Equality is such an important thing in our everyday lives. Every person is born to be different. No one is exactly like another human on this planet. Our society thrives off of each person being unique from everyone else, but still being treated equally. In Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, we are introduced to this society that has fallen back into the times of the Great Rebirth. In this society we meet Equality 7-2521 who is cursed with being different from his brothers and sisters. The World Council is in control of making of the rules of all of the societies. These rules were created to restrain individuality, to ensure an equal society. While Equality is at the Home of the Students, they repeated a pledge. Every night as they stood in the sleeping hall, the three teachers along with the students would raise their right arm and chant, “We are nothing. Mankind is all. By the grace of our brothers are we allowed our lives. We exist …show more content…
So Equality departed from society, he ran into the Uncharted Forest with his invention. After meeting with the woman he met by the fields near his work place, Liberty-5-3000, the Golden One, they continue deeper into the forest together. Soon they stumbled upon a house from the Unmentionable Times. In the house there was a great quantity of books from the Unmentionable Times. After a few days he discovered the meaning of “I” and ideas of individualism. He renames himself and the Golden One after Greek Gods, Prometheus and Gaea. Prometheus then decides he will create a new society with his friends from the city, Gaea, and their unborn child. In this new society they would for sure have some rules in his new society. Rules that protect the people who live there from crimes (robbery, murder, etc.). Sure he wouldn’t go as far as to destroy certain words, such as “I” or “Ego”, but he would have to have some unspoken
The book “Anthem” by Ayn Rand is revealed as an equal society where individuality has been isolated. It introduces the community and the power the World Council has over everyone. They seem to think that they were born with a curse. They thought this because Equality 7-2521 had been thinking forbidden thoughts for most of his life and he can’t resist them. This is bad because the World Council must strive to keep everyone in the community alike.
Laws and rules are crafted to prevent advancement and preserve elentless uniformity under the guise of moral righteousness. Here we find Equality 7-2521 on the path to self-discovery, struggling to understand the internal conflict he faces—his desire to learn and create against government indoctrination to force stagnation and conformity. Equality possesses gifts despised by the government: intellectual and psychological strength. He aspires to work at the Home of Scholars, where there is some perceived semblance of education and discovery (9).
Equality finds a tunnel that he thinks is from the “unmentionable times” is his society while he was street sweeping. He goes down in it and finds smooth hard surfaces which I inferred to be glass, in Anthem all objects are raw materials so it is not possible for there to be glass unless the council was hiding the tunnel so no one could find it. He returns to the house of street sweepers late and the council asks where he has been. He refuses to tell them so he gets taken somewhere by the council and they try to whip the information out of him. “ A grill, a grill, a grill” Equality says.
The society was based upon the idea that a man is nothing, and a group of people is everything. This can be exemplified when Equality shows his discovery to the council, and they tell him it could not be used since only one person worked on it. They said that it cannot be accepted because nothing a man does on his own is good. This changes for Equality pretty early in the book. He starts defying authority when he goes into his hole in the ground.
I, Prometheus the father of all this society hereby leave another chapter of the anthem. We live a peaceful life on the outskirts of the other civilization. Others of this previous society have found our people, Therefore leaving them no choice but to be a new member of community. We had to take a vote and all came up with the same idea: if someone is punished, the punishment should be equal to the crime. If someone steals then something equal in value will be taken from them.
Rules and Subjectivity Society is fundamentally built upon rigid structure and control using rules to attempt to maintain order amongst a society comprised of many individuals. Inherently rules put at expense the freedom of individuals to achieve personal happiness in order to build a society comprised of more equally achieving individuals. Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem builds a society in which rules restrict all individual freedoms and force a more collective ideal. The rules put in place by the society are meant to make everybody collectively more happy and prevent inherent human subjectivity; however, inherent to human nature, rules can be subjectively interpreted. In contrast to the pre-existing society presented by Rand, Equality 7-2521 seeks
Equality-72521. With an inquisitive nature, an innovative mind, and latent desire, Equality withholds the traits of a visionary who advocates for individuality. Every step Equality takes, is one away from the public-spirited system. Another towards personal identity. Each step is an internal struggle, due to the communist machine’s brainwash and eloquent reprogram of Equality’s instinctive mind.
We only knew suddenly empty” (57). These actions provide further evidence by showing how intellect may create a difference in power of the mind showing the inequalities of humanity itself. In the terms of those revelations without cloning or body modifications a government can only lie about true equality. A way of giving the false sense of equality or limits is by destroying the possibility of one being better than the other mentally or technologically. Like with technology the council cuts off advancements for the sake of the weaker “Then it would bring ruin to the Department of Candles.
In his world free from rules, he decides the word “I” will be part of his new society. “We looked into each other's eyes and we knew that the breath of a miracle had touched us, and fled, and left us groping vainly”(87). In his new society Equality 7-2521 can be with the love of his life and not have rules that will stop him. In his society he will not have the same controls and rules that controlled half of his life. He wants people to become one and be their own self, not a person that is controlled by someone else.
Equality 7-2521 can free himself from collectivism because he was independent. In the novel Anthem Ayn Rand makes us comprehend that Equality had and inner struggle and
Imagine living in a society where you had to be the same as everyone else, risking your life to fight for individuality. In the life of Equality 7-2521, that is exactly what he has to live through. The book Anthem by Ayn Rand, is about a young boy who goes by the name of Equality 7-2521 that is commonly referred to as just “Equality.” Equality is a little different than everyone, as he is taller than everyone else, smarter, and breaks the rules. Equality lives in a society where everyone is the same, and no one is to be different than one another.
Everyone is born with independence, but imagine a society where this virtue is ceased. In the novel “Anthem” written by Ayn Rand, she describes a society in which everyone is the exact same. Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000 are two characters that live under a strict and controlling rule, in which they make decisions for you. As they story goes on, the two characters discover love, freedom, liberty, and independence. To Equality, being similar to his brothers was not equal, he believes that the meaning of “I” celebrates joy and peace within a society.
A dictatorship is the everyday life of Equality 7-2521 and Liberty 5-3000. In Anthem, by Ayn Rand, Equality 7-2521 lives in a society in which equality is enforced in the laws of the dictating society. No one can be different from anyone else, nor can one person spend more time with one person than another. Equality 7-2521 is dictated by the leaders of his society though he increasingly does not believe in his leaders morals. His morals and ethics follows the advice Ayn Rand offers in her essay “How Does One Lead a Rational Life in an Irrational Life?”
Ayn Rand’s Anthem starts by Equality 7-2521 saying “It is a sin to write this.” Throughout the story, Equality’s views and mindset changes, he realizes that he is different from his brothers and its ok to be different. He discovers that if something is legal it is not certainly right. His eager for knowledge taught him the word “I” abandoning the word “We”.
No one has gone against the city’s laws of doing things alone and Equality 7-2521 is the first to do so. Even though doing things alone and conducting experiments not as a scholar are against the law, Equality still takes pride in his invention and continues to discover new phenomenons of nature. “We made it. We created it. We brought it forth from the night of the ages.