Just A Street Sweeper In Anthem By Ayn Rand

Just a Street Sweeper

Imagine waking up every morning just to go sweep the same old boring street over and over again. It would feel depressing or distressing. These emotions describe the exact feelings Equality 7-2521 felt everyday. He was just a street sweeper who was not allowed to unleash his curiosity because of his dull and lifeless vocation. Equality was looked down upon all because of his simple little job. In Anthem, Ayn Rand uses the characters’ vocations to form a social class system in their society; by giving certain houses more value, by putting people with differences in the same house, and having the World Council look down upon houses such as the Street Sweepers.

The society in Anthem designates some houses/vocations to be more appealing and more prestigious, making people feel their value and worth are less if they are not in a noteworthy vocation. The Home of the Leaders was seen as the foremost vocation that everyone wanted to have, as explained in this quote: “Home of the Leaders, which is the greatest house in the city” (Rand 25). The Home of the Leaders is where possible members of the World Council reside, therefore everyone strives

When Equality tried to show them his invention they said “You should be a street sweeper, how dare you think that you could be of greater use to men than in sweeping the streets?” (Rand 72). Since Equality was a street sweeper they did not allow him to make inventions. They used his vocation as a form of discrimination, they would not let him pitch ideas/inventions all because he was a street sweeper. They also made fun of him by saying things like “How dare you, gutter cleaner” (Rand 72). They insulted him using his vocation. The World Council would decrease some vocations “rank” by simply always making fun of them and limiting their options in