Too Much Freedom Is Hard To Come By

Freedom is something that many, if not all, people are after. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of religion; these and many more are some basic needs for a lot of people. Despite the fact that these freedoms are a right in most parts of the world, characters from Azir Nafisi’s “Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran,” Leslie Bell’s “Selections from Hard to Get,” and Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel” show how absolute freedom is something that is hard to come by. These texts encompass societies or systems that often restrict a person’s ability to be self-serving and independent; and while they are a part of these environments, they can not fully express their concerns on a societal level, even after they acquire some sort of
In Nafisi’s piece, the small class that was secluded from the reality of the outside world represents this freedom. “... no matter how repressive the state became, no matter how intimidated and frightened we were, like Lolita, we took every opportunity to flaunt our insubordination: by showing a little hair from under our scarves, insinuating a little color into the drab uniformity of our appearances, growing our nails, falling in love, and listening to forbidden music” (Nafisi 295). In this room, these women had freedom by being sheltered from the prying eyes of the outside world. This freedom allowed them to break down the social restrictions they continuously had to face by letting them express themselves through “showing a little hair” or “falling in love.” Even so, this freedom was temporary, only coming once a week when they had the club meeting. Nafisi’s use of the phrases “flaunt our insubordination” and “forbidden music” shows that she still acknowledges the restrictions placed onto her by the system; and with that mentality, she’s not truly standing up to the system, she’s merely avoiding it. The young women in Bell’s piece were also able to internally defy society’s or their families’ expectations when presented with their own freedom. “Being a bad girl allowed allowed Jayanthi to control
Although it was not stated in the text, in the years following Faulkner’s admittance into The Citadel, more and more females were beginning to be accepted into the once all boys college. Without a doubt, Faulkner’s endeavor had a lot to do with this change to the academy’s system. If her story had been kept private, would everything still have changed? On the contrary, Nafisi’s group was kept quiet and sheltered, having no external impact on the state of oppression in Tehran. A notable difference between Nafisi and Faulkner, though, is that Nafisi could have faced much harsher consequences by going public with her rebellion; which could explain why she kept everything a secret. Even so, by the end of the reading, Nafisi wasn’t too hopeful because she presumed that her actions were not going to change anything. “Curiously, the novels we escaped into led us finally to question and prod our own realities, about which we felt so helplessly speechless” (Nafisi 287). Rebelling in private provided only a temporary “escape” from the harsh reality Nafisi lived in; and this brief freedom helped her realize just how helpless she truly was. It is possible that Nafisi was merely in the middle of her struggle to change the system, while Faulkner was already at