Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Daisy Pham Language Arts Honor February 2nd, 2017 1st hour Anthem The book Anthem was written by Ayn Rand is a Science Fiction Book. This Science Fiction book would be unknown since the Author didn’t exactly give the time in the book. In the book Anthem there wasn’t any clues or hints that it took place in 1900’s or the 2000’s. Ayn Rand is a Russian-American novelist and she is known for writing books.
In the opening pages of Anthem, Equality 7-2521 gives much background knowledge of the society he lives and the horrible details of the laws and regulations they have created. Along with that he explains that he has committed a grave sin already which is writing and that in doing so it doesn’t allow him to live, tagged with other misdeeds in which is labeled as “transgressions.” Being categorized as a Street Sweeper he has unwinded the discovery of a hidden tunnel that once existed during the Unmentionable Times. "Since the Council does not know of this hole, there can be no law permitting to enter it.
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.
This essay will be discussing whether or not the character Equality 7-2521’s assessment of his sins towards throughout of the book he’s from, Anthem. His assessment (that he doesn’t care about his sin, as it was decided a sin by a government he sees as immoral and corrupt) is in my opinion, correct. This thought stems mainly from the fact he documented his thoughts throughout the book, and the documents could potentially inspire other people to do the same thing he did, which Equality would probably like. At the beginning of Anthem, Equality feels ashamed with many actions of his, specifically calling many of them evil, sinful, or a “transgression”.
The book, Anthem, was written by a woman named Ayn Rand and she wrote it in 1938. This book was about how before the Great Rebirth, people thought that they could not be one. They only referred themselves as more than one person by using the words us, we, and they. So to find out what really happened, a boy named Equality 7-2521 had to search how to use the words correctly. Equality 7-2521 was the tallest in the city and the Teachers thought he had evil in his bones.
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.
Escaping Communism Ayn Rand depicts a communist world in her book Anthem, where the citizens live day to day identical to the one before. Equality 7-2521, a struggling man in the society, is set apart for his strive of wanting more than what the society gives him. Rand shows that in a world carried on in such a communistic matter, it leaves some struggling and at a loss to make do with what they have and to fit in. The book, Anthem gives a grand example of how others react to one’s differences, shunning them or giving a punishment. Equality 7-2521 has a compelling ambition to learn things which then helps him escape the society.
“We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever” (Rand 19). How can an individual be a hero in a collectivist society? In The Anthem, a novella by Ayn Rand, the protagonist, Equality 7-2521 is portrayed as an archetypal epic hero. Equality 7-2521 exhibits the characteristics of an epic hero because he is capable of great deeds, he has a nemesis, and he experiences an event that leads to a quest.
Anthem is writing as a journey of Equality 7-2521, a young man living in the future in which people have lost all knowledge of individualism, for not even knowing the word "I" and can only speak of himself as "We." Everyone lives and work in collective groups and he is assigned to a Street Sweeper of the city by the Council of Vocations. However, Equality 7-2521 try to lead himself to recreate electric light and how it can be harnessed to human benefit. He has been taught that it is a sin to harbor secret ambitions, and so he believes he is guilty. Equality 's struggle to be free and to reach an individual life/ When he presents his discovery to the Council of Scholars, they punish him for daring to act as an individual and threaten to destroy his creation.
Would you break the rules of society if you believed they were wrong? Even if there was a possibility of punishment and backlash? An individual, one and only-alone, can change the world. Two individuals, Equality 7-2521 and Victoria Woodhull broke the glass ceiling with their fists raised towards change. In the book Anthem by Ayn Rand, standing alone by oneself is illegal and having thoughts that are your own is something you could get lashed or burned at the stake for.
Smarter than any of his other brothers, Equality rapidly starts to realize what his cities council is trying to do to take away his rights as a human being. This short novel, Anthem, by Ayn Rand, a man by the name of Equality 7-2521 was a more intelligent than his other brothers in the community, and he was not content with sitting around letting the council try to brainwash everyone else, so he breaks several laws in the process of trying to discover new things that the council is trying to hide from him and his brothers. The council was not aware of these things and they were not going to let him try to do anything against them. To try to prevent anything detrimental from happening, they assigned him the job as a street sweeper where he couldn’t use any of his quick-witted mind against them
“Anthem”by Ayn Rand takes us on a journey through the eyes of a young man named Equality 72521 living in the future in which people have lost all knowledge of individualism and where all decisions are made by committee the Council. Equality 72521 struggles immediately from the beginning of the story because he is “cursed” by being intelligent and inquisitive and having individual thought, which is against the society in which he lives in. Growing up as a young boy, his dream is to become a scientist and work on new discoveries and inventions. Instead, at fifteen years old, Equality 72521 is assigned by the Council to a menial job of being a street sweeper. His daytoday life is very routine and mundane and he rebels against this life and starts conducting research in a secret tunnel where he discovers and recreates electricity.
¨We do not wonder at this new sin of ours. It is our second transgression of Preference, for we do not think of all our brothers, as we must, but only of one, and their name is Liberty 5-300. We do not know why we think of them” (Rand 41). In Ayn Randś dystopian novel, Anthem, the citizens are forced to think that they cannot have any preference, this includes liking someone more than others. Randś protagonist, Equality 7-2521, started the book falling in love with the Golden One, but as he moves toward individuality he begins to be in “love” less as he realizes there’s more than just being in a group.
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 .
Equality has changed from a collective to an individual having the knowledge of realizing what he can do to change himself in the environment. Anthem has shown how the society works. The main character Equality has proven the allegory when he realizes there's more than just a collectivism society. From start of the novel Equality has been able to grow from a part of a collectivism to learning about individualism to becoming an individual. Equality conquers the battle of collectivism and individualism for