Anthem is a battle between a man’s longing for independence and the controlling society he lives in. In Ayn Rand’s 1937 novel Anthem, we are introduced to a dystopian society based in the future in a city in an undefined location. Ayn Rand wrote this novel after living in Russia during the communist era during the 1920s. She escaped this society in 1926 and became a writer in America. Her battle against communism affected her as an author and inspired her writing in Anthem. In Anthem, citizens are constantly presented the idea that preaches collectivism and extreme loyalty to the state. The protagonist, Equality 7-2521, has grown up in this restrictive civilization and believed all he was told. Equality is exceptional in many aspects that are prohibited, and he has a tendency to disobey the society’s laws. Equality slowly embraces freedom as he discovers his own ego. The author demonstrates humanity’s need for ego through Equality’s futile attempts to be alone, to separate himself from his peers, to escape his restrictive society, and his desperate endeavor to discover a word for his ego.
Equality reluctantly pursues his ego, as he cannot deny his inherent solitary nature. Equality finally tastes his first experience of freedom when he discovers a tunnel hidden underground with a friend. As Ayn Rand describes, “It was old and rusted by many rains. We pulled
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He will do anything to receive it even breaking many laws and leaving the society he grew up in. This is also displayed when Equality discovered a house from the Unmentionable Times. How he embraces the true ideals of ego from the Unmentionable Times. Equality also strives to be rewarded, appraised and most of all to be welcomed into the council of elders. Equality’s desperate attempts to be alone, be rewarded and appreciated are finally accomplished by the end of the novel when he flees the society with his beloved, the Golden