Freedom

FREEDOM BY RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Rabindranath Tagore’s poem “Freedom” is an impassioned address to his motherland, India. This piece explores the importance of freedom in its entirety. It speaks vividly of the oppression and torture that his motherland faced during the colonial era. Tagore portrays the suffering of his countrymen by personifying the country. He projects it as a woman who is bogged down by the burden of shame and subjugation. Through this poem, the poet expresses his idea of the complete freedom of Indians on both internal and external levels. He wants a country where people are not only free from enslavement but also able to think freely.

SUMMARY

"Freedom" by Rabindranath Tagore is a beautiful poem directed to the people of the poet's home country - India 

This powerful poem begins with the speaker telling his listener, the people of India, and the country as a whole, that he is going to claim freedom for them. It is the freedom that’s going to allow them to escape from the oppression they suffered under, in various forms, for centuries. The freedom of the future is calling to them, with a bright light and a beckoning sound. 

He goes on to say that fate, as determined by others, is no longer going to play a part in their lives. They are going to be free from “dwelling in a puppet’s world.” They are no longer going to have to live a “mimicry of life.”

Read the full poem of "Freedom" below;

FREEDOM

Freedom from fear is the freedom

I claim for you my motherland!

Freedom from the burden of the ages, bending your head,

breaking your back, blinding your eyes to the beckoning

call of the future;

Freedom from the shackles of slumber wherewith

you fasten yourself in night's stillness,

mistrusting the star that speaks of truth's adventurous paths;

freedom from the anarchy of destiny

whole sails are weakly yielded to the blind uncertain winds,

and the helm to a hand ever rigid and cold as death.

Freedom from the insult of dwelling in a puppet's world,

where movements are started through brainless wires,

repeated through mindless habits,

where figures wait with patience and obedience for the

master of show,

to be stirred into a mimicry of life.

Read HERE for poem analysis and listen HERE for reading.