Four Notions of Freedom

Whitman: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then….I contradict myself; / I am large….I contain multitudes.”

This is one of my favorite Whitman lines; it really sums up his view of freedom for me.  To me, the line represents, as I mentioned in my previous blog, Whitman’s freedom from himself.  In saying “Very well then….I contradict myself” I feel he is saying that in the end, he is even free from his own limiting self image, he is even free from himself.  And seeing as how the poem is called Song of Myself, I think that is quite revolutionary.    

Dickinson: “They shut me up in Prose—”

I chose this line because even though it literally speaks of being shut up, or trapped, it defines freedom for Dickinson by defining for her what freedom is not.  In my eyes, Dickinson found freedom though writing poetry.  As an introvert and a secluded recluse, Dickinson was in many ways not free.  However, through writing, through the expression of her consciousness, she was able to find freedom.  This line, to me defines this notion of freedom. 

Emerson:  “Free even to the definition of freedom, "without any hindrance that does not arise out of his own constitution."

I chose this quote because this, to me, is what separates Whitman and Emerson.  Emerson sought freedom from the past, freedom from the definitions of society, but in my eyes he still felt limited by the self.  Here he states that explicitly, for he implies that you might not be free from that which arises from your own constitution.  Whitman, on the other hand, sought freedom even from this. 

Douglass:  “I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves. It was the first work, the reward of which was to be entirely my own. There was no Master Hugh standing ready, the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. I worked that day with a pleasure I had never before experienced.”

This quote really defines the freedom Douglas found through owning his own labor, and being his own master.  Until this point, although he was physically free, his mind was still in the shackles of his past, still under the influence of slavery.  In the realization that he finally owned what he himself earned, he found freedom; at least he found as much freedom as life in those days could allow.