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The Struggle For Knowledge In Ayn Rand's Anthem

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Ayn Rand’s Anthem gives an interesting take on what a society without a sense of individualism would look like. The main character of this book, Equality 7-2521, struggles with his life when he wants to take off on his own path and express his personal ideas, however everyone else meets these ideas with anger and skepticism. Everyone has been persuaded to believe that everybody is equal and no one has the right to have individualised thoughts. Equality 7-2521’s thirst for knowledge helps him break out of these chains. His desire to learn leads him to branch out and explore new things, helping him form new individualised thoughts. Ayn Rand’s Anthem shows that having a continuous desire to learn things does nothing but enhance your life and those around you. People should not fear knowledge, they should embrace knowledge.
Equality’s hunger for knowledge is what pushes him on everyday. “But we loved the Science of Things. We wished to know. We wished to know about all the things which make …show more content…

No one should have the ability to restrict what you are allowed to learn. “It whispers to us that there are great things on this earth of ours, and that we can know them if we try, and that we must know them. We ask, why must we know, but it has no answer to give us. We must know that we may know" (24). Knowledge is everywhere. All it takes is a little work and dedication to draw it out. Equality has these exact qualities and absorbs new information constantly. “We have stolen glass vials and powders and acids from the Home of the Scholars. Now we sit in the tunnel for three hours each night and we study. We melt strange metals, and we mix acids, and we cut open the bodies of the animals which we find in the City Cesspool" (35). Equality will try anything and everything in an attempt to gain new knowledge. This combination of work ethic and determination is what causes Equality to achieve so

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