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'Great Joy In Ayn Rand's Anthem'

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Recommended: Ayn rand, individualism collectivism

To begin with, Anthem takes place in a collectivist society in which people are not allowed to think for themselves and can’t do so anything with it being a group effort. They can only be motivated by the idea of helping their brothers. To not do so or want to do so can and will be met by a severe punishment or death some cases. Here is the main character (Equality) has built an invention that can help his brother but that is not his primary motivation. Which is frowned upon by the council even when it in the good of civilization. The essential source of Equality's "great joy" is self-achievement. He is extremely pleased that he has imagined something new that the House of Scholars has never observed. It will profit humankind in two or three
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414 Words | 2 Pages

Anthem is a good book about the future and their own versions of a Utopian society. This novel is all about independence and how options are limited. The question asked is if you think Equality’s eventual assessment of his sins is correct. My answer to this question is, he felt as if his sins taught him more.

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204 Words | 1 Pages

In the book Anthem their society is way different from ours. They are not allowed to be individual or say the word “I”. They can’t have names, instead they are in groups and have group names. They all have a part in society like their jobs and things they do. For example the equality group belong to the street sweepers.

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1196 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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876 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout the novella, Anthem, Ayn Rand creates a collectivist society that displays a futuristic perspective of the “Dark Ages” during the corruption of the government. Born into a society that despised individuality, Equality 7-2521 faces several hardships. While growing up Equality 7-2521 notices his differences from his brothers, including his growing curiosity to learn more. Though this goes against what his society was taught to be, which is equal to one another. No one is allowed to be better than the next person.

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335 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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1128 Words | 5 Pages

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.

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959 Words | 4 Pages

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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459 Words | 2 Pages

Anthem Essay “The secrets of this earth is not for all men to see, but only for those who will seek them,”(52). Equality 7-2521 leaves for his own sake. He was told many things about the unmentionable times, not to go into the uncharted forest, and not to speak the unspeakable word,”I”. He grew up with his brothers as one and referred each other as “we”.

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145 Words | 1 Pages

If they don’t like what somebody does, they push them deeper, until they cannot see who they are. For an example let us go to page 63. Equality hides a secret from a council member, and through the bare of bickering, Equality is then sentenced to being lashed bare. Because a person utilizing what would be known as freedom of speech, they get whipped? What world is this to ask for the basic human right to be stripped from the humans themselves?

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798 Words | 4 Pages

Everywhere people go there is always the basic need for rules, yet no matter who the person is, they want the right to be free. What we need to learn is how to balance rules and freedom. In Anthem, harsh rules exist due to the World Council having so much power. In the U.S, rules exist to help people. On the other hand, in Anthem rules exist to control people.

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473 Words | 2 Pages

Some people are filled with an insatiable desire to learn. In “Anthem” by Ayn Rand, the main character, Equality 7-2521, wants nothing more than to study the Science of Things and become a Scholar. Although this is forbidden for a Street Sweeper like him, he does research in isolation. He wants to join the Scholars because he is intelligent, inquisitive, and always driven to learn about the way things around him work.

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280 Words | 2 Pages

Anthem was written in 1937 by Ayn Rand. The story is about a young man, Equality 7-2521 who is appointed to sweep the streets and he finds a tunnel that sets off his curiosity about the unmentionable times where he invents a light bulb. Ayn Rand expresses many themes in this novella such as: freedom, identity and happiness. The government controlled the population by brain washing the people and enslaving their mind and making them think rebellion is wrong.

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749 Words | 3 Pages

So long a road lies before us, and what care if we must travel it alone!” (54) In this statement all Equality cares about is his invention and he is still trying to expand his

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1219 Words | 5 Pages

Victory Over Collectivism “I”, one of the only one-letter words in the English language. Yet its power and meaning do not match its quantitative value. In the collectivist dictatorship found the in the novel Anthem by Ayn Rand, this word has disappeared and consequently, society has fallen into a dark age, all because of the loss of a single-lettered word. However, the hero of this time, Equality 7-2521, breaks down the barrier of the collectivist society and allows him to make advances that show him the power of the word “I” and the idea of individualism in government and in society. Although the word “I” has vanished from society, Equality is able to free himself from the collectivist government through the use of science and free thought,

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725 Words | 3 Pages

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

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