused of showing off a woman who was 161 years old and turned out to be 80, Barnum was always involved in some controversy. His autobiography seems to purposefully display all of these incidents, or at least he important ones, in great detail. However, Barnum just telling it wouldnt be enough for his book, so he decides to tell everyone how he pulled the shade over their eyes. A perfect example of this is the Fejee Mermaid, for it wasnt until the release of this book that the mermaid was discovered to be monkey and a fish sewn together. This way of writing can be called capitalist irony for Barnum tells of his schemes that were conjured up in his head to make him money. This alone would make Barnum seem like a jerk, for why would he go back and throw it in everyones face that he had swindled them. Maybe it is because throughout his life people did that to him, for instance his grandfathers on going joke about Ivy Island (which was a worthless piece of land, that was made to be out to be his birthright and his fortune), which lasted about 6 years! Another explanation would be that Barnum was trying to let people in on the secrets of his trade, so that they would not be fooled by humbugs like that again. And even another explanation would be that he just wanted to come clean, for by that time he was a newly reformed man, that is he had signed the teetotal pledge. All of these might be true; nonetheless it is for the reader to decide.


By allowing the readers to make a choice Barnum is able not to take a stance on several issues of grave importance when writing a novel. These issues are what his message is, and what his intent for writing the novel was. This is precisely what makes the novel intriguing, for Barnum is able to take a neutral standpoint so he cannot be accused of saying anything directly. This allows Barnum to say anything he pleases, which gives the novel greater feeling of the truth. This portrayal of a neutral standpoint allows him to play off his high jinks as a straightforward re-representation. Thus it is assumed to be the truth however they were “rendered false by a succeeding explanation.” And in turn Barnum loses the good faith of the reader. The reason it is so easy for the reader to feel that way is because his stories are so outlandish and they sometimes seem to be a figment of his imagination. This assumption has great backing because in his book every one of the stories follows this style. Because of this constant reversal, Barnum’s book is almost a “chain of humbug(s)” making it hard for the reader to actually know if his biography is true or not. This played an important role in 1855 when other biographies like Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas were Barnum’s competitors.


Douglas and Franklin’s autobiographies play an important role in this for you can compare what a “correct” autobiography was to what Barnum wrote. Instead of a biography that was about promoting a better world, Barnum writes about his “self-making and self-reliance” he was considered one of those people who didn’t deserve an autobiography because he wasn’t someone that you modeled your life after. In fact Barnum’ Life was a huge controversy because of his scandals he portrayed and the way in which he wrote. I believe that this assumption of what a typical biography was wrong, for an autobiography is your life story and that is precisely what Barnum does. He takes his story of his life and recreates it for the American public. Granted he was trying to make money off of it, just like any of his events he partook in, but he is able to make his life more interesting and grand than any other I have read before. One reason it is particularly interesting is that Barnum dubs all of his success to advertising, not his morals, or family upbringing, but the wonders of the press.


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Barnum focuses on how advertising is the key to his success. Without advertising to the extent he did Barnum would have never achieved his success. Thus advertising leads into one of the key themes of Barnum’s Life, capitalism. Every aspect of Barnum’s life deals with capitalism, whether it is directly of in-directly. Not necessarily saying that money is his life, but it definitely plays a huge role. A perfect example of this is how he prints on several occasions the receipts from his shows/ventures. He states that he is doing it so that the reader can see that he is honest, however it appears to be a way for Barnum to show off to all of those people who betrayed or slandered him during the course of his life, almost him sticking his nose at them and laughing. That however doesn’t fit Barnum, for he states that everyone can gain wealth if they do want they are interested in, and they market themselves correctly. Barnum used advertisement in his life to achieve greatness over all of his competitors. It also can’t be ignored that Barnum used his book as a way of advertising and a way to gain more profit, for he is able to take events that almost the entire country knew about restate them on paper and sell it for money. Thus the reader is caught in an inevitable paradox, why did I buy this when I already knew what happened? The answer to this is that the reader wants to find out the specific details of Barnum’s life. Thus you enter another paradox between wanting to know the details of his life and not knowing whether or not you can trust them.


This idea of a paradox is present throughout Barnum’s narrative, but it does not distract form the quality of the read it just forces the reader to take a stance. The book is not cut, plain, and dry the reader has to use their own intellect to decide whether or not the book is believable or just another humbug. The one thing that you can say is that in his biography Barnum tries to make the audience “appear to have been an accomplice in his plans, instead of their victim.” This seems to be a reoccurring theme in this book, whether or not it is a direct attack or just a passive voice. I believe that it is both of these in fact. It seems that Barnum set out to write this book and actually tell people his life story, and after the writing process had begun he began to explore the book itself and write whatever he felt necessary. Some prime examples of where Barnum actually planned out to slander his audience come with the reporters Richard Adams Locke, James Gordon Bennet, and John R. Thompson, who all slandered Barnum in one way or another before the release of his book. Barnum got the last word in with his book when he was able to make all of the reporters who believed they got the best of him just a pawn in his big game of chess. This is also present when someone tries to upstage Barnum and being the showman he is, he always gets the last word in. Take for instance the John Jameson who owned land adjacent to Barnum. Barnum had deer in this land, and Jameson thought he could get a joke on Barnum by posting a sign that say he owned the deer, well before he knew it Barnum had written that Jameson was the game keeper to his (Barnum’s) deer. Now this seems insignificant, but that is precisely the point. Why would Barnum take time out of his writing process to add a two-paragraph piece about how he upstaged his neighbor? No other reason than that he liked to be seen as the head prankster.


In The Life of P.T. Barnum you are drawn in by Barnum’s sense of irony, which is present throughout the whole book. He is able to tell a story of his life so perfectly that you cannot even suspect him of slandering the very audience that reads it. He is also able to convey that dreams are what you make of them and utilize the great capitalism of the United States to make your “fortune” whether that be another “Iranistan” and just a small cottage in west Connecticut. Whether or not you choose to admit it, P.T. Barnum was the first man to actually capitalize on mass culture, and by doing so, forever proclaiming himself as the greatest showman on earth.





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