Freedom From Fear

Paper 1

Freedom from Fear by Aung Sang Suu Kyi

   This speech was written by a famous, noble prize winning author Aung Sang Suu Kyi. Kyi was born in a political family as her father Aung San was a Burmese revolutionist, and the prime minister of British Burma, and the founder of modern Burma. While her mother Kin Kyi was the ambassador of Burma to India and Nepal. Growing up in a family like this Kyi grew up to be the same as she received a B.A in philosophy, politics and economics. She returned to Burma and started her own political party as well as being placed on house arrest on multiple occasions, as she was in the leader of the oppositions party. This speech was one of the most important she has given which was influenced by her position and targeted at the Burmese people. The speech talked about the fear implanted by the government on the people and how that affected them. This also showed a great deal of language being used and literary devices to connect with her audience. Kyi’s use of language and tone has had a great impact on the speech and on her audience.

   The audience targeted in Kyi’s speech are for a fact the powerless, fearful, Burmese people as the government has implanted fear in their minds to not being able to stand against them and take power from them. This can be shown in Kyi’s speech when she quotes, “Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day.” This proves how the government has only caused harm to the people and they have no solution but to be powerless and fearful. However, the reason of this speech was to stand up for themselves it was shown as a wakeup call for the Burmese people as Kyi’s main intention was to reunite the country to stand up to the corruption and bring the people back their rights, “It is not power that corrupts but fear.” This quote showed the main intention that Kyi had and wanted to share to her audience from her speech and the way she wanted to achieve that.

   Kyi had one main intention from all of this and that was to start a revolution which was the main action she wanted to take against the corrupted Burmese government. “Without a revolution of the spirit, the forces which produced the iniquities of the old order would continue to be operative, posing a constant threat to the process of reform and regeneration.” That was the main achievement that Kyi wanted to get to from her speech. As well as using examples throughout her play of famous politicians who have led their country out of problems like these and the major example that was used was Mahatma Gandhi and comparing her to her father Aung San and how he believed that Gandhi was a gift for India and for any country who have had someone like him, “The greatest gift for an individual or a nation was abhaya’s, fearlessness, not merely bodily courage but absence of fear from the mind.” Which was an important quote to use as it mentions the fact of fear being absent from the mind and how that can have a positive affect on one’s perspective or vision of an idea.

   The tone shown through out the play is different and is changed throughout different parts of the speech at the beginning of the extract the mood was sad, and at the same time critical as Kyi was trying to address people who had nothing and could do nothing but fear their corrupted government so she begins by trying to lift up their spirit into starting a revolution, “The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit.” However, throughout the speech her tone is different as she begins to be informative and has a main objective, “Saints, it has been said, are the sinners who go on trying.” This quote is a way of trying to inform the people of who they are and how they should stand up to them. The mood that she has shown in her play has helped improve and show her main objective of what she wanted to tell the people as well as it helps with knowing her tone using the mood she is using. The mood Kyi has shown in her speech was serious and that was seen through her tone as throughout her speech when she says, “Freedom from fear stands out as both a means and an end.” Using this quote, we could see that her mood was serious and only focusing at awakening the people into starting a revolution.  

   Throughout her speech the use of literary devices used by Kyi has added a lot in to what she is saying in the speech, there were a lot of Simile, Anaphora, Allusion, etc. being used. The use of literary devices helped a lot with the people as she evokes a type of unity with the people to start a revolution. A use of anaphora or “repetition” in the speech was with the word freedom which shows how she’s appealing for the oppressed people as well as the repetition of the word fear as can be seen from this quote, “Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure.” This showed how the people were only fearful that time of the government and not being able to stand up for themselves. As well as the use of allusion when she uses the example of Mahatma Gandhi as a successful politician and how he has had a positive effect on India, “The words used by the Jawaharlal Nehru to describe Mahatma Gandhi could well be applied to Aung San.” This shows how the use of famous politicians can help improve looking at the situation as well as taking by example when trying to get themselves out of situations like these.

   The structure of Kyi’s speech was very organized as It began with the problem and proceeded on with solutions and examples of activists who had these problems in their country then it goes into trying to help the and motivating into standing up for what is theirs to take. However, as much as the structure of the speech was organized with the points and the objectives, the writing and paragraphs weren’t as they were all around the place. The reason behind that was that the paragraphs were all small therefore the details and objective were separated however, when the article is read the main idea is understood and it becomes easier to understand the whole objective of the speech as it was said.

   In conclusion Kyi’s speech was a way of understanding the difficulty the Burmese people were facing because of their government and how they have implanted fear in people’s minds, and how she wanted to give a wake up call for the people to realize how they aren’t being treated right and wanted to motivate them into starting a revolution that fights for who they are and how they need to change from the government that has only caused them harm. A quote that stood out from Kyi’s speech was, “Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavor, courage that comes from cultivating the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one's actions, courage that could be described as 'grace under pressure.” This shows how Kyi wanted to change that fear in the people’s minds into something stronger and with it being able of turning it into power and courage. Throughout the speech Kyi has identified her main objective from the speech which can be seen from the quotes used here specifically the use of literary device and language in her speech. Kyi’s use of language and tone has had a great impact on the speech and on her audience which took the fear of the people and created something much stronger with it being able to identify her min objective.