Anthem Essay

Equality never found joy in the idea of his invention helping the rest of society. He found joy in that he chose to work on it, Equality always enjoyed learning, and at the prospect of becoming a scholar. Equality is not feeling joy because electricity will help mankind; he is joyful because he is working on something he chose to do. All his life he was told what to do and had to do it, they even went as far as to give him a job and base their decision on nothing. So when Equality was able to decide wither or not he worked on his project in the sewer, he was just happy he was able to decide to do it. Equality writes about how supposedly his brothers are also happy, because there is no reason to be sad. But when he looks at his brothers in the street sweep building, all he sees is sad and fearful faces, this could be because his brothers haven’t been able to choose what they work on either. Which is shown in the quote “Yet as we stand at night in the great hall, removing our garments for sleep, we look upon our brothers and we wonder… And a word steals into our mind, and we look upon our brothers, and that word is fear” (Anthem 46) This idea of Equality’s brothers in fear can also be found in the quote “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” (46)
Equality may also be feeling this joy because he is learning more and more. Equality always enjoyed learning, but especially about science. This very fact of Equality enjoying learning is evident in this quote. “But we loved the science of things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make the Earth around us.” (23) This is why he hoped he would become a scholar and live with the other scholars and try to discover new things. Then, of course, he is assigned as a street sweep and he is heartbroken. When he finds the light bulb and the wires he realizes that he is going to be learning