The Wrongness Of Collectivism In Anthem, By Ayn Rand

Due to previous knowledge of Rand’s novella Anthem, I was aware that Rand was going to be writing about collectivism. I also know that collectivism is where individuality does not exist and it tries to do the greater good for the whole group while making everyone as equal as possible. Therefore, I found it very ironic that the “evil” characters in the society were named Equality 7-2521. I found the names of the character’s to be ironic, because this society in a way is striving for complete equality, but it’s associating equality with “evil” characters. Also it was ironic that the boys named Equality 7-2521 were treated lesser than others and not given equality. I believe Rand did this intentionally and she used it has a double entendre. Rand did this to show that
Another thing I noticed while reading was that Anthem sounds very similar to the novel The Giver. In the passage when Equality states “ Now if the council has said ‘Carpenter’ or “cook,” the Students so assigned go to work and they do not study any farther.”, thus reminded me of when in The Giver they are assigned jobs and have to complete those jobs for the rest of their lives; similar to Equalities situation. Another thing that happened in Anthem that made me think of The Giver was when Equalities group found the tunnel from the old world and they started to act in secret and separate themselves from the society's ideals. This particular situation reminded me of when Gabe in The Giver realizes the harm his society is bringing to babies; so he starts to help the baby in secret and decides to stop taking the pills his society makes him take, thus showing him trying to separate from his society's ideals too like Equality. Also while reading chapter one I noticed that the narrator repeated “ The sleeping halls were white and clean and bare of all things save one hundred beds.” , multiple