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The Ideal Liberal Individual in Theory and Practice
Liberalism is a topic that has ignited several arguments regarding its employment and
practice in the societies. Several governments or institutions claim that they are democratic
and liberal, but in reality, their practices and measures do not reflect liberalism. The so much
emphasized freedom and choice barely exists because they are only limited to certain things,
thus, there is no absolute freedom even in democratic institutions. As such, the practice of
liberalism is a paradox since for liberalism to be present there must also be illiberalism, or
else it will cease to exist. Therefore, in reality, for a society to affirm and embrace some form
of liberalism, at the same time it must be compelled to adopt selective instances of
illiberalism. Hence, in the face of freedom and choice an individual may still feel paralyzed,
and yearn for freedom and choice. In the poem, “room night” Tao Lin uses several literary
devices to express the paradox in this situation. Using several literary devices, the author
concurrently depicts the paradoxes of practicing liberalism.
Tao Lin uses first person narrative in the poem, ‘room night’ to ignite the feelings
and struggles of attaining freedom and choice in an already free society, thus bringing out the
paradox of practicing liberalism. Singh (140) defines liberalism as the respect for freedoms
and rights of individuals in favor of free social, political reform that advocates for individual
democracy and freedom. As a result, the society is free and democratic, but the individuals in
it do not fell free, instead, they feel paralyzed to make their own choices. For instance, the
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author of ‘room night extensively illustrates this liberal paradox by using the first person
narrative technique of literary writing. First person strategy is shown by the use of ‘I’ and
‘my’, as well as expression of personal feelings about freedom. The author uses this
technique to convey deep unspoken thoughts of freedom and choices, as well as liberal
paradox. For example, the narrator constantly refers to the feeling inside him as empty, in
which he says, ‘laying on my bed a kind of emptiness moved through my politics’ (Lin line
18). Despite the freedom of choice, the narrator still feels empty because of the inability to
choose what makes him feel complete. Narrator is therefore the protagonist in this poem and
the story revolves around him displaying inner thoughts about liberal paradox.
The author of ‘room night’ uses simile to express his feelings towards the paradox of
liberalism that paralyzes his freedom of choice. For example, some of the similes used are,
‘this organic peanut butter tastes like carrots changing into brains’ (line 81), ‘the corporations
existed as various abstractions’ (line 92) and ‘my cell phone shook with a kind of existential
terror’ (line 84). This shows how deep liberal paradox is rooted in everything including
peanut butter and even a cell phone.
The terror sound produced by the cell phone indicates the lack of freedom in a
completely free society. The author presents a personal struggle to attain freedom and choice
that will enable him achieve personal fulfillment. At some point, he even admits that he feels
a terrible longing of nonexistent. The liberal paradox shown by this is similar to the struggle
for political freedom that Singh talks about in the article liberalism. Singh claims that
political freedom exists in liberal states, but the same states exhibit high levels of equality
with regard to race, gender, class among other social variables.
Imagery is another literary device widely used in the poem to enable the author
expose the paradox of liberalism through his feelings about freedom and choice. The imagery
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in the poem depicts how the desire to attain freedom and be able to make a choice faces great
paralysis by several circumstances. The author uses imagery to express his feelings and
emotions towards freedom and choice, and in the process, he reveals the paradox of
liberalism. For example, the description of abstractions where he says, ‘something about the
cruelty of abstractions’ (line 13). Other imageries used in the poem include ‘a terribly
beautiful emotion’, ‘a kind of emptiness moved through my politics’ (line 20), ‘I walked
through someone’s vision’ (line 26), ‘emptiness permanently moved into my blog’ (line 56),
the cruelty-imbued pork chop’ (line 63). The author constantly describes an emptiness that
moves through his politics, as well as his blog. This shows how empty he feels from inside to
his work as a blogger despite being in the face of freedom and choice. In addition, ‘was a
terribly expressive pig’ (line 64), ‘a vision of brains’ (line 92) and ‘a terrible selfrighteousness moved through the emptiness’ (line 89). He continues to give a clear picture f
the emptiness he feels, and expressively bring out the paralyzed freedom and choice.
Finally, personification used in the poem ‘room night’ shows that the ideal liberalism
is just something in theory, but in practice, it is a paradox. Among the personification used
are ‘cruelty-free soap’ (line 1), ‘the impermanent nature of things was making a terribly
beautiful emotions’ (line 30), ‘a kind of meat-eating liberal’ (line 3) among others. These help
in enhancing the tone and theme of the poem, which is emptiness in the face of freedom and
choice. As a result, they bring out the paradox of practicing liberalism as shown by individual
struggle to attain fulfillment despite having freedom of choice. According to Raymond (161)
the word individual in itself is a paradox because of its nature of indivisibility, which creates
a contradiction in attaining individual liberty. Similarly, liberal simply refers to a class of free
individuals, but in modern political terms, the word has attained complexity as in its
paradoxical practice. Therefore, the personification used express the impermanent nature of
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liberty, thus, making it more complex and paradoxical in practice.
Undoubtedly, liberty is a complex subject because despite freedom of choice
bestowed upon individuals, they still feel that they are not free to decide on their own and do
what fulfils them. The author dwells on the theme of emptiness because he lacks the freedom
to choose what fulfils him in a free society. Through his feelings and emotions expressed by
extensive use of literary devices, the author expresses the paradox in the practice of
liberalism. For instance, he uses first person narration to explore his feelings as the
protagonist of the story. With this, the audience is able to connect and experience these
feelings and emotions, and consequently, understand better the message that the author is
trying to pass to them. Other author’s such as Nikhil Singh and Williams Raymond who
describes the paradox in political, social, and economic liberalism also supports the paradox
of practicing liberalism in this poem.
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Works Cited
Raymond, Williams. Individual, Liberal, Liberalism. New York: Oxford University Press,
1983.
Room Night. Perf. Tao Lin. n.d.
Singh, Nikhil Pal. Liberalism. New York University Press, n.d.