Keys to Freedom

Emerson, Whitman, Douglass
Freedom? Obstacle of Freedom? Differences and Similarities?
Emerson defines talks of education throughout the American Scholar as a form of freedom. Pursuing learning and reading rather than working in fields. Emerson does not only support the reading that of a bookworm who reads only to consume but that of student who receives learning and continues to produce and apply what is learnt to other aspects of life. Walt Whitman undertakes freedom in interacting with others. Even if that interaction is imaginary when he speaks to the reader. Whitman's writing is most joyful and at peace when he writes of interaction with his fellow man. Douglass' freedom is far more literal and easy to catch. Douglass merely wants to be free from his masters he is in bondage to. Douglass obeys and succumbs to the demands that he hates from a master that he despises. When he realizes the power that the master has is no greater than the power he can tap into himself, he is freed from this bondage to his master. All freedom's are similar in the way that they are an escape from one thing that they hate to enter into something they enjoy. Also, all freedoms are mental rather than physical, although Douglass's freedom does resemble that of a literal sense of freedom.