I said earlier that when Don leaves the pictures on the dresser he is finally free.
What we know of Don Draper is that he was never free. “I didn’t think I had a choice,” he says of maintaining his disguise. A choiceless life is a prison.
As Dick Whitman, he was a whore-child, a slave to poverty and to social shame. He ran away to join the army, and that seemed like freedom to him (as it does to Greg Harris). Well, that didn’t work out, did it? (Foreshadowing for Greg?) He was free in Korea”to dig holes again. And maybe that wasn’t so bad, except very quickly he’s Don Draper, living a lie, and that brief stint in the army (which was horrific, what with the face-blowing-off fire and all) was the only time in his entire life that Dick Whitman/Don Draper has been free.
Until now.
Does it make him a better person? We don’t know. But it makes him free.
55 Responses to “Freedom”
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Yeah, Don got locked into the contract because Bert Cooper already knows Don's secret (and because Pete found out before him). When people find out about Don, it doesn't necessarily lead to freedom. Now that Betty knows the truth, it's already led to Don cutting off his relationship with Suzanne – his freedom is being further curtailed. Is there more in store?
The AMC site shows only the first page of the contract, which doesn’t include the non-compete.
He is "beholden"to her, and I think she would/ will maintain her silence- until the Suzanne secret is outed. His having sex with Suzanne is awful, but for Betty, I think, it pales in comparison to how she will feel that her family will be fodder for gossip in the whole town. Esp if the kids are talking in school.
Then all bets are off- and he's either looking at jail, or signing over all his assets to her.
I watch this show with this thought in the back of my mind all the time.. “its the 60s”. Stuff happened then that was considered normal and just the way things were. The fact that adultery was more accepted as something that just happened is a truism. Adultery still happens but because of the changes in the laws and civil (human) rights we’re more able to out the offending betrayer. Less tolerance for it and such.
I feel Don cheats because he’s an amoral man. He wasn’t raised with a solid moral compass, by examples of love and commitment and honor. I remember a scene at the birthday party when Don catches one of the couples in the dining room being tender with each other. I got a feeling from him in that scene that the image he was processing was something he didn’t really understand but possibly longed for.
I think he’s trying to be a moral man, he’s just having to do it by himself and a man alone in any time has a hard time asking for help or even acknowledging that wow I have a problem.
I know a lot of the discussion regarding Don is bound in some way to freedoms and truth. I just feel the truth is he wasn’t raised in the best of circumstances so he’s a product of that.
Hope this made some sense.
I see how Don is free of the secret he was hiding from Betty, but my first reaction during the confession Betty extracted from him was that he was now beholden to *her* (in addition to Anna) as the keeper of that secret. As she points out (undoubtedly for a different reason), taking Draper’s identity is illegal. If she is bound to him by her desire to maintain her standard of living (home, livelihood, children), he is now beholden to her to … keep him out of prison, as it were. Betty would probably never report him out of concern for herself and her family, but this is a woman who would shoot the neighbor’s birds, manipulate her girlfriend into adultery and toy with an 8-year-old boy’s affection, so who knows?!