Ayn Rand’s Anthem is the story of a man’s personal growth and quest for freedom from the rules and regulations in the society, which he lived. As the novel’s protagonist, Prometheus struggles to find meaning in his life and to understand his own unique nature. As he gains independence and freedom, Prometheus also discovers the beauty of his soul and the power of his mind. By the end of the novel, Prometheus has become a true man, proud, fearless, exuberant, and independent. He has also learned the evils of his society and in addition to rejecting them; he has begun a war against them. In following Prometheus on his quest to find himself, Anthem illustrates the evils of collectivism by depicting a society of frightened and oppressed men, crushed under the needs of the common good. Why did these rules exist? Why is there …show more content…
In this society people were not allowed to use the unspeakable word “I,” which in the twentieth century is used in almost every single sentence. “I” basically means “ego” according to Ayn Rand. She also said that “I, did not mean a symbol of the self – but specifically and actually Man’s Self.” The ego is that which constitutes the essential identity of a human being. As one dictionary puts it: the ego is “the ‘I’ or self of any person; [it is] a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from the objects of its thought.” “I”, which no man may speak nor hear; but sometimes, somewhere, one among men will find the word upon scraps of old manuscripts or cut into the fragments of ancient stones. There is no crime punished by death in this world. Prometheus being in the house of the street sweepers had a lot of knowledge in compared with those in the house of scholars. He began to collect old manuscripts from the house of the scholars secretly and would start experiments in the new tunnel which he and his friend had kept as a secret. His