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Decisions Revealed In Ayn Rand's Anthem

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Is it possible that Equality didn’t make a wise decision during his time in Anthem? Should he have given away his light bulb so the scholars would destroy it?
In Ayn Rand’s Anthem, a man named Equality struggles to accept the way people live in his town. His brothers are brainwashed into believing their lives mean nothing. Anthem is an Anti-Utopia and Ayn Rand describes what a world would be without individualism. In Anthem, Equality’s major decisions lead him to freedom from his brothers, being able to be independent, and the right to make his own choices.
During his time in his hometown of Anthem, Equality and his brothers were not free, but only Equality knew it. Equality mentioned that everything smelt of fear except for his tunnel which was cleansed.”Fear walks through the city, fear without shape. All men feel it and none …show more content…

In Anthem, you cannot choose your job, your mate, or what to do in your free time. Even though Equality was chosen to be a street sweeper, he studied items that were thrown away by the House of Scholars.”We were guilty of the great transgression of preference. We preferred some work and some lessons to the others”(Rand 22). Because of this, Equality kept focusing on science while a street sweeper. He read scripts, Studied animals and bones, and rediscovered electricity.
All three of these causes and effects led to Equality’s escape from Anthem to his new home.
His wise decisions led him to freedom, independence from people he didn’t care about, and the right of preference. Because he stayed in his tunnel, he wasn’t full of fear like his brothers. Since he started to not care about the people he didn’t know, he started to be more independent. Because he dreamed and was curious, he discovered stuff that made him realise how horrible his town is.” But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men”(Rand

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At the beginning of Anthem Equality has changed his mind about a lot of things in the beginning of the story. Equality got picked to be a street sweeper by the government, but he really wanted to be a scholar but couldn’t because of the government. Equality had a rough life. Well he was a street sweeper but he was smart enough to be a scholar the government did not think he was. In the book anthem by ayn rand Equality was not good for any body or anything at the beginning he had a rough start to his life.

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In Ayn Rand's story Anthem, the protagonist Equality 7-2521 has a power unlike no other within their collectivist society. One day when Equality was working as a street sweeper, he finds an old abandoned underground railroad tunnel from the Unmentionable Times long ago. This is where he conducts his experiments that fill him with pride and joy. Equality dreams how his new invention that he brought into existence can change the world, but helping mankind is not his true motivation behind his passion to create. Throughout the story, Equality's true motivation is him trying to find his inner self and his identity as an individual.

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In the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand, she characterizes Equality 7-2521 as a brother living in a Dystopian society. Equality shares his traits and his belief on the transgression that he holds. Collectivism makes him portray a different way towards the rest of the society. He exhibits curiosity, intelligence and loneliness so the reader can identify Equality as a symbolic figure in the novel. This is what outcasts him from the rest of his brothers mentally and physically.

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In Rand’s Anthem, the main character, Equality has a different idea of what is needed for the society while everyone else disagrees. This means that Equality see a different version of the truth of what people need than the rest of his society, “Let us throw away our candles and our torches. Let us flood our cities with light. Let us bring a new light to men!” (Rand 19) Equality, the main character brings to the council of his society something he believe will help everyone.

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Equality within the similar actions indicates in the novella Anthem, how his focus being on ways of changing his city and the thought process the council arranges for the city’s structure. Throughout the novella Equality begins putting himself first and letting his ego drive

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Dystopian literature Is it not common for people to be controlled by others? For freedom to be taken away from their lives and not giving them the rights they deserve? The book Anthem and the film the Hunger Games are known as dystopian novels. Ayn Rand, the author of Anthem writes stories like these to catch the young audience's attention. Suzanne Collins, the author of The Hunger Games as another dystopian novel where people are not granted their freedom either.

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In our society, people are motivated in lots of different ways. This can create both positives, such as putting a man on the moon, and negatives, such as war and starving people. Anthem is a story about a man who is going against his collectivist society in his search for individuality. Equality’s main motivation is to discover new things and new ideas in the world around him, as well as to try to figure out who he is as an individual. His motivation is correct because he enables the thought of free will, and the world could become a better place if everyone was motivated like Equality.

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Equality got the street sweeper job assigned to him because he stood out, and he got a job that was very low because the Council of Elders didn’t like that he was smarter (25-26). In the Anthem society citizens do not know who their parents are and they cannot see them because they'll be placed in the Home of Infants where they will be raised, and taught the rules of the society. Lastly, citizens in the Anthem society who were to sin, and say the word “I” are to be executed for breaking the rules of the society. This shows how much the society has changed since the Great

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“The dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they act on their dreams with open eyes to make it possible,” Lawrence of Arabia once said. Men can be dangerous. Those who follow their desires and explore the forbidden are pledged to hold the world upon its inner core. If the forbidden is challenged and faced with its true reality, then the greatness you find is the long lost concealed knowledge. This is what the character Equality realizes in the book “Anthem”.

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Equality 7-2521 can free himself from collectivism because he was independent. In the novel Anthem Ayn Rand makes us comprehend that Equality had and inner struggle and

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There's so much emphasis on putting others before oneself that people often forget to look out for their own needs, as shown in this book. Ayn Rand successfully captures the negatives of an overrated ideology and presents an unorthodox perspective on the matter. In conclusion, Equality's true motives behind his work are much more selfish than they first appear to be. Equality strives to fulfil his own personal desire rather than contribute everything to society, and this isn't necessarily a negative thing.

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Equality was born into a situation in which he was personally stripped of making his own decisions and this is what eventually led to his rebellion. When Equality comes across the manhole he finds, he exclaims, “This place belongs to us Equality 7 - 2521, and to no other men on earth. And if we surrender it, we shall surrender our life with it also” (34). Equality finally finds something that he can call his own and someplace he can go to escape. Having some way to escape the reality he was living in brought joy to Equality in a way nothing else could.

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Equality is right to be motivated this way because for once someone who is not a scholar has invented something that the scholars have never thought of. The scholars even rejected his invention because they said it would decrease the production of candles, but truthfully they rejected his invention because they were in fear of his knowledge and intelligence. The idea of Equality’s invention came from the experiments he conducted and the days of work he tried to discover this so called “electricity”. “We forgot all men, all laws and all things save our metals and our wires. So much is still to be learned!

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In response to the choice of Street Sweeper, Equality thinks, “We knew we had been guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it” (26). With his intelligence and curiosity, Equality would do much better as a Scholar. The government punishes him for being different, and as a result, they can’t see him become advantageous. They are blinded by their beliefs on

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Anthem is a book that makes oneself contemplate the future and what evils are bestowed upon it. In this novel, the reader is caught in the life of Equality. Equality’s life is placed in the future, where the feared reality of communism has conquered all but the souls of few weary men. Equality is one of those few men who have a light that is invulnerable to a ravaging wind. Equality’s time captive before his extraordinary escape has taken a toll on his body and mind and now at the end of his journey forces him to question whether the decisions he’s made are full of sin or teeming with righteousness.

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