[12] The blue-collar speaker wears a plaid shirt and suede jacket, with dirty hands and a darker complexion than others in attendance.

[5] Edgerton's youth and workmanlike hands are fashioned with a worn and stained jacket, while the other attendees appear to be older and more neatly and formally dressed.

According to Bruce Cole of The Wall Street Journal, Edgerton is shown "standing tall, his mouth open, his shining eyes transfixed, he speaks his mind, untrammeled and unafraid", and his face resembles Abraham Lincoln.

[5] According to Robert Scholes, the work shows audience members in rapt attention with admiration of the speaker, who resembles a Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart character in a Frank Capra film.

[19] At one point, Rockwell had to admit to the Post's art director, Jim Yates, that he had to start Freedom of Speech from scratch after an early attempt because he had overworked it.

[19] For the accompanying essay, Post editor Ben Hibbs chose novelist and dramatist Booth Tarkington, who was a Pulitzer Prize winner.

"[13] The speaker represents a blue-collar, unattached, and sexually available, likely ethnic, threat to social customs who nonetheless is accorded the full respect from the audience.

[23] Laura Claridge said, "The American ideal that the painting is meant to encapsulate shines forth brilliantly for those who have canonized this work as among Rockwell's great pictures.

"[24] Bruce Cole describes Freedom of Speech as Rockwell's "greatest painting", "forging traditional American illustration into a powerful and enduring work of art."

He notes that Rockwell uses "a classic pyramidal composition" to emphasize the central figure, a standing speaker whose appearance is juxtaposed with the rest of the audience that, by participating in democracy, defends it.

[5] He notes that the use of a New England town-hall meeting incorporates the "long tradition of democratic public debate" into the work, while the blackboard and pew represent church and school, which, Cole says, are "two pillars of American life.