What Freedom Means

Julie Zook

Mrs. Burnett

12 AP English

26 February 2012

What Freedom Means

            The dictionary defines freedom as “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.”  However, this definition doesn’t define everyone’s use of the word.  Freedom has various definitions depending on where a person is from.  The people that already have their freedom take it for granted or demand more while others are still fighting in order to receive it.  Virginia Woolf describes freedom in A Room of One’s Own simply as having the “freedom to think of things in themselves.”  It is acquired by voicing your own opinions about certain ideas.  In the past, women that shared their ideas through writing did not have their own freedoms.  Women were abused since they were writing instead of doing what they were supposed to be doing.  Now, people are still limited in their amounts of freedom.  The United States fought many wars in order to become a free country.  The success of winning those wars let Americans have the freedoms that other countries are lacking.  Americans can do what they want with their lives and marry who they want.  We don’t have to do something just because someone tells us to do it.  Other countries have to wear a certain type of clothes and have arranged marriages.  They have to go into the military without any choice in the matter.  The characters in A Thousand Splendid Suns were limited in their own choices.  Miriam had to marry Rasheed even though she never wanted to.  The Taliban created strict rules that limited the freedoms that women have.  Their life became so much harder since men controlled them and they were unable to escape without a man.  The characters were not allowed to participate in many activities for entertainment.  In the real world, Hitler took away freedoms from the Jews and made them go through concentration camps where they worked themselves to death.  We should be very thankful to live in America with all of our freedoms.