Freedom's Role in Human Expression and Personal Destiny
This essay examines freedom as essential to human flourishing, arguing that it enables individuals to express themselves, elevate their social status, pursue their own destinies, and experience fulfillment. Drawing on literary analysis of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, and Shaffer and Barrows's The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, the paper demonstrates how lack of freedom leads to desperation and conformity, while freedom catalyzes personal growth, artistic creation, and happiness. The essay contends that societies built on freedom thrive, whereas those that sacrifice personal liberty for security inevitably spawn tyranny and human suffering.
- Introduction: Freedom as a Human Necessity: Freedom as birthright and cultural necessity
- Expression and the Spread of Ideas: Art creation and idea-sharing through liberty
- Social Mobility and Rising Above Station: Breaking class barriers through opportunity
- Pursuing and Molding Your Own Destiny: Personal agency and control of one's path
- Learning Through Experience and Living Fully: Growth and fulfillment through lived experience
- Countering the Argument Against Freedom: Refuting claims that freedom breeds anarchy
- Conclusion: Freedom's Lasting Importance: Freedom's enduring role in human society
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses three distinct literary works as parallel case studies to reinforce a unified thesis about freedom's necessity, rather than treating them as isolated examples.
- Supports abstract claims about freedom with concrete textual evidence—dialogue, plot developments, and character motivations drawn directly from the cited works.
- Balances literary analysis with historical examples (Victorian class systems, communist nations, Nazi Germany) to ground the argument beyond fiction.
- Acknowledges a counterargument (that freedom can lead to anarchy) and refutes it using historical evidence, demonstrating critical thinking.
- Integrates personal narrative (the neighbor's story, the author's own experience) to illustrate the practical reality of freedom's effects on individual lives.
Key academic technique demonstrated
This paper employs thematic analysis across multiple texts. Rather than devoting separate sections to each literary work, the author organizes around thematic claims about freedom—expression, mobility, destiny—and then shows how each text illuminates that theme. This approach is more sophisticated than plot summary; it requires identifying a common argument across different narratives and using textual evidence to prove it. The technique is strengthened by the use of direct quotations that capture both character motivation and authorial intent.
Structure breakdown
The essay follows a classical persuasive structure: a strong opening claim (Cooper's quote on freedom as universal birthright), a thesis that breaks freedom into four components (expression, elevation, destiny, experience), body sections that defend each component with literary and historical evidence, a counterargument and refutation, and a conclusion that reasserts the thesis. The personal anecdote near the end shifts from objective analysis to ethos, allowing the author to claim credibility as someone who has benefited from freedom, which strengthens the conclusion.
Introduction: Freedom as a Human Necessity
Anna Julia Cooper stated, "The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class—it is the cause of human kind, the very birthright of humanity." All of humanity yearns for freedom; the right to live as an individual being a constant goal. Freedom is a necessity for cultural development in a society. Without it, art and literature would cease to have meaning or symbolic worth. Individuals would be oppressed into conformity, stuck in their position in life forever. People would be unable to seek their own desires and create a future appealing to them.
The importance of freedom is not lost in the literary and dramatic works of the past. These works express the importance of freedom in everyone's life. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows shows the importance of freedom in literature and the sharing of ideas. Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen uses a tragic story to portray how a lack of freedom could lead people to desperate measures to achieve fulfillment. Paulo Coelho's novel The Alchemist shows the importance of having the freedom to follow your dreams to achieve fulfillment and true happiness. Freedom is the most important aspect of life because it allows people to express themselves, elevate themselves from their current position in society, mold and pursue their own destiny, and learn from experience.
Expression and the Spread of Ideas
Expression is one basic tenet of freedom. Having the right to express one's emotions and beliefs causes the spread of ideas to the betterment of all society. Allowing one to be an individual opens the way for art and literature to be created and the ideals of that individual to be heard by a free society. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, "Why not let the majority's morality and taste dictate what others can look at or listen to? The answer is simple, and timeless: a free society is based on the principle that each and every individual has the right to decide what art or entertainment he or she wants—or does not want—to receive or create."
For art to truly express the ideals of an individual, they must have the freedom to do so no matter how fringe the subject might be, or risk losing that freedom altogether. In the novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, books are used to provide an escape for the people on Guernsey Island from the horrors of World War II and the Nazi occupation of their home. The people of Guernsey are often amazed by the quantity of books available to them and how there always seems to be a story to fit their tastes. As the characters observe, "Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers." This abundance is due to freedom, which allows any story to be expressed, causing the spread of ideas too numerous to count, allowing anyone to find the creation best suited for them.
Freedom allows expression, leading to the rise of individuals who seek to share their thoughts, ideals, and beliefs through the use of art and literature. The freedom to create art freely benefits an entire society along with the individuals. Since the beginning of human culture, people with the freedom to do so have used art to develop and record the history of their society. Without the freedom to create, human existence would stagnate. As philosopher Susanne Langer argues, "Art is the epitome of human life, the truest record of insight and feeling, and that the strongest military or economic society without art is poor in comparison with the most primitive tribe of savage painters, dancers, or idol-carvers."
Art is the physical manifestation of humanity's free will and creative ability. With it, society as a whole has a chance to thrive when it develops around these ideals. For a society to prosper, it must implement the freedom of expression into its core or risk dehumanizing the people within it. As Index on Censorship explains, "Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. It also underpins most other rights and allows them to flourish. The right to speak your mind freely on important issues in society, access information and hold the powers that be to account, plays a vital role in the healthy development process of any society." With the freedom of expression, all other freedoms have a catalyst from which they can gain a foothold and create a thriving society.
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