Ayn Rand’s 1938 novella Anthem tells the story of a dystopian civilization overcome by a dramatic rendition of egalitarianism. The story centers around a rebellious protagonist who comes to be known as “Equality”, who breaks free from the clutches of a balanced yet highly oppressive society. Rand uses her novella to promote her ideology of objectivism, as well as make a statement about freedom of sexuality and criticize the politics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the land she was raised in.
Ayn Rand uses Anthem to promote her beliefs of objectivism, a self-centered ideology that puts a person’s personal freedoms, wants, and needs over others. Leonard Peikoff states in his novel Understanding Objectivism, “The rationalist is opposed
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Horan observes that Liberty is described by Equality not as generically feminine, but rather as merciless and masculine. Equality, a young man, falls in love with her non-conventional and male-oriented traits, leading to the inference of Equality's implied homosexuality. Although homosexuality was decriminalized in most parts of the USSR following the October Revolution in 1917, mass hatred for the group was inescapable in both Ayn Rand’s homeland and the United States throughout her life. Her personal ideals of objectivism center only around the believer, their feelings, and nothing else‒ especially not the societal viewpoints of others. An argument could be made that Equality’s attraction to masculine traits simply reflect Rand’s heterosexuality, but with the time period the work was written in, the queer traits of Equality would have been much too controversial and unorthodox to include by mistake. Rand uses Equality’s attraction towards Liberty’s masculinity to make a statement on freedom of sexuality not only through the book’s world, but the real world of the twentieth century as