Compare And Contrast Anthem And 1984

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What would it be like not to have any freedom? To lack emotion? To not be able to think for yourself? No one really knows the answer, and it’s probably best we don’t know, but a few authors have tried to show what they think it would be like. George Orwell and Ayn Rand both experienced the rise of communism during World War I and World War II, and they each wrote their own version of dystopian futures that show what it would be like if something like communism grew to be the only government in the world. Orwell wrote the novel 1984, while Ayn Rand wrote the short story, Anthem. Both stories have a government that lets its people have no freedom, but the way that people react towards the government is very different. 1984 and Anthem both show …show more content…

Winston has been living in this society for his entire life, and he says that this is completely logical. Later on in the story, Winston says that 2+2=4, and it becomes one of the things he is tortured and killed for. 1984’s lack of freedom shows an oppressive government that doesn’t allow people to know the truth, let alone think freely, but the government in Anthem isn’t as oppressive to the people, in fact, the people are more oppressing themselves. In Anthem, the government is still totalitarian (even though the world has seemed to have gone back in time to the medieval era, where there was no advanced technology), and the people still live in a collectivist society. However, unlike 1984, where no one was happy, being either miserable or indifferent to the government, in Anthem, everyone seems to be indifferent to the government. The people aren’t forced to obey what the government says, they just go along with it because it’s a lot easier than thinking …show more content…

In 1984, there is an allowance for individuality, but not an allowance of personality. Everyone has different names and jobs, but no one is allowed to think for themselves or have a personality of their own. Everyone acts the same: eat, sleep, obey the government, stay out of trouble, and repeat the process. “Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to nar- row the range of thought? In the end, we shall make thought- crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be