Similarities Between 1984 And Anthem

In both Anthem by Ayn Rand, and 1984 by George Orwell, the individual sacrifices personal freedoms. Both novels talk about how the protagonists and people around them react and live in their societies. The difference between the two is that 1984 is about the willingness of people to forfeit complete control of all aspects of the individual, while Anthem is about not having one.
In Anthem, the population accepts that there is no choice. One’s jobs are chosen, their schedule is chosen, and it is an absolute moral sin to expect otherwise. Even while committing these “sins of preference”, Equality doesn’t stop talking about how he is doing something that he sees as morally wrong. “We knew this well, in the years of our childhood, but our curse

It is made clear that this is a belief shared by everyone in the society; Equality is not an outlier or an extremist. This differs from Orwell’s society, which is based on fear. Winston buys a diary, and is about to break the rule and write. He is terrified of the punishment he will endure if caught. “This was not illegal (nothing was illegal, since there were no longer any laws), but if detected it was reasonably certain that it would be punished by death, or at least by twenty-five years in a forced-labour camp. ”(9). Winston makes a choice. He is allowed to make choices,

Equality truly believes in what he is told, and he accepts it. He talks about how he feels that he is cursed, and that he is a bad person, “Such would have been our life, had we not committed our crime which changed all things for us. And it was our curse which drove us to our crime. We had been a good Street Sweeper and like all our brother Street Sweepers, save for our cursed wish to know. We looked too long at the stars at night, and at the trees and the earth.”(29). He doesn’t like what he is doing, but because of a strong inner feeling, he has no choice in the matter. This is different from Winston, who sincerely despises Big Brother, “‘I hate him [Big Brother].’”(355). Winston hates Big Brother, he hates the way his life is being lived, and he wants to live in freedom. Winston takes action on this, he tries to join the resistance, he has an affair, and he wanders among the free proles. Winston sees the injustice that is prevalent in his society, and he knows that something is wrong. However, Equality is blind to the faults of society, he truly believes that what is wrong is his own desires, not the