Preview

Equality 7-2521 In Ayn Rand's Anthem

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
896 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Equality 7-2521 In Ayn Rand's Anthem
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.
The World Council is this society’s strict form of government as they determine what is deemed an acceptable way for their people to think, act, and dress. The council sets harsh stipulations that diminish any conceivable right that would enable its people to have some sort of value
…show more content…
This great sin is the ability to think for oneself. Inadvertently, Equality 7-2521 begins to discover himself and unearth many truths that have been suppressed by the council. In my personal opinion, Equality 7-2521’s moral assessment is an uncorrupt truth that he was able to unveil. I agree with his moral values. I believe; it is not just or righteous to be identified by a word and a series of numbers, and to degrade the values of human rights. Withholding the right to think freely or be concerned with one’s personal well-being should not be considered an unreachable privilege, but something that should be expected. I believe the worth of one should not be determined by a group of people; furthermore, that it should not be frowned upon by society to be intellectually advanced, rather it should be praised. Equality learns the truth: truth is a fact or reality; it is not something that can become

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    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.…

    • 1016 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The book Anthem by Amy Rand is the first person story of Equality 7-2521, a man raised in a community where all men are equal and everyone is brother to their fellow man. But Equality 7-2521 was not the typical person, for he was very intelligent, and always felt that there was more to life to be discovered. He wanted to be a scholar so he could learn about his world, but instead he was assigned by the community to be a street sweeper. Upon finding an underground tunnel, Equality 7-2521 kept it to himself as a secret hideout, where he conducted many experiments to learn about the world. One invention in particular was a sort of electric device that he made, and there had never been electricity in his lifetime until then.…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    What is egoism? Something that Prometheus seems so interested in. Egoism is a doctrine that individual self worth is the motive behind all conscious action. In this day in age being an egoist is wrong, but in Prometheus society being an egoist wasn’t even heard of. Why is it that Prometheus writes down “ego” at the very end of the book on page 105 of Anthem.…

    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    At times I ask myself, how can two people from different eras have such similar personalities? In the book Anthem, a short novel written by Ayn Rand, is about a dystopian society that is based off of the Council. The idea of independence and individuality is prohibited. Everyone is afraid to be different except Equality. Equality 7-2521 is a man that feels the need to be independent and has a quest for freedom. He is striving to be special in his own way and falls in love with The Golden One, who is later is named Liberty 3-5000 then Gaea. Falling in love is also prohibited as well. At the end of the novel, Equality is named Prometheus because they both have so much in common yet are different.…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 274 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, the main character is brought up into a society where individualism is never an option. In secret, this character broke these laws and constantly made what was called “transgressions” to the book’s authority figures. Near the books closing he states “Why the best in me had been my sins and my transgressions; and why I had never felt guilt in my sins.” Prometheus has came to understand that he was different and that his sins gave him his happy ending. For being different it made those around him believe that It was indeed sinful.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, Rand describes an individual living in a society that excludes a single person’s worth and stresses the idea that self-reference is wrong. In the biblical telling of “Genesis,” Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden with only each other as company. Rather than a society that forbids self-awareness, they are not even given the ability to think of themselves. They are not even aware that they are naked. Both societies also see intelligence as a sin. Adam and Equality are both condemned for these “sins” and punished. The two characters show similar qualities. Adam and Equality are condemned for the sins of self-reference and intelligence but come about the actions through very different ways.…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the story Anthem there is a man that is named Equality 7-2521 that was in this city full of just guys and he had to call myself we when he would talk about himself because in the city he is in, no one is better than anyone else. He got out of the city and found out something.…

    • 348 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Conformity goes too far it takes away a person's individuality. In the book Equality realizes as a kid that he is not like the other children in his society. He gets punished for being different and gets left out of the crowd. It shows him and others kids that being different is not good in a society. In this quote equality is being told by a teacher how is not the same as the other kids. The teacher is telling him he has evil in bones because he is different. ¨Ever have the Teachers and the leaders pointed to us and frowned and said: ¨There is evil in your bones, Equality 7-2521, for your body has grown beyond the bodies of your brothers.¨ But we cannot change our bones nor our body.¨(18) This is an important quote because it shows that being…

    • 166 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Palace of the World Council is the body of all trust and truth, and a free vote decides if a law should pass. All humanity must be alike, and we strive to be like everyone else. Have you ever felt alone in this world, and that there is too much evil to fight against by yourself? If so, then we are here to help you. We are a Collective Society based on the concept that we as humans are impure. Humans have shown their evil through the abundance of wars that have happened throughout history. Luckily, we have found a reliable way to get rid of our evil. By, giving ourselves up for the common good of others, we can come together to form a safe society that is absent from sin. Our sole purpose in our self-sustained society is to serve the state for the great WE. The great WE consists of all Mankind, all of our knowledge, and all our wisdom. The creation of our society began during the Unmentionable Times, when our brethren fought against the Evil Ones. With our numbers, we rose superior and we released a great fire upon them, burning all things evil with them. During the Dawn of the Rebirth, we discovered that all men are one, and no will can save a man unless all men come together as…

    • 488 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “It is a sin to write this.” Equality once thought that when you write anything you become a sinner. As far as how he thinks now about everything, his perspective has changed dramatically. The Great Rebirth made it so everyone is supposed to believe in the same thing and act or look the same way, but Equality decided that he was better than that and decided to go against the status quo everyone else was under. Equality 7-2521's development as a character throughout Anthem can be seen as a progressive move towards the distinctive way of thinking he discovers and presents in the chapters of Anthem.…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Anthem is a dystopian novel written by Ayn Rand that takes place in a futuristic world in which, in theory, the human mind is not individual, but should be melded with its fellow citizens. There was no greater honor than to carry out the will of your brothers. However, although appearing to be a utopian society, it was actually a society full of cries of suffering, stifled by fear and mindless obedience to a government that had lost sight of the beauty of individualism, arguably, the most human of all of our traits. The protagonist of the novel, Equality, realizes this through the discovery of electricity, which…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” Here in the quote the author Ayn Rand explains that you can take away some things from the people, but one thing that you can’t take away is the minority rights. In the book Anthem by Ayn Rand she says about how the world would be like if people were the exact same and they didn’t have these rights. In the world Rand creates people should care more about themselves. She put the idea of individualism in the book Anthem because she thought that it was important to for people to know how important being yourself is and not having to be like everyone else.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Equality saw Liberty in a different way then he saw any other person. He felt happy with her and would think about her constantly when they were not together. He also felt fear for her in ways he would not feel for someone else. There is also a great fear that he felt for her that also had to do with him being jealous. “And we thought that we would not let the Golden One be sent to the Palace (Rand 17). All of these feelings revolve around him being in love with her.…

    • 1070 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    i want to read

    • 2063 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Anthem by Ayn rand is quite interesting to me. Throughout the first ten pages the book reminded me of George Orwell’s book 1984.with both books there is a constant, societies that force all people to be equal and, the main characters need to break out of that society. I feel sorry for Equality 7-2521. He was born different from his brothers and cannot change that and because of it he is inherently the social outcast of his society. His hopes of being a scholar are crushed as he is told to be a street sweeper and he cannot do anything about it except say “the will of our brothers be done (26).the part that has really interested me is how they speak of the unmentionable times “but we must never speak of the times before the great rebirth, [..] only the old ones who whisper about it in the evenings, of the towers which rose to the sky, in those unmentionable times, and the wagons which moved without horses and the lights which burned without flame. But those times were evil.”(19-20). I found this description very mysterious, and I like mysterious. Given the fact that this book is shorter than it appears I don’t think in the end Equality 7-2521 will be alive. What I think will happen is that it will end with him imprisoned like the count of Monte Cristo or something close to that.…

    • 2063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays