Equality 7-2521 doesn’t like what the council of vocations assigned his job for the rest of his life. He was always different from his brothers and people look at him like. Equality 7-2521 always wanted to be apart of the home of the scholars and learn more things. While doing his job equality sees an a dark tunnel that lead to thing from the unmentionable. He sneaks off to the tunnel to mess with this box that he found while roaming the tunnels one night.
Unlike during the Unmentionable Times, when men created “towers [that] rose to the sky,” it is an affliction to be born with powerful intellectual capacity and ambition in Ayn Rand’s apocalyptic, nameless society in Anthem. Collectivism is ostensibly the moral guidepost for humanity, and any perceived threat to the inflexible, authoritarian regime is met with severe punishment. The attack on mankind’s free will and reason is most evident in the cold marble engraving in the Palace of the World Council: “We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever” (6). Societal norms force homogeneity and sacrifice among all people.
Explain the following quote: “To be free, a man must be free of his brothers.” How does this quote exemplify a theme of anthem? In the novella Anthem by Ayn Rand, Equality is learning that men had freedom and individual names. Equality 7-2521 had his brothers and the council holding him back from his freedom and self-ego, equality 7-2521 is learning the people from the unmentionable times had names and not numbers, in the novella Anthem
Individuality allows every person to be themselves and be different from each other. However, In Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, Rand describes a society where the people were not allowed to openly be themselves, or else they would be punished for being different. The main character, Equality, notices he is different slowly throughout the novella, but kept continuing to be like everyone else for awhile. These rules exist in this society to strip human individuality in order to achieve total equality.
People in the novella, Anthem aren’t truly free like the Council leads them to believe. They can’t think for themselves, make their own decisions, or express themselves. All their days are planned out for them by the Council. You need to be able to be unique and have your own thoughts to be free.
In Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem, mankind is a philanthropic machine. The brotherhood nobly works together to achieve a common goal. In doing so, each man is asked to disregard his own personal means and goals. For every decision must be a collective thought and every advancement, a joint action. However, one man in this machine malfunctions.
Dependency. This word is straight from Hades according to Ayn Rand. She believes very strongly in ethical egoism, which is the ideal that people need to look out for themselves and not depend on the government or anyone else for help. She very clearly portrays this warning in being dependent on the government and others in her book Anthem and in her interview with Mike Wallace. Her views on helping the less fortunate through the government and other organizations are no exception to these ideals.
How could losing individuality affect a society? The novel Anthem by Ayn Rand is about a guy named Equality 7-2521 who is trying to find himself in a society where everything is controlled and different. Later, he finds himself even though he will have to go through many obstacles to get there. The process behind losing individuality in an Anthem’s society are in forcing strict laws, brain washing of their citizens, and removing of family. The Anthem society in forcing of strict laws made it easy for everyone to lose their individuality.
Anthem is a story written by Ayn Rand as a propaganda piece portraying the evils of communism. The book takes place in the future in a undisclosed city surrounded by forest. In this city a collectivist society dwells. The conflict of Anthem is character vs. society where one man by the name of Equality decides to go against his broken government. Equality took a stand against his broken society, he has defied the council of scholars and his government, had a relation with a women, and escaped the city to The Uncharted Forest.
“I am. I think. I will.” (Rand, A. (1938). Anthem.
But while Equality's outlooks aren't necessarily bad, there still needs to be balance. If everyone thought only about themselves, society would crumble. People have to rely on each other to an extent, and total selfishness would prevent this. That being said, someone can have selfish moments while still being a good person and caring for others. There doesn't have to be polar opposites when it comes to selfishness versus selflessness.
Robert Frost once said, “If society fits you comfortably enough, you can call it freedom”. Most people can relate to this quote, but what if an individual does not agree or feel comfortable in his or her social system? In the novella Anthem, Ayn Rand shows her willingness to leave an unjust society through Equality leaving his community, purposefully breaking laws, and pursuing his discoveries. The first way Rand proves that she does not agree with her society, is through the main character of the book, Equality, running away from his society. Rand states that Equality’s actions that she will do what it takes to leave her society.
In the novella Anthem, individual rights and freedom do not exist. The word “I” is prohibited to be spoken by men. Equality 7-2521 is a street sweeper of the city and he is different from the others in the society. Equality is more intelligent, taller, learns quicker, and he enjoys learning about science; especially how things move and work. Since the word “I” is the unspeakable word, Equality uses the word “We” to resemble that he is doing these actions .
"We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever’”(Rand 19). In Ayn Rand’s dystopian novel, Anthem, the citizens are trained from birth to think only in the plural, to the point where they cannot even conceive of individuals, but only see each other as part of the whole group. Rand’s protagonist, Equality 72521, begins the novel as a street-sweeper who is devoted to the group, but begins to move towards individuality as he progresses towards pure selfishness, as Rand believes we all should. Rand uses the words “we” and “I” to represent Equality’s journey from being dependent on the group, to being utterly independent of everyone.
The ideal person to Ayn Rand, author of “The Fountainhead,” is someone that does not allow their decisions in life to be affected by external sources, and is able to deal with the struggle of staying an individual in such a collectivist world. However unless this person lives in complete isolation, that is nearly impossible. Man struggles to stay this ideal person that Rand describes because of how difficult it is to be such a man. It is seen who is, and who is not affected by others through their actions, and motives in life. Peter and Toohey are both affected by the events in their past, meanwhile Roark stays unchanged throughout the entire book.
