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  • Essay / The question of freedom, choices and opportunities in three different stories

    Freedom is not even available to everyone: in fact, only 45 of the world's 195 countries are free. In these three stories, Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and A Tale of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass. There is always a central theme: choices are a direct cause of happiness. Freedom is necessary if you want happiness, because living in a world where only you have no rights, giving someone opportunities and then taking them away, and limiting someone's choices will make them unhappy. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay If you had freedom and the next day it was taken away from you without any sign, you would be depressed, right? Going out, having fun and living life on your own terms is something you can't do if there is no opportunity. One day you might be, as it says in Never Fall Down, “frogling the countryside and sometimes playing war” (McCormick 10). Later, this could lead to you no longer having any freedom, and neither will anyone else. In Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick, on page 44 it says, “I let him die. Because now I’m a ghost myself.” The way he says this perfectly describes how they restrict freedoms and how it makes them not feel like people anymore. Unfortunately, it says, “No pain.” No sound. I don’t even feel like I have a body” (McCormick 56), showing how having no rights makes them feel bad and why people deserve to have choices in life. Everyone knows how much better it is to have opportunities; they shape the way you live and make you a happy person. One way to become unhappy in life is to have someone limit the choices you can make. If someone made all your decisions in life, you would have no reason to live, you would be depressed. In Persepolis, the little girl was upset when, in 1980, it was "the year that wearing the veil became compulsory at school", because it made her feel useless. She, feeling as if she had no unique character, was sad; showing, once again, that freedom is necessary to be happy. There was a time when their privileges were increasingly limited to “another family who spent weeks with them.” While they stayed with her, she began to be allowed to make fewer decisions and she became sadder. Restricting freedom and choices is also a direct way to suppress happiness. Another example of when not having opportunities makes people unhappy is when you simply don't have any at all, while everyone else around does. If this were to happen, you would definitely be upset and want your freedoms back, like everyone else did. For example, there was a time in Frederick Douglass's life when he was a slave and he "managed to learn to read and write...even though he had no regular teacher." His mistress kindly instructed him.” He was happy to learn and he would do it because he wanted to. Later in this story he was not so happy, the freedoms were disappearing again, causing him pain as he wanted his freedom. He tried to “make friends with every little white boy he met on the street.” He converted as many as he could into teachers.” Unfortunately, this is an example of what people have to do in order to learn. Not giving any freedom to a person is fine with him.