Ayn Rand’s novel Anthem is about the main character Equality 7-2521 who struggles to live in a communist society. Equality is an intelligent and very ambitious person who dares to break the rules of The City. By following his heart, he discovers that he is worth a lot more than what he’s been taught. Once he and his love, Liberty 5-3000, break away from their toxic home land, they discovering the idea that individuality is more important than the collective “we”. In the woods, the two lovers find an abandoned house and they rename themselves Prometheus and Gaea. Ayn Rand chose these names because of how similar Equality and Liberty are to the mythological creatures.…
Anthem may seem like a purely fictional story written for entertainment purposes, but upon closer inspection there are elements of real world occurrences. Equality 7-2521 is a boy growing up like every other boy around him, meaning he lives in a world after our with little technology, and in permanent fear of the World Council who control every aspect of life, including what he should think. Equality has always dreamed of being a scientist,, but even dreaming or wanting is a crime against his brothers, as he is supposed to accept and love the job assigned to him by the Council.. While working in his assigned position, Equality and his friend International 4-8818 discover a tunnel from before the Brotherhood and the Council, where they read…
A young man given the name, Equality 7-2521 is living in a futuristic dark age. He is withheld from a name to prevent any form of individuality, but given a word followed by a series of numbers on an iron bracelet to be worn on his left wrist, as a form of identification by the World Council. Equality 7-2521 has made a moral discovery throughout the story Anthem by Ayn Rand, as discovering his individuality and as he has changed from one who believes that the World Council states all truth, to one who has progressed into someone with the ability to compose ideas and moral values for himself.…
Looking at the bigger picture it is clear to Equality was already an individual beforehand. With this in mind, according to all Equality’s Brothers “we were born with a curse [Equality 7-2521 has a different mindset than his brothers]. It has driven us to thoughts…
Regardless of the novella’s motives, Anthem easily draws in the reader to Equality 7-2521’s plight and journey through Rand’s dynamic writing style and her captivating ability to have her audience get glimpses of and empathize with the character’s soul through strong imagery and meticulously organized words to give a new depth to Equality’s entries.…
In Anthem Equality says “For the coming of that day shall I fight, I and my sons and my chosen friends. For the freedom of Man. For his rights. For his life. For his honor.(104)” Everyone is supposed to be seen as equal to their brothers in this society, but Anthem slowly detached himself from them. He wanted something for himself. Like he says in the book. He wants freedom, rights, life, and honor. He also says “What is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is…
The captivating novel Anthem, by Ayn Rand, concentrates on Equality’s changes in his moral assessment. In this story, Equality fights to become independent and to improve the quality of life for him and people around him. Equality, along with the other characters in this novel, thinks it is a sin to write at the beginning of the book. By the end, he has no shame in his sins and has a different moral assessment and perspective of his actions. Equality takes steps throughout the book, starting with the word “We”, and ending with “I”. He puts his instincts to the test, writing and making inventions.…
Ayn Rand’s Anthem portrays a scared world with a homogenous culture and mindset, imprisoning its citizens with their thoughts. This imprisoned mindset caused a regression of technology out of fear of being different and the consequences that came with that. When an individual is erased to be a part of a whole and they are not allowed to question what is “known” nothing new can come about without retaliation, which is depicted in Equality’s story of the society he lived in. Equality 7-2521, a street sweeper, is about to challenge the morality and ethics of his society. In Anthem the rules and restrictions of the society stifled the questioning of established “norms,” showing that to progress, people must be allowed to be individuals, people must be allowed to question, and they must not be afraid to stand alone.…
In “Anthem,” Ayn Rand emphasizes the diction of the novella, by using the negatively connotative words to achieve a tone of immorality. For example, when Equality is in a tunnel and writing, “It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil....there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws”(Rand 17). Also, “Strange are the ways of evil. We are false in the faces of our brothers. We are defying the will of our Councils...The evil of our crime is not for the human mind to probe . The nature of our punishment if it be discovered, is not for the human heart to probe”(Rand 36-37). Equality’s thoughts create a feeling of wrongdoing and dishonesty which are factors of…
Although we think of egoism today as something to be repressed in the human spirit, in actuality, it can accomplish great feats. This is clear, as the lack of “ego” in Anthem led to a society stuck in the dark ages, devoid of personality and innovation. If everybody in Equality’s world had embraced the human ego, the problems that Equality faced in the story never would have been problems at all. In fact, despite anything that occurred that led to the loss of knowledge as we see in Anthem, humans working for their own benefit would have led to the collective benefit of society as we see it today. If they had accepted the importance of individualism, then Equality’s ideas could have been accepted, as well as countless others. The unmentionable word, “I”, could be mentioned in everyday speech. Eventually, there would be no boundaries or limitations as we see in Anthem. The right to pursue your best interests is freedom. Egoism is…
8. Reread the account of Liberty 5-3000 on page 38-39 and on 44-45. What character traits are revealed in this brief description? Note: Liberty is smarter than the other women as Equality is smarter than the other men. “ Liberty understood our thought, for they lowered their eyes for the first time” (Rand 44). Why?…
In this argument essay I will be identifying which of the two novels from Animal Farm or Anthem is more realistic. What I think is that Anthem is more realistic because it actually uses human beings and tells types of situations a person can get to. The rules in the book were like the law to them, in fact they were the law like, “none may speak the unspeakable word” or else they will be burned, like if a witch were to blow her secret she will be burned in front of the village. Some of the other rules were “you can't identify yourself as a single”, “none shall be alone” and so on.…
One part of this portion of the novel that I found to be troubling was the caste system and the pursuit of the greater good. The caste system was broken into 5 tiers and two sub-tiers, Alphas and Betas being above Gamma, Delta, and Epsilon, with plusses and minuses within each tier. From the moment they are ‘conceived’, they are designated to a certain caste. Without any input from themselves, someone decided their abilities, their fears, their desires, and their entire life. They have had not only the equality of opportunity taken from them, and with that the equality of condition. The lower castes are physically and mentally inferior to others, after being forced to grow stunted physically and intellectually. No matter how hard they try, there is very little one could do to try and best an Alpha.…
American Society today and the society in Anthem are very different and so are the things they value. One thing that the council in Anthem values is fear. The council stays in power because most of the citizens fear what will happen if they don’t follow the rules. What makes Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 different is that they both value freedom or not having fear. Equality 7-2521 says of Liberty 5-3000, “Their eyes were dark and hard and glowing, with no fear in them, no kindness and no guilt.” (39). Equality 7-2521 says about the rest of society, “There is fear hanging in the air of the sleeping halls, and in the air of the streets. Fear walks through the City, fear without name, without shape. All men feel it and none dare to speak it.” (46). Equality 7-2521 talks to Liberty 5-3000 and she says, “Your eyes,” they said, “are not like the eyes of any among men.” (44). I think that Liberty sees that Equality 7-2521 fears nothing like and she likes him for that. This is the same reason why Equality 7-2521 likes her.…
Both Equality and the Tank Man rebelled against people in higher power in society than them and both could not stop it. They also both made a statement for everyone to see or talk about. Rebellion is not always a bad thing and in anthem it is used as a way to show courage in the same way the tank man had…