Walt Whitman's sense of freedom is a completely different entity than what Frederick Douglass believes freedom is. Whitman is trying to convey to his reader that modernity has taken away all the freedom of nature. For example when the woman is watching the bathers through the window she is unable to join them because modernity has gotten in her way. Literally the window of the house separates her from the rest of the world. Whitman is trying to express to the reader that there shouldn't be any separation between anyone or anything, by exhibiting separation a person loses the freedom to connect with everyone and everything. Whitman believes that we are all connected, if we are to lose connection to one entity we lose connection to everything; thus, we lose the freedom of nature or modernity or connection with humanity itself. In Whitman's eyes we should have the freedom of not being constrained by society we should be free to run naked and loaf in the grass.
Frederick Douglass's freedom is a completely different entity than that of Walt Whitman's because he is in search of personal freedom not spiritual freedom. Douglass is a slave and is forced to do the white man's bidding, what he is after is the right to choose for himself. He is physically incapable of being his own person for instance when he has to give his hard earned money over to his master and gets only 25 cents returned, there is only suppression in that act. Douglass believes that to be free you must be your own person you cannot be confined by body or mind. A slave is not truly free till he is making his own choices and dependent upon oneself rather than others.
Good! W's idea seems to be about a separation from self and others . . and that does seem different perhaps from Douglass . . . 'tho I wonder if Douglass also doesn't describe the problem of freedom as being split in two or separated from yourself . . .?
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