Emma McLaughlin  

Literary Analysis

Freedom is the escape of reality. The Count of Monte Cristo and Blessing both explore the theme of freedom in different ways.  Freedom can be releasing yourself from anything that causes stress, but it can also be something that gives you joy or happiness, also realising from anything harmful in life.

Edmond, from The Count of Monte Cristo, is feeling useless in life. He starts to starve himself because he feels there no point to live. One night he hears a small scratching sound coming through the walls. I think this is a good example of something being so small yet so important. That even the tiniest sound, fills Edmond with hope. When he finally came to terms with what that noise could possibly be, the narrators comes in and explains Edmond’s thoughts, “Although weakened the young mans brain instantly responds to the idea that haunts all prisoners- liberty it seemed to him that heaven had taken pity on him.”  Edmond was very determined to find out if it was a prisoner scratching away to freedom he tried out an experiment while banging on the wall to see if the sound would stop, and it did. “Full of hope, Edmond swallowed a few mouthfuls of bread and water, and thanks to the vigor of his constitution, found himself well-nigh recovered” This shows that after he heard the prisoner stop and not return for another hours, he got excited. It shows that Edmond no longer wanted to die. The thought of freedom saved his life. He eats bread and water. Almost recovers fully from his self harming ways, and I think this story is a perfect way to show how powerful and motivating freedom really is.

Jesse and Rene, from Blessings both have different ways to express themselves and free themselves. Jesse, writes poems, and Rene, paints. They both learn that freedom is a way to express themselves and that they can be who they are just by freeing themselves to the world. When Rene says, “man, I got to bring my paint’s up here.” It shows how she uses painting to express herself when she see’s something different and exciting. Jesse however, is a little unsure about what he uses to express himself . AT first he says he cooks, than he realizes that he really writes poems. He says, “Rene, first would you read this, its a poem. Real short. I wrote it about this place.” This shows that Jesse wants to share his poem with Rene, because this place gives them both a sense of freedom, and it brings out an artistic side in both of them.

  Now that you have seen both representations of freedom, how it can be expressed as an action, of escaping and releasing yourself. Or how it can be shown as a way to express yourself while freeing yourself from stress. Freedom was both very important to Edmond, Jesse and Rene. Even though it was in its different forms. These stories are good ways to show the effects of freedom.