What makes one person different from another? Is it height, weight, and color of skin, or is it personality, family, and attitude? These differences can define a person and separate them from those around them. These differences make a person an individual; however, in Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, Equality 7-521 is anything but an individual. He spends his days sweeping the streets and his nights sleeping in a white room with ninety-nine of his brothers. He is not allowed to be alone, to be creative or to think an independent thought. He and his brothers do not even know the word ‘I’, so they simply refer to themself as ‘we’. In Rand’s story, Equality 7-521 is only able to free himself from collectivism and grow as a person when he begins to …show more content…
At the beginning of their relationship, Equality 7-521 “do[es] not know why, when we think of them, we feel of a sudden that the earth is good and that it is not a burden to live” (41). Liberty 5-3000 gives him joy in life and helps him to see the good things in her and in himself. Later in their relationship, they give each other unique names which helps Equality 7-521 to feel unique and separated from his brothers. When he starts to think of his sins he realizes that he “do[es] not think of them as Liberty 5-3000 any longer. We have given them a name in our thoughts. We call them the Golden One” (41), and later he asks, “‘What name have you given us?’ They looked straight into or eyes and they held their head high and they answered: ‘The Unconquered’” (55). This is a defining moment in the story where Equality 7-521 is more than just a word and a number; he becomes a human being and can think of himself as an individual. At the very end of the story, Equality 7-521 talks about joy and how “there is no joy for men, save the joy shared with all their brothers . . . the only things which taught us joy were the power we created in our wires, and the Golden One. And both these joys belong to us alone,” and that “they do not concern out brothers in any way” (86). This shows that he thinks of himself as an individual …show more content…
One of the first major rules that Equality 7-521 breaks is the rule that prohibits men from being alone. He breaks this rule when he finds an underground tunnel and “sit[s] in the tunnel for three hours each night and [studies] . . . and there is no sound of men to disturb [him]” (35). After he finds this tunnel he also commits less severe crimes like stealing manuscripts and candles. As he breaks more rules he begins to question why these rules are in place. Later in the story he loses track of time one night and is caught and lashed, but it was “easy to escape from the Palace of Corrective Detention. The locks are old on the doors and there are no guards about” (61). This shows how intelligent Equality 7-521 is and how he is starting to become slightly arrogant and not only break the government 's rules but disregard them as well. Later, he commits the most severe crime and escapes to the Uncharted Forest. While there he says “We knew that men would not follow us... we wished to be away, away from the City and from the air that touches upon the air of the City. So we walked on . . .” (80). This shows that he wants to be completely separated from anything having to do with his society and their government; he “served nothing and no one. He lived for
Equality 7-2521 doesn’t like what the council of vocations assigned his job for the rest of his life. He was always different from his brothers and people look at him like. Equality 7-2521 always wanted to be apart of the home of the scholars and learn more things. While doing his job equality sees an a dark tunnel that lead to thing from the unmentionable. He sneaks off to the tunnel to mess with this box that he found while roaming the tunnels one night.
Equality 7-2521 just wants to be different from everyone else. In chapter 6 of the novel Anthem Equality 7-2521 hopes lie on
In Ayn Rand's story Anthem, the protagonist Equality 7-2521 has a power unlike no other within their collectivist society. One day when Equality was working as a street sweeper, he finds an old abandoned underground railroad tunnel from the Unmentionable Times long ago. This is where he conducts his experiments that fill him with pride and joy. Equality dreams how his new invention that he brought into existence can change the world, but helping mankind is not his true motivation behind his passion to create. Throughout the story, Equality's true motivation is him trying to find his inner self and his identity as an individual.
In the novel, Equality 7-2521 learned that to be your own person you must first stop trying to be like someone else. Exemplifying a theme of Anthem where individuality breaks through teaches Equality a big lesson. Brothers stick together and help each other but are not supposed to be exactly like one another. In this novel it tried to make everyone the same and as one, rather than as individuals. The quote “To be a free, a man must be free of his brothers” (chapter 1 page 1) exemplifies a theme by saying that not everyone has to be the same.
The book Anthem by Ayn Rand is a very interesting book. At first it is confusing to the reader because of the use of the words we and us instead of I. The main character, Equality 7-2521 introduces himself in the plural form. The reader takes a while to figure this out. The era that Equality is in, is after the Great Rebirth.
Even so, our protagonist, Equality 7-2521 presents his new invention to the Council, standing by himself fueled by his own ideas- something forbidden by the society. Victoria Woodhull did the same thing, advocating for her causes although they were opposed by many at the time—even
In Ayn Rand's Dystopian/Philosophical novel “Anthem” we are given the chance to witness Equality 7-2521 flourish and bloom as a character in the first chapter alone. Despite living in a society where his rights as a human being are overly oppressed, Equality began to bring forth his uncoerced mind by the end of chapter 1 through his desire to know more about himself and the world around him. At the beginning of the story Ayn Rand portrays Equality 7-2521 as a defiant yet compliant person, Accordingly Equality states that “... there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone … The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!”(Rand 3).
From Equality’s point of view, his desires and fulfillment are of more importance than the society’s excessive restrictions. Individuality, Rand claims, is necessary for one’s contentment; thus, the individual must always weigh themselves greater than all else. By emphasizing his independent priorities, Equality is able to rebel against the regulations he believes are
When Equality was being punished and getting whipped, he didn’t say word about where he was. He eventually got put in the Corrective Detention and escaped to continue and present his invention to the World Council. “We counted each day and each night as
"We are one in all and all in one. There are no men but only the great WE, One, indivisible and forever’”(Rand 19). In Ayn Rand’s dystopian novel, Anthem, the citizens are trained from birth to think only in the plural, to the point where they cannot even conceive of individuals, but only see each other as part of the whole group. Rand’s protagonist, Equality 72521, begins the novel as a street-sweeper who is devoted to the group, but begins to move towards individuality as he progresses towards pure selfishness, as Rand believes we all should. Rand uses the words “we” and “I” to represent Equality’s journey from being dependent on the group, to being utterly independent of everyone.
The society's rules and standards acts as a nemesis toward Equality 7-2521: “We asked many questions and the teacher forbade it” (Rand 23). The society has regulations to keep Equality 7-2521 from learning more than he already knew. In the story Equality 7-2521 tests the rules of the community to explore the unknown. The Council is the protagonist most powerful nemesis because they constantly attempt to make a Equality 7-2521 feel like a threat to the society: “We knew we had been guilty, but now we had a way to atone for it” (Rand 27). The council placed Equality 7-2521 in grades lowered to make him feel like a sin.
For someone to be themselves they must be free from others. In the story all men are to be the same. Equality tries to be the same as his brothers since all men must be equal it's against the law if you are different. “The laws say that none among men may be alone,ever and at any time, for this is the great transgression and the root of all evil.
However, when the story's protagonist, Equality, makes a huge scientific discovery, his intentions are more selfish than that. Rand's universe presents extreme collectivism. Through job assignments, clothing, names, and the like, individuality is completely stripped from citizens.
Rand uses the the relationship between Equality and the Golden One to represent Equality’s journey from being obsessed with the Golden One when he feels he has to be apart of the group, to being ignorant to the Golden One because he has become utterly independent and selfish. At the beginning of the story when Equality felt he had to belong to a group, he noticed the Golden One and fell in love with her. In Rand’s novel, she states, “They raised their hand to their
Equality discovers what individualism is and what it means, but when Equality finds out what it means it changes his view throughout the