Interpretations. . .
Before I read The Celebration of Human Voice/2, I never really thought about the importance of my own personal voice. Galeano illustrates a true story of men who were imprisoned for voicing their opinion in a country where freedom of speech was a crime. They were sentenced to solitary confinement in cells the size of coffins, and were forbidden to have contact with anyone. I cannot even begin to comprehend the fact that this even occurred. Two men, Fernandez Huidobro and Mauricio Rosencof, survived this tragedy due to the simple act of communicating with one another through the walls of their cells. This act of survival says a great deal about mankind as a whole. These prisoners were experiencing severe punishment, but they persevered and looked to other forms of communication. They also showed tremendous amounts of strenth by spending more than ten years in solitary cells, and by reaching out to others with new forms of communication. In order for the Uruguayan Dictatorship to remain in control, they had to keep the people from seeing their true potential, and stop them from voicing their opinions. However, this effort was not successful, and the people as a whole pulled together with interaction showing the true colors of the human race in times of adversity. Along with the strength and perserverance mankind endures, Galeano also embraces the importance of communication between human beings. He discusses the idea of tapping on walls as a new form of contacting the other prisoners to keep sanity. Without being able to connect with one another about their dreams, loves, friendships, families, hopes, ideas and so on, the men would not have kept their minds sane, and would have simply gone crazy in the end. At the end of the abrazo, Galeano states, "When it is geniune, when it is bron of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice." No matter what we may be faced with throughout our lives, no one can stop us from expressing ourselves to others. If we were to lose the ability to talk, then we would use our hands, eyes or anything to replace the sound of our voice. We were born with the ability to communicate and we will die with it as well. Humans should never be denied the right to speak our minds, and we will always find a way if we are denied that right.
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