Essay On Allegory In Anthem And The Lottery

How do Authors Ayn Rand and Shirley Jackson use Symbolism and Allegory to demonstrate conformity affecting one's Individuality? Ayn Rand and Shirley Jackson both use Symbolism and Allegory, to demonstrate throughout their books “Anthem” and “The Lottery” how Conformity can affect a Society’s Individuality. In Dystopian Literature, Authors typically display how a Dystopian Society ends up being Unhappy and Rebellious. In Anthem, a Dystopian novel that was written in 1937, we can see an example of this. At that time 1938-1941 there was WW2 happening; this significantly impacted Ayn Rand's writing to be a warning to Western civilization about the Terrors of Collectivism and dangers of Conformity. In the short story “The Lottery,” by Jackson she also demonstrates how conformity can affect a society's individuality, she demonstrates this by using vivid imagery and storytelling to illustrate the dangers of blindly following the crowd instead of staying true

In another situation in Anthem, Ayn uses Symbolism by illustrating in the beginning of the book where the protagonist Equality 7-2521 starts introducing himself but his name has a string of numbers rather than a personal name, symbolizing the dehumanizing effects of conformity. We can see this when Equality introduces himself by saying, “Our name is Equality 7-2521, as it is written on the iron bracelet which all men wear on their left wrists with their names upon it.”(Rand 18) Rand uses symbolism in this part of the text demonstrating how conformity affects individuality, like when Equality says, “Our name is Equality 7-2521,” this shows us that Rand is using symbolism because she shows us how Equality’s numbered name symbolizes the dehumanizing effects of conformity. In Jackson’s short story “The Lottery” the whole