The purpose of a biography is to report on a person's life in an informative and entertaining manner. At the end of any biography, the reader should feel that they know the subject on a personal level. Unfortunately this feat is unachievable because it is simply not possible to gather and report on every fact in a comprehensive and unbiased manner, while making it entertaining to the reader. The biography that shall be focused upon within this report is "Outwitting Hitler, Surviving Stalin" by Arthur Spindler. Arthur Spindler was a Polish Jew that survived the fascism and repression of World War Two and the Holocaust. This biography tells of his story while dealing with the trials and tribulations that were commonplace during the Holocaust. This biography shall be used as an exemplar as to why it is not possible to write a perfect biography. Consequently it is the hypothesis of this report that it is not possible to write a perfect biography because reader expectations can never be met. The basic elements of any biography are:.
Comprehensive Facts .
Unbiased reporting of facts .
A personal knowledge of the subject.
A novel like structure.
In this report, these elements shall be examined and it shall be explained as to why not all of these elements can be fulfilled and hence why it is impossible to write a perfect biography. The structure of any report is factual and comprehensive information. The reader expects that any information that they read is accurate and complete, unfortunately it is human nature to forget information. Facts can be lost, forgotten, suppressed and distorted over time; consequently no reported fact can be comprehensive. An example of this can be seen in the evident gaps in the storyline of the featured biography. This can be seen in the aspect of the storyline relating to relating to the subject and his family emigrating to Australia for safety. This period must have been a trialing time for the subject as can be seen in the emotive language used in the line " the only way that we could ever see each other again was to emigrate to Australia.