How we cite our quotes: ("Story Name," Paragraph)
Quote #4
"When I got up here I felt I was not only free of their so-called culture, I felt I was free of their ethics and their customs. I'm out of their frame of reference, I thought." ("—And the Moon Be Still as Bright," 223)
Spender tells Wilder that he's free from Earthman restrictions. But at the end, there's a note of doubt in that "I thought." In fact, as we've seen, Spender isn't a total rebel: he feels a little sick after killing people—so he's not entirely free of Earth-style morality.
Quote #5
The legend has it that one of us, a good man, discovered a way to free man's soul and intellect, to free him of bodily ills and melancholies, of deaths and transfigurations, of ill humors and senilities . . . ("The Fire Balloons," 214)
Here the second Martian race (the blue spheres) tells Father Peregrine and the other priests how they became free of sin. Turns out, all you have to do is get free of your body. The question is whether that freedom comes at too high a price—we're not sure we'd want to give up our bodies, even to be free of sin.
Quote #6
Them that has helps them that hasn't! And that way they all get free! ("Way in the Middle of the Air," 102)
The theme of freedom really comes out explicitly in "Way in the Middle of the Air," where the African Americans leave the South. (Or America in general? It's unclear.) Note here that, while Teece tries to stop them from leaving (first Belter, then Silly), the African-American community works together to make sure everyone gets out. This seriously might be the only story in the book where people help each other obtain freedom, since everyone else is apparently just out for themselves. Or the Martians, in Spender's case.